In Pursuit of Thesis: Week Three

Recently, I've had quite a few people tell me I'm crazy. Frankly, this isn't an uncommon occurrence. Somewhere along the way, my brain wired itself to do things the hard way and somehow, it wired itself to enjoy it. Don't get me wrong, I certainly don't go out of my way to make things difficult for myself or anyone else, but if you give me the choice between the shortcut and the scenic route...I'm likely to pick the latter.

Anyway, why am I crazy you might ask? Thesis. But honestly, who isn't? Regardless, I'd been having trouble visualizing just how the four distinct buildings connected and interacted with one another. Since it is a semester long project, and since I desperately need a refresher course in Revit 101, I've been working on modeling my space in the program. I'd really like to give up on that notion and just use good ol' familiar SketchUp, but honestly I'd like to milk my thesis for everything it's worth. Unfortunately, my progress in virtual modeling has been much slower than I'd hoped, and I was getting pretty impatient without a visual, 3D representation of my space.

Enter two days of chipboard, exacto blades, and some serious sobo glue. This is where the crazy comes in. There's this magical thing in the Warehouse shop called a laser cutter...Woah. Fancy. I could have easily plopped each wall of my space into CAD, submitted a file, and emerged victorious with a perfectly cut, speedily produced model of my building. Where's the fun in that? Instead I measure, cut, and glue the entire thing by hand - certainly not a quick process by any means, but it's definitely one I enjoy. The physical act of making a model is extremely satisfying and somewhat therapeutic.

1/8" = 1' - 0" of the CabFab Building in all its glory

On top of its stress-relieving benefits, manually cutting and forming each space really helped me to understand the ins and outs of the building and gave me some formal ideas moving forward.

After discussion over the model with one of my professors, I got an interesting spin on what space planning I had done prior. One of the biggest issues I was having with my space was deciding on where to put the main entrance. I knew that for my programmatic requirements, it would have to move from its original location, but the area I thought about moving it to seemed to be in competition with the existing entry. Enter Professor Zeke flipping my project in the best way possible:

Why not move the entrance to the shipping & receiving dock?

It never would have occurred to me, but it's brilliant actually. This new entrance would be away from the existing one, allow for more traffic to access the building, and open up the existing parking lot to be used for outdoor green space. Needless to say, I was thrilled with this idea. What's most interesting to me at this point is the potential for the aesthetic and conceptual design of this entrance and the immediately adjacent reception/lobby/public space inside. My biggest concerns are keeping and emphasizing the existing industrial nature of the three larger buildings while also creating a visual and formal concept of those two familiar words - empowered pursuit. 

Space Planning Reloaded: The Sequel

So far, a lot of my thoughts on this involve a series of dualities - trade versus art, light versus dark, interior versus exterior. By opening up space between floors, my intent is to expose key structural elements while allowing for an interesting play of light filtering through the building - an idea that really drove some of my conceptual form work last semester. (The visual idea of empowered pursuit kept leading back to something with a strong direction and a movement from dark to light). Similarly, I'd love to introduce some element that ties the interior and exterior visually. In this way, the activities occurring within the walls of the center are literally and figuratively a starting point for a successful launch into the rest of the community and world. 

At this point, I'm thinking of using some sort of strong, angular forms referencing both my concept work from last semester and the structural beams seen in the current showroom space of the building. With steel or wood beams or columns being used in almost every space of the building, it'll be an exciting challenge to emphasize these elements in a thoughtful, designed way.

Talk to you soon!

Why Design?

Sometimes, I realize just how lucky I am. I was raised by two awesome parents, made it through high school graduation, have had the opportunity to travel the world, and have been studying something I love for just under four years. Pretty awesome if you ask me. I often get so caught up in the stress of thinking about graduation, getting a job, and becoming a "real person" that I forget just how amazing my life is.

Anyway, I'm feeling extremely thankful for the way my curriculum is set up this semester. With the former events lingering over me, it can be pretty overwhelming to think about putting together a portfolio and gathering myself enough to think about job interviews. Thankfully, one of my required courses this semester is Professional Practice - a class in which we take a look at the business side of design and prepare ourselves to begin careers in design. So far, we've been talking a lot about what potential employers are looking for during an interview and how to really present yourself well.

The first prompt given was to think about our personal design philosophy. In other words, what does design mean to you? or why do you design? Talk about a tough question. There are so many reasons I love to design, but I really boiled down why I love it so much in just two short sentences.

Here goes nothing:

Finished project: We were required to include a photo, font, and quote 

representing ourselves as designers.

I realize the text may be hard to read without making the image full-size, so here's what it says:

"Design involves empathy for those inhabiting the spaces around you. I design to create positive change in the way people experience their environment, and ultimately the world at large."

After thinking about this prompt, I can finally answer the question "Why do you design?" with confidence.

Cheers!