Boards Are Going to Be the Death of Me

Lauren and I have decided to go with a different approach to boards. We have been trying to work with boards with sharp angles going through the middle of the boards to help divide each of the spaces. It has been a struggle trying to manage updates with our models as well as working on boards. Sometimes I think I would find it beneficial just to be able to work on the model without having to make boards till the end. On the other hand, I see why we go through the process of making boards over and over again. I beginning to get really stressed out with thinking about everything getting finished but it will all work out in the end. We just have to keep on pushing.

Thinking Like an Architect

Shutter Island reminds me of how an architect has to think. Throughout this movie everything is interconnected. In the movie you don't put together different things until the very end; sometimes as architects we don't realize things until the end of the design process and we have to make a decision if we will modify it or not. Also, just like in the movie you have to make a final decision and decide if its a good design. At the end of the movie you have to decide if he is crazy or sane. He's sane of course....

Midpoint Presentation

Today we had our midpoint presentation and we got a ton of great advice. We are going to continue to develop the new spaces that we have started to design. One of the critiques we received was that we needed to make sure our diagrams we clear to read and anyone walking by would understand our concept. We are going to further the diagrams that we have created and continue to make our boards more understandable by anyone walking by. As far as the actual design, not too much was said about that.

Hardware and Experiences

Today people are designing for ones experience over anything else. I have been to many health lectures where they have told us that the experience is what matters for the patient and their family. Hardware doesn’t matter as much as the experience when it comes to architecture. In this discussion I’m going to consider computers and technology part of hardware. You can have all the technology in the world and still a person wont have a good experience. In fact, hospitals have some of the most advanced technology that is around today and yet patients still have terrible experiences.

            Designers and Architects are hard at work everyday trying to better a client’s experience. At Disney the Imagineers are always thinking about how they can make the “Disney” experience better. They want park goers to have the best experience they can have and they want it to be a magical time. Though Disney has a ton of hardware to work with they also focus on the experience. The experience is of the people is influenced by the workers, the scenery, and every element that goes into things at Disney Parks. The Disney experience is like no other and that is because they are always questioning how they can make it better. When hardware is used to its ultimate capacity then you can create a really great experience and that’s what I think Disney does best. Using technology in a way to better experiences is used everyday in stores, malls, hospitals, school, etc.

            Hardware opposed to experience in hospitals is a huge problem in those designs. It is really scary for patients to see wires and computers running throughout a room and it can make for a bad experience. With patients and their family facing really terrible things happening it becomes a really scary experience. Today a lot of Architects are designing hospitals to be more home like for the patients. Many cancer patients have to stay in hospitals months at a time and in the old design for hospitals they were in really uncomfortable spaces. Now research has been done on these old designs and they are redesigning to be more homelike to make the patients and families feel more at home. The moment the patient steps into the hospital they want their experience to be a good one to keep them more relaxed and not put as much stress on the patient and families.

            In the past I believe everyone relied on hardware to make an experience great and I don’t think it always does. Hardware is a tool to make it a great experience but the experience itself has to be thought out exactly and executed correctly. With research becoming a much more used resource to make the world better a lot more things are being discovered about how we can make people’s experiences better. As time goes on I think that hardware and people’s experiences will become more integrated into how we design everyday. Hardware will keep changing, therefore so will the experiences we are able to create.

Picture From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppy_disk_hardware_emulator

Monday Kicks Us Off

Today Lauren and I have been working on customizing some really cool furniture for our library. The wooden dividers have been create and are being placed in our model. Some really cool stair steps seats have been created for our children's area. These seats will allow several children to sit on each seat. We have finally figured out how the teen space will work without separating it completely from the rest of the library.

Picture From:

http://www.dezeen.com/2013/03/24/gangjin-childrens-centre-by-jya/

Im A Little Late

Im running a little late with my post from friday. Lauren and I talk to James we are continuing to work on the outdoor area. It has been hard figuring which parts of the reading porch that we want to be conditioned and which parts we just want to be out in the open. We are starting to create some really nice reading nooks for people to use when they visit the library. We are also working to defining spaces rather than just calling them multi-functional.

Picture From: http://www.watsonschoice.com/Guests.html

We Are Getting Somewhere

Today Lauren and I completed a detailed floor plan. We now know where each space is and how we are going to define them and yet keep it as an open floor plan. The idea for the shudder walls can be seen along the back of the model in this picture. We are starting to look at different materials that can be used in the building. We would like to have the materials help define each space.