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.

It All Starts Again

Today has been a great start to the week. Lauren and I have made a lot of progress on our project. We are challenging ourselves a lot with different design solutions this semester. Many times we do our projects with the first idea that comes to mind but this semester we are trying to really explore different solutions to the design challenges. Our outdoor space is probably my favorite part to our project at this point and I can't wait to see the renderings when its finished.

Picture From: http://highstreetculture.com/2011/07/interior-design/intelligent-design/

Updates to the Library

New Staff Area

When it comes to the design of a building addition, we feel believe that it is about bettering the space while trying to preserve and conserve both the existing building and budget. The goal of our library design is to create a new space without actually adding much square footage to the overall plan. To do so we chose to relocate the staff area from the southwestern side of the library to the elongated rectangular area on the northwestern side of the library. This simple relocation, along with efficient space design and layout, resulted in the gaining of square footage in every staff allotted area. With this relocation every restroom will remain untouched aside from any updates if necessary, and the new staff kitchen will already have preexisting plumbing from the former kitchenette. Vast amounts of storage and workspace have been created along with a transitional kitchen between the staff lounge and meeting room. The new circulation desk will be located along the axis of the barrel vault and can then have view of the new northeastern side and existing southwestern side entrances. The two entrances will allow for both existing parking lots to be utilized along with accommodating to larger traffic numbers during the summer.

Children’s Area

At the youngest of ages are when we are influences the most by our surroundings and experiences. This is why we are placing a large emphasis on the children’s area of the library. We want the space to be a place where children want to go after school or during the summer to read and participate in learning activities. Therefore we are placing a circular children’s area where the former staff areas were located along the southwestern side and southern corner. We chose to incorporate a perfect circle that creates a strong language against the existing architecture in order to place the emphasis on children. This relocation of the children’s space provided the children’s area with a private single-load bathroom that the children could utilize within the space and not have to travel through the library next to the point of exit. The children’s area is now visible from the parking lot and creates a fun and inviting entrance experience. The children’s area is equipped with stacks forming the perimeter of the room, craft storage and work areas, a kitchenette stocked for snack time, as well as a theater for movies and puppet shows.

Quiet Space

Libraries are a space to read, learn, and gather. Groups meet here to work on projects because of the endless resources and quiet space at hand. Therefore we chose to place the quiet space in the eastern corner of the building for it would provide the furthest distance with the most noise reduction from the children’s area. The quiet space contains the largest amount of square footage that we are adding to the existing form. Within the space are study rooms, lounge areas, work desks, and computer desks. The quiet space is located in such a way to appear as a separate structure that is serene in nature by having a breezeway and outdoor plaza surrounding it. The idea behind this is to create a peaceful space equipped for reading and studying that feels as if you are outdoors.

Outdoor Plaza

The idea behind the outdoor plaza is to create a multifunctional space for the community to enjoy. It allows the library to have the capability to host events and shows without limited space. The plaza contains a breezeway, reading garden, and an outdoor performance area. All of the components are equipped to be able to host activities such as art events, book fairs, author signings, poetry reading, and children’s reenactments of their favorite books. The breezeway is made up of multiple rotating shutter doors. The shutters allow for breezes and sunlight to penetrate while maintaining a shading device for the vast amounts of glass along the southeastern side of the building. By designing for the doors to rotate one hundred and eighty degrees, the doors can be flush and locked with one another for security purposes or rotated to any degree to allow for an open atmosphere while continuing to shade any angle at which the sun is located. The rotation of the shutter doors play in serving activities held outdoors by creating built in display pieces to hang local artwork, children’s crafts, etc.

 Picture From:http://stockade-fence.com/wood-fence-panels.html

Library Remodel

I could not be more excited for our library addition. We have been working really hard trying to find a way to better work the staff areas, meeting rooms, children's space, and add an outdoor area. The outdoor area is probably the space I am most excited to figure out. We are thinking of using so great wooden shutter type structure to have the reading porch either open or closed. Design process is moving along really well and I can't wait to see where it leads to.

Picture From: http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2008/05/05/line/

Mass Customization

Mass customization is becoming a huge thing in architecture today. People are designing pods to fit into building and customizing each one before they are sent to the job site. Pods are just one example of a process of customization that is speeding up the construction process. As the expression goes, “time is money.”

Companies are coming up with products everyday that can be massed produced but customized very easily. Everyone wants something unique for himself or herself and yet they want to get it fast. Today at work I made cabinet blocks in AutoCad that we were all going up in 6” increments. Hundreds of cabinet variations companies make to fit into spaces and a customer can customize their kitchen/ bathroom/ workshop with choosing their own cabinets. It is incredible at how many kitchens I can rearranged and come up with something new and customized with those cabinet blocks. Everything these days can be customized for the customer. I have seen cars with customized lights, stickers, licenses plates, windows, etc. design lends itself to an endless list of customizations. If you take multiple floor plans to different houses you can easily see that they are all different; each floor plan fits the need of the client. Not only do clients want something different than everyone else but also designers are as well. Things that are already made limit the designer on what the product can be like or the way it functions. Take the library that we are designing in our studio right now; we have to design around an existing building someone else has already designed. If we had started with a flat lot than the designs would be endless on what people would come up with. However, we are now working with what someone else has originally come up with.

Mass customization can benefit the profession to a certain extent. Time is something that would benefit greatly by mass customization. Clients could come in and picked what they liked and the architect to make sure the space functioned to what the client wanted to use. Money is also something that would benefit in mass customization. When something that is mass-produced it usually cheaper than something that is only made one time. It usually takes the company a lot of time and money to make a template for the product to be made in but once it is made then it is very easy for the company to produce more. The product size can change easily and the client can choose which one suits them best.

Mass customization can really benefit and also hurt the profession depending on whom you asked the question to. As a designer it is hard to think of something being massed produced because it makes me think that I will be limited in what I’m doing. As a designer that is the worst thing possible is being given restrictions on what you can use and how big it can be. However I guess that is more of reality because there will always be restrictions by clients in what they want.

 Picture from: http://www.dezeen.com/2014/06/17/the-pod-guesthouse-australia-whiting-architects-concrete-timber-boxes/

Monday Night Lecture

That lecture was a little weird. Not exactly what I was expecting for the architecture lecture. He was going on about paintings and sculpture. Maybe I did not go into the lecture with an open mind on what it could be. I should start going in there with no preconceived ideas.

Painting from: http://www.playingbythebook.net/2010/06/07/an-australian-alphabet/

Case Study's

On friday everyone presented their case studies they did on different libraries. It helped a lot learning about the different stats for every library. It was interesting that in some libraries stack space is a lot bigger than others. Meeting places and exhibit spaces are becoming a lot more important in newer libraries. At the top is a picture of one of our partis that we are working on. We plan to keep the curves in the original building for we feel like it is a strong design idea.

It's Almost Presentation Time

I have been finding some really good information over the library I am doing research for. It is incredible seeing how design changes just within a few years. The library I am researching has been designed by one of my favorite firms and I think they have done a great job. The circulation however has a lot more space in this new library; a lot more open areas. Seating is included in the circulation area so it is interesting how they are combining the two into one area.

Library Walk Through

Yesterday we did our walk through at the library that we are doing a addition too. It helped a lot going to the site and seeing what  the librarians need when they are working. When designing the addition I am going to try to find a new way to do the help desk and also look at designing some furniture for the space.

Congradulations

CONGRATULATIONS to all of my fellow Aggies for getting there rings yesterday. I can't wait to get mine and join the family. The ring represents all of the hard work someone has to put in to attend Texas A&M University. What a great day it will be when I get mine.

Picture from: https://clearlakemoms.aggienetwork.com/aggiering

Master Builders

              The book Refabricating Architecture says, "The master builder was a person who combined the roles of architect, builder, engineer, and scientist. Most buildings, both modest and aspiring, were designed and erected by master builders until only a few hundred years ago." As the book says hundreds of years ago there were master builders that designed and built most buildings, however today we have different professions that specialize in different areas.

            Master builders were very common several years ago; they men who did it all. They designed, engineered and built buildings way before their own time. This brings a very interesting question up; are their any master builders today? Specifically, should an architect be a master builder? I believe this question can be answered either yes or no depending on the way you view an architects role. An architect is a master builder in the sense that they are the project leader; they are in charge of the whole team working on it. The architect is in charge of so many elements of a structure that is never even seen by a spectator. How would this space make someone feel? Where can I run the electrical and plumbing of a building? What materials would look best on this building? These don’t even touch the surface as to how many questions an architect has to answer everyday. An architect is a master of his or her own trade. Their trade is under a massive spectrum and they are in charge of so much.

            Another way of looking at the question, Is an architect a master builder? Today more and more people are getting college educations and specializing in different building areas. With people specializing in more detailed positions such as engineering, architecture, and construction science it is not as essential to be a “master builder”. A “master builder” now consists of a whole team that comes together to work on a project. With big projects, architects, engineers, and contractors have started meeting early in the design process to work together from the beginning instead of meeting till the end. The architect however is still the leader of all of these professionals. “Architect”= Master builder. An architect has to be in charge of the overview of the project because it is his vision on what the space should be. An architect can still be a master builder if he has a team working under him or her.

          Refabricating Architecture says, “By allowing architecture to become reduced to the current degree and by relinquishing responsibility for assembly, product development, and materials science to specialists, the architect has allowed the means and methods of building to move outside the sphere of architecture.” An architect can now work on how people function in a structure because he has a team helping him work on other smaller details. An architect can now pass some of the detail process to his team such as the engineering and construction. An architect is a master builder and artist and a leader, whether he is working by himself or a team. 

Picture From: http://www.mbhomeinspection.com/