Week One – Icebreaker Iterations One and Two •  Objective: Choose three adjectives with adverbs that describe ourselves, and then transform these words into an

abstract model with no base that can fit in the palm of your hand. After reviewing the first model, work to make the second hierarchically more complex and strengthen the relationship between the design and your describing characteristics.

•  Issues: –  Without any formal design experience, I noticed how difficult it is to create an object that conveys the

feelings to other people that I intend to. –  Creating something with no real guidelines other than size is like staring at a blank page, it’s hard to know

where to begin.

•  Relections: –  Peer response is critical. Feedback from others helped push my design forward. –  Seeing the work of others and how they attempt to convey certain feeling gives inspiration to work harder

to get the audience to really feel what you want them to.

Week  Two  –  Kit  of  Parts  

Week Three - The Narrative •  Objective: Develop a narrative for your latest icebreaker iteration using metaphors to

help convey the overall feelings and ideas behind your design. •  Issues:

•  I found it difficult to discern exactly what feelings were being conveyed by my design.

•  After some brainstorming, as my narrative developed I realized my design was a poor representation of what I was trying to convey, and not very relevant, and I ended up changing and refocusing my design for my final iteration a lot because of it.

•  Reflections: •  Writing my narrative greatly helped me focus my design, and helped me decide

what aspects needed to be enhanced or altered to better suit the feelings I was trying to convey.

•  By utilizing the metaphor of a river I incorporated new elements that increased the complexity of my design while better representing the feelings I wanted my design to invoke.

Third Icebreaker

My Narrative Life is chaos, and creation has a to it that can offer some tranquility to the cycle of life and death. My design is like a , and incorporates this peaceful flow. Changing constantly, with twists and turns, it starts out small. As your eyes follow the wiring through the cubes it grows bigger and wider. As it grows it becomes more and unruly. The wires curve out and back in like , building up only to crash back down again. The design itself is

with gradual changes and very few sharp angles. The increasing amounts of wiring, coupled with the increase in size of the cubes demonstrates and evolution. As your eyes follow to the final cube, a “ ” is witnessed, with a small cube emerging and being born anew from the largest cube. The final cube is colored a shiny red, drawing a comparison with the of a child, coming out of the womb shiny with and full of life. The wires are like reaching out to explore the world and the beauty of life.

Week Three – Final Icebreaker Iteration

•  Objective: Promote SketchUp model to higher levels of sophistication, craft, and visual interest; engineer and resolve connections between dissimilar materials and achieve dynamic unity and structural integrity in a physical 3D model.

•  Issues: –  Evolving and relating my design to my narrative, creating a strong connection between

written word and abstract design is hard to actualize. –  Working with my materials to create the level of craft I desired proved to be quite difficult,

thin metal wire can be quite unruly. •  Reflections:

–  Peer response and observing the evolution of others’ work was incredibly inspiring and allowed me to look at my design from a different perspective.

–  The use of Sketchup is invaluable. The ability to change your design in a matter of seconds opens up a world of possibilities, and makes drafting a design idea much easier and more fruitful.

–  My written narrative greatly helped me focus my design, and gave some structure to my design approach by forcing me to identify with words what I was trying to represent with design, and made me look at my design more objectively in relation to those feelings I wanted my audience to experience.

Final Icebreaker

Week Four – Form, Scale, and Proportions

•  Objective: Explore proportional systems, discern what aspects of form and scale can be utilized to enhance your design, and explore strategies that can be employed to unify your design into a beautiful whole.

•  Issues: –  Getting started. Figuring how a proportional system can be used without being too

boring or “cookie cutter” –  Being new to sketchup, creating models proves to be very time consuming, and

getting it exactly as you want it proves frustrating. •  Reflections:

–  Certain proportions, to the human eye, have intrinsic feelings associated with them and certain proportions are generally seen as more beautiful. By altering these proportions, you can work with the way the human brain interprets form, scale, and proportion to make your design more beautiful and pleasing to the eye.

–  The use of proportional systems allows for immense creativity while limiting you to certain ratios that are aesthetically pleasing. I found that when I fooled around with the proportional systems, I ended up liking most all of my designs, and I believe this can be attributed to the ratios of proportion I used that, for whatever reason, humans find pleasing.

–  The use of proportional systems also adds great unity to your design. I found that when using the systems my designs had a common “theme” going related directly to the ratios being used, and my designs seemed less disjunctive.

Modular, Fibonacci, and Golden Ratio

Week Five - Space •  Objective: Explore the shapes of space and spatial experiences, the ways in which space can be defined and

how these diverse spaces can convey drastically different feelings. •  Issues:

–  Finding ways to make my designs more interesting and unified, while remaining within the constraints of a specific set of building and spatial elements.

•  Reflections:

–  The use of sectioning to create “implied planes” is an incredibly valuable tool, allowing for structure to exist and define space in a way allowing an “open-ness” to exist, and can work wonders with shadows and lighting.

–  Elevated planes and ceilings can change the feeling of the structure drastically, making it feel open or cramped with a few feet of difference.

–  There is an endless combination of variables with horizontal planes, vertical planes, elevated planes, and spatial organizations that make an unlimited amount of creative possibilities for the designer. Picking a few elements to have throughout your design doesn’t have to constrain you, it promotes unity.

Centralized - Base Plane, Depressed Plane, Raised plane, Overhead Plane

Linear – Base Plane, Depressed Plane, Raised Plane, Overhead Plane

Radial - Base Plane, Depressed Plane, Raised Plane, Overhead Plane

Clustered - Base Plane, Depressed Plane, Raised Plane, Overhead Plane

Grid - Base Plane, Depressed Plane, Raised Plane, Overhead Plane

Week Six – Space Continued •  Objective: Continue to explore space and spatial relationships.

Create a model that is a journey from welcoming and comfortable, to awesome and monumental, to intimate and tranquil.

•  Issues: –  Craft. Design seems to suffer due to craft issues, better materials

should have been utilized. –  Establishing unity throughout the design. Trying to make different

feelings throughout the journey without making the areas too different from each other.

•  Reflections: –  I explored the effects of verticality and cantilevers in relation to creating

a monumental effect; incredible heights as well as precarious placed planes lend to the feeling of being small and vulnerable.

–  I learned the effects of lighting and how well placed contrasts between light and shadow can help emphasize certain feelings as well as provide transitions between spaces.

Week Six – Welcoming to Monumental to Tranquil

•  fsdafs  

Week  Seven  –  Truth,  Nature  and  Frames  +  Surfaces  

Unfortunately I was gone this week. However I did get a chance to view the work of some of my peers and talk with them about their personal reflections on the process and the assignment. Reflections- •  Using high tech machining can often lead your design to be less natural by giving it a

“processed” feel, and makes the design more immediately recognized as human made. But precision doesn’t necessarily mean less natural, as nature can be very precise and even orthogonal at times.

•  Design to resemble nature vs. Design with Nature •  Design to resemble nature utilizes natural forms and shapes to make the design feel like it

could occur naturally. •  -Design with nature is more responsive to the natural environment. I prefer design with

nature as opposed to design to resemble nature. I feel design to resemble nature is taking something man made and attempting to make it look like it isn’t. I prefer emphasizing the fact that the design is man made, but making it respond to and emphasize the natural surroundings, while at the same time emphasizing the man made qualities. With design with nature, both natures beauty along with the beauty of man made creation work together in harmony to create something truly and uniquely beautiful.