Midterm Learning Portfolio

By Mary Galloway- Clemons

Professor Jerry Lum

Fall 2012

October, 11 2012

Architecture 101

• Began to discuss what the class was all about.

– Gave the class words such as:

• Autonomy: For something to become natural, it takes a lot of time.

• Purpose: To figure out why we are doing these things, and why do they make sense for us to be doing them.

– We must expand our knowledge on why we are doing the things we are doing, what is the purpose in these tasks.

• Mastery: Takes a lot of time to master anything you want to at least to well on.

– Takes about 10 years: 10,000 hours, and passion for what your doing and inspiration to continue what your doing.

Purpose Mastery Autonomy

“All fine architectural values are human values, else not valuable.” –Frank Lloyd Wright

Questions to my inspiration: -Can you build without design? -What are the relationship between architectural form and the human body?

Iteration # 1

Task: -Was to make an abstract piece that described some of your characteristic, that you felt best described who you were. Steps: -I thought over my qualities and made a list of about 10, then I draw some little picture to try and figure out what those qualities looked like.

Qualities I decided on: -Well rounded (Balanced between work, and play) -Colorful -Stable -Flexible

Strengths: -This showed colorful really well. -Easy materials to find around the house. -Showed flexible really well with all the curves. Weaknesses: -Was not a very stable object. -Couldn’t really see well rounded or balanced. -Maybe need to try new materials.

Iteration # 2

Objectives for improvement: - Find a more stable frame to use. -Try other materials that are stronger but can still be manipulated to help form the structure. -Figure out how to incorporate stable and balanced. -Keep color, for the color factor. -Keep flow of structure -Keep the flexible feature to the structure.

-Balanced -Colorful -Flexible -Stable

Filled objectives: -Kept colorful aspect of the structure. -Used stronger materials. -Kept flexibility in structure. -Used triangle for stability.

Lost objectives: -I lost the flow of the structure. -I did not gain any balance to the structure like I had intended. -I lost focus on the color and made if more about the stability of the cardboard. -I didn’t manipulate the new materials very well to show my characteristics.

Iteration # 3

-Balanced -Colorful -Flexible -Stable

Objectives for improvement: -Need to work on keeping the flow through out the structure. -Keep a stable frame to hold it together. -Take away materials that did not help to keep it flowing together. -Add form and more of a design to the piece, rather then just adding things any place. - Keep focus on the characteristics I’m trying to get across.

Filled objectives: -This flowed better then the previous iteration. -Has a stable frame holding it together. -change materials up a little. -Add a form to the design.

Lost objectives: -Although this piece did flow well it still doesn’t flow as well together as my first piece, it may have to do with the triangle some how. -Also it seems I have lost some of my intentions to keep my characteristics in the form I have created in this piece.

Iteration #4

Objectives for improvement: -Try a bigger structure so that more can happen and go on inside and outside of the structure. -Find a flow within a triangle. -Try a different material that may help flow better, than just paper and cardboard. - Bring my characteristics back into the project, because that is what it is all about at this point in the iteration cycle.

Filled objectives: -I made the structure bigger. -I got a few more little things happening in the middle of the structure. -I tried to incorporate another material.

Lost objectives: -Making the structure bigger didn’t gain me anything or lose me anything but it did not help. -Adding the new material was a new objective but that was a fail, because you couldn’t see it, it didn’t bring anything good to the structure. -Flow is weird.

-Balanced -Colorful -Flexible -Stable

Iteration # 5

-Balanced -Colorful -Flexible -Stable

Objectives for improvement: -Try another size because the bigger size didn’t help display the characteristics I wanted displayed. -Add in some type of rhythm into the piece to help the flow and to add in more design. -Bring my characteristics back into focus. -Retry some materials but in a more viewable way.

Filled objectives: -Changed the size, which I think helps to establish more of a rhythm. -Retried the some materials from the previous iteration, and made them stand out more. -Added pattern with red and blue pieces of paper.

Lost objectives: -Lost all flow of this structure. -These materials didn’t work well in showing anything, they aren’t showing the characteristics that I want to demonstrate. -The red and blue paper to show my characteristics but they don’t really make a pattern as much as I would like them too.

Iteration # 6

-Balanced -Proportion -Hierarchy

Objectives for improvement: -I needed to add some proportions and I needed to try a different structure. -I need to try different materials to help me show my characteristics. -I need to bring a hierarchy into my new iteration, so there is a difference from one part to the next. -Make sure there isn’t really a base to my project, is required to be base free and JP (Jerry Proof).

Lost objectives: -I lost a lot of the detail in the middle of the structure. -it is basically just a outer frame, there isn’t really a whole structure another. -The triangle isn’t working and I just need to change it or use it differently. -I also don’t feel like it’s very balanced. -There is a hierarchy and proportions but there is no repetition.

Filled objectives: -Tried new materials -Kept some color and a firm structure in the process of changing the whole form of the structure, but kept the triangle.

Iteration # 7

-Balanced -Proportion -Hierarchy

Objectives for improvement: - Try out new materials . -Make sure all things that are on my project have a specific meaning and thought process. -Incorporate proportions and a pattern. -Add in angles and different cool views from all points. -Make connections from one piece to the next piece. -Experiment with out color to see if it gives me a better balance.

Lost objectives: -I didn’t really have much of a hierarchy in this piece, that needs to be enhanced. -There was no color and the wood didn’t bring any boundary of color, I need to add the color back in to make a fuller effect. -While the angles and proportions were valid and good they didn’t really help to describe my balanced characteristic.

Filled objectives: -Got proportions into the structure really well. -Had multiple angles, and different view points. -looked very clean cut without color on it.

Iteration # 8

-Balanced -Proportion -Hierarchy

Objectives for improvement: -More Balance!!!!! -Really need to find some type of balanced inspiration. -Establish a hierarchy in the structure. -Bring color back into this piece because the previous piece lacked color. -Find dimensions and shapes that really actually have a meaning to my characteristic of balanced.

Lost objectives: - Need to some how get it balanced on all four sides instead of just two and maybe try some other angles. -Need to maybe make hierarchy more well known, either very colorful or no color at that point at all. -Use the material to my advantage more.

Filled objectives: -Added color in, with a pattern of placement. -Have two balanced type beams coming off on either side. -Kept good proportions that I feel fulfill a balanced look.

Iteration # 9

-Balanced -Proportion -Hierarchy

-Inspiration

Objectives for improvement: -Try to use the inspiration as a balance point. -Find something that is balanced in many ways to help figure out what balanced could actually look like. -Try small wood to see if it gave me a different effect that may be preferred. -Enlarge the hierarchy so that it stood out to anyone that, that point was the main structure.

Lost objectives: -Still need more color in the structure. -Thinking this inspiration may have fulfilled my balance but also made the structure to literal. -The smaller wood was a fail, it makes it look unstable and really open, like a complete frame of the space, rather then taking up the space. Makes the hierarchy look weak.

I was trying to think of an object that was well balanced and I came up with a pinwheel, which became my inspiration.

Filled objectives: -Found an object of inspiration. -Kind of took this inspiration and made it into a similar form. -Made the hierarchy stand out more.

Iteration # 10

-Balanced -Proportion -Hierarchy

-An Extension

Objectives for improvement: -Need to make my project less literal and more abstract. -Try different sizes of wood for different extensions. -Try extending out on leg much farther from the rest to show the more fun spontaneous side of balanced. -Produce balance and eye catching shapes from all views.

Lost objectives: -I lost the color all spontaneously around the object, even though I had it on the longer extension. -Still I feel like it might have been to literal to the pinwheel inspiration in the last iteration. -Make hierarchy pop more its just there but why has yet to be established, why does your eye need to go to that point?

Filled objectives: -Used bigger wood for the main structure, which made the hierarchy stand out, so you could tell the real bones of the structure. -Made an extension to produce the fun in a balanced life.

Iteration # 11

-Balanced -Proportion -Sectioning

Objectives for improvement: -Figure out what sectioning is. -Try some new materials for the sectioning. -Figure out what kind of sectioning could really display balanced and my former iteration. -Attempt to use foam core with out hurting myself, or others around me. -Establish a good communication between the spaces of the sectioning.

Lost objectives: -There is no color in this sectioning at all, which actually is unclear if sectioning can have color or not. - This doesn’t really demonstrate complexity, which will be gained through the mastery of sectioning, so I will need to keep working on that. -My spacing is a little off also.

Sectioning: A distinct part or subdivision, of an object or structure.

Filled objectives: -I figured out what sectioning was. -I have good proportions in my size of my rectangles. -I did not hurt myself cutting the foam core for the first time.

Iteration # 12

-Balanced -Proportion -Hierarchy -Sectioning

Objectives for improvement: - Need to use a thinker stronger material. -Create a hierarchy with in the sectioning. -Work on spacing coherence. -Try something a little more complex, with the wood skewers or with the paper.

Lost objectives: -I lost the stability and the flow I had in the first one. -Paper wasn’t the best thing to use, but the foam core was a little harder to cut and while it was more stable was a sloppy cut. -Still didn’t create much of a complexity throughout the project.

Filled objectives: -Established a hierarchy in this sectioning piece. -Used two skewers instead of one so the complexity is a little greater.

Iteration # 13 -Balanced –Proportion -Sectioning

Objectives for improvement: -Try to maintain a hierarchy in the sectioning structure. -Try to make it look more like the iteration my sectioning pieces are suppose to be derived from. -Try to bring more balance into this sectioning piece. -Try to have a communication between the spaces.

Lost objectives: - I lost a big piece of hierarchy. - There's not very much variation throughout the sectioning structure, but maybe I need to add some variation. -Maybe I need to add something that can be seen in it or establish complexity is the big issue.

Filled objectives: -This one is more balanced then the one before it. -There is still a hierarchy in the whole structure.

Iteration # 14

Objectives for improvement: -Try to establish complexity through out the whole structure. -I want to have a view point cutting through the structure that you see in a spiraling point of view. -Try a new shape or shapes to make it balanced in its complexity.

Filled objectives: -I established two shapes, and made them correspond to one another with out losing the integrity of either shape. -I figured out how to get the spiraling shaped view through the structure. -established a complexity and a solid structure.

Lost objectives: -I no longer have rectangles through out the structure so I lost that conversations. -I also lost the hierarchy of one size of a shape to the other size of the same shape. -My complexity level moved up but maybe not as much as I would have liked it too.

-Balanced –Proportion -Sectioning

Answers To My Questions:

Can you build without design? -You can definitely build but without design, I believe not. Even if it is the most simple bicycle shed you need to have some kind of design and plan to make it the right size and shape to hold these bicycles in this structure. My question now is what is a building with no design? Is it then even a building at all?

What are the relationships between architectural form and the human body? - The connection between architecture and the human body are the connection between the elements of our everyday surroundings that we don’t see as effecting us. We must have a ground to walk on, just as a building must have a floor to be stood upon and we need the sky to cover our heads from space, just as we need a roof to cover us from the outside world, our bodies are the part that go between the sky and the ground to hold up the structure growing from the ground , just like the pillars hold up the roof from the floor or the next level from falling in on its walls.

Concluding Thoughts: Goals for Continuation:

After these rigorous weeks of working on these iterations I feel like I am really excited for the next project over all I feel like I did really well and I tried my hardest and in life your hardest is the best you got and it really needs to be good enough for yourself. Not everyone will like your work and many times you will not like your work, but if you keep trying you have long nights, not to much fun but some, but the next morning you get to wake up and say I designed this, with your head up. It won’t always be a success, but there will always be a new goal.

Some goals I have for continuing this class and the mastery of all the techniques I have learned, are to really figure out better time management skills. Try to create something even when your unsure what it is really going to look like. Ask more questions when I don’t understand exactly what it going on, because if I don’t ask the questions I’m never going to get the answers. And last but not least have more fun with my projects!