Gregory Grandparent's Apartment

This project is an accessory dwelling unit attached to a family apartment. The people living in this apartment are the grandparents. They are not in wheel chairs, but their daughter is so the apartment was designed to meet her needs, too. The color palette was inspired by the palouse, which are reds, greens, golds, and browns. From my concept I derived the elements and principles of repetition, movement, and gradation. I employed those in the design of this apartment in the furniture, finishes, and layout of the apartment. These presentation boards are organized in different board sizes that fit like puzzle pieces and complement each other. The orange striping bring one from the first board to the last. The title first jumps out and should because it is the starting point of my process, the title of my inspiration song. The critiques I received from this project will be taken to my future projects.

Meeting with an interior designer

Over Thanksgiving break I met with an interior designer to discuss a project I was working on. This meeting was very insightful. She gave me many ideas of how to fix some layout issues. I took her advice and I do like the final project even more than I did before we met. I enjoy having others take a look at my work to see how they perceive them, and see how they could be done differently.

Gregory Kitchen Design

This kitchen poster is not a very final poster, but it is to give me an idea of how I would layout a final poster. That is why pieces are taped on. The kitchen on this poster is for the Gregory family who has a handicapped family member. From the beginning of this design that aspect was kept in mind, to make the kitchen useful for every member. The concept focus' on movement, repetition, and gradation. The "L" shape of the kitchen creates movement in and out of the kitchen. The existing brick shape of the exterior walls was repeated in the kitchen backsplash. Gradation is present in the slanted wall and then in the slanting ceiling height getting taller. I organized my poster boards so that their was a good balance between the larger plans and the smaller elevations by not putting all the large ones at the top or bottom of the poster. For future posters I will make them less draft like and more professional.

Gregory Master Bathroom

This is the poster of the master bathroom I designed for the Gregory Family Project. From this project I learned to try new layouts of how to organize my work. I started out with three columns. I kept this idea then made a circle of colorful pictures and diagonals of the black and white pictures. I coordinated the fixtures that are seen in the pictures to be below those pictures. Another option I tried was to have the fixtures in their own section, but this left too much white space. Designing this bathroom was based off of the painting "American Gothic". I chose elements and principles such as prominence, repetition, and contrast from the painting to employ into the bath design. The bathroom has a sink that is ADA accessible and a transfer/roll in shower for the clients needs. From this project I have learned that the more annotations on a technical drawing the more understandable it is. And I improved on my perspective drawing skills, though they still need more improvement.

Common Reading Lecture by Michael P Woleott: WSU Sustainable Design and Engineer Professor

This speaker talked how he got interested in being an engineer. He was fascinated with outdoor natural beauty and how the energy crisis needed to be solved. A graph he showed was about how when we have war it is usually been over energy sources. He explained that energy is what makes us move forward, without it we do not. Another graph he showed was that to keep using as much energy as we do now will not always be an option. We will have to cut back at least 70% to sustain ourselves for the future because the population is constantly growing. Then he went into defining sustainability and how it is an economic, social, and environmental issue. He is teaching sustainability through actual problems to be solved by his students. I think that this is a great concept to teach sustainability because it has not always been around and needs to be for the future generations.

WSU Architecture and Construction Management Integrated Education Symposium Lecture

This was a lecture given by the Collins Woerman Architects and some of the people who helped them bring their design process to life. The first architect talked about how when he was in architecture school design and construction were two separate worlds. Today though, that is beginning to change. They brainstormed having the design fields collaborate and produce extraordinary results. This idea also evolved when there was an economic down turn. They wanted to try and produce a structure that would last a long time and not take a long time to build. With all the people from different fields ready to collaborate they all worked together and made the building happen in half the time it should have. A line that the one of the speakers said was, “do not tack on beauty in the end”. I enjoyed hearing this because I think that if collaboration of every field is not consulted till the end then there is not enough money for the project to feel complete. The structure they created was about natural light and I thought it was interesting that people in housing complexes will pay more to have a room with the most natural light. I will employ this concept in my future designs. The second speaker talked about why collaboration has not worked in the past and how it worked in the benefit of this project. He said that people for other disciplines do not tell other disciplines what to fix or change because if something goes wrong then it is someone’s fault and will cost them more money. The way this structure was built was about collaborating, so if one discipline did not suggest an idea of how to build a part of the structure it would have taken twice as long to construct. Another line I liked was, “just because industry doesn’t do it doesn’t mean it can’t happen, if you collaborate new ideas will emerge”. I thought this was the key to success, because in our studios we collaborate and critique each other’s work and it helps us evolve our ideas and grow.

Jim Olson Lecture 2011

Jim Olson is an architect in Seattle, Washington. His lecture was based on how he has been inspired throughout his life by nature and how he brings that inspiration into his architecture. He grew up working with his hands and wanted to do something that made him happy, so he chose architecture. He started out with his family cabin on the Puget Sound that had a window which framed Mount Rainer. This mountain is a symbol of accomplishment to him because his grandmother climbed it twice. This area of the Puget Sound is significant because Olson designed himself a cabin that he still goes to when he wants to relax. He showed a picture of a flower that you can see in the woods around his cabin. They are visible because they are light and contrast to the dark green tree backdrop. This is because flowers want to be noticed by bees so they will be pollinated. The flowers came back into his lecture when he talked about a painting that was hung in a home. The wall was dark and the painting was light. This made the painting become the focus on the wall like the flowers in the woods. He did a lot with windows that were almost invisible to people because the nature on the outside was so beautiful that it became apart of the design. He made a statement I enjoyed which was, "let the nature frame the home and the home frame the art". This is displayed in the architecture of the home with the large women statue. From many angles when looking into the home the nature is first what is noticed, then the home's architecture, and then the art figure is seen through windows. I was inspired by this mans passion for his career. I enjoy people in the design field who can be successful in their career and have a family. He was very good at explaining the concept and meaning behind his work. I think that design should always have meaning or else your design can not seem valid to everyone.

This link is to the Olson Kundig website for a photo of the house with the statue in it. http://www.olsonkundigarchitects.com/gallery_cache/2038/800_600/WSU-Postcard.jpg

Wheel Chair Experience

My partner and I experienced what it is like to be in a wheel chair. Our experience is only a little of what someone in a wheel chair deals with every second of everyday. I have to say design should revolve around them. Not every person will be in a wheel chair in their life, but may know someone who is in one. To watch them suffer in their day to day activities is not okay. From my wheel chair experience I learned that rooms should have enough turning radius, which is five feet. It is also very hard to open doors or a refrigerator. Some are too heavy, while other have are hard to reach spaces once the door is open. You also need lots of upper body strength to pull a door open and move the wheel chair back. I would highly recommend automatic opening doors. Ramps are another issue because they are not always pointed out to people not in wheel chairs. It would be time consuming to go between classes and not be able to find the elevator or ramps fast enough. The hills in Pullman are hard to avoid and are scary when that is your only option. Reaching for books in the library was difficult and the copy machine was hard to reach into. The restrooms were a plus because there was enough space for toilet transfer. The sink, soap dispenser, and paper towels were also very accessible. My partner had issues with the wheel chair in the restroom she entered, it had no turning radius. She also went to a coffee stand and the counter was so tall she could not reach the cashier. From this experience I learned that good design is not just about whether something looks good, but that it needs to be functional for every person.

Color in Interiors Context Poster

I made this poster with the help of my partner, Green Yang. To understand how to choose color for interiors it is essential to understand the basics of color theory. When choosing colors I found that it is not about picking one you like, it is about how that color will be affected by the surrounding colors. The colors of interiors should not be the last thing thought about for a design. It should be just as important as the rest of the design process, because colors have meanings to humans that need to be considered. We used two different case studies to show how color was used in interiors. The Cape Vacation Home uses an analogous color scheme of lighter greens and blues. These colors were to bring the outside in and create a relaxing atmosphere for vacationing. The Comic Book Studio has very saturated hues of red-orange and blue which show the energetic personality of the owner. The blue helps calm the high energy orange down because they are almost complimentary colors. I like the layout of this poster because it leads the eye from the first headline, to the second, and so on in a nice fashion. I also like how there is not a lot of white space. We tried to utilize all the space we could. If I could have done something different I think I would have less blue lines throughout the poster.