NGHS

After visiting the High School and sitting in the college area - I realized there were a lot of opportunities for change- as well as a lot of challenges there were for me to face as a designer. My goals for the college area is to make it a space where juniors and seniors would want to hang out in and learn about their future, I want to provide a better way-finding system (which is drawn below) as well as a better shelving system. As of right now all of the program books from the school are scattered on random shelves and it would be hard for students to utilize the space and the books the corner is offering. 

ATLANTA

NOTE: please read this in an english accent....

It all started with the southern snow storm of 2009, causing build up on the highways, panic in the drivers and well...simply left in the snow. The fourth years trip to "HOT-Lanta" (cough) rather, COLD-Lanta, minus three, spent three days gallivanting around the city visiting design firms and furniture showrooms and tasting the cuisine hot-lanta had to offer.

Day 1: Our morning started off bright and early at 9 am – SHARP. Herman Miller was the first of the day, we enjoyed juices, coffee, pastries and fruit while engaging in casual business conversations with our colleagues. Betteye Russell, the women of the hour(s) started off by giving us a brief tour of the Herman Miller Showroom and had a wonderful speaker who gave us helpful tips, hints and suggestions on life after i.arc – yes, there really is a life after i.arc. 

We then braved the cold, and traveled to our next destination point, while some made it there quickly, others opted to take the scenic route (1201 E. Peachtree St.)  Lord Aeck + Sargent greeted us with warm coffee, tea and a quick tour of their studio space and a brief insight on their historical preservation projects. With tummies growling and faces numb, the fourth years headed off to HOK. Hungry, everyone indulged in yummy cookies and canned soda and had an opportunity to get off their feet and chat for a while. HOK gave us a tour of their space and showed us the multitude of projects in which they had been embarking on. A question session closed the tour, and again, many helpful hints were shared.

Pause- “okay see you @ 11 am tomorrow.”  “ 11..no, try 9…” (everyone growls at Patrick and Betteye) The rest of the evening was up to students to explore the city, relax and enjoy good food and company.

 DAY 2: 9 am came wayyy too fast. Bearing the cold, the heels and a slight “headache” we once again embarked on a long, exciting day of firms and showrooms – this time however, included a lunch break! Knoll was the first stop on the agenda and this gave us an opportunity to finally sit in the chairs we had been drawing on index cards for a full semester, thanks to “P”.

 We left with our brains filled with knowledge on the designers and textiles and headed off to TVS- Designs. TVS- Designs gave us the opportunity to learn about research in design and how crucial it is; from there we were given a brief tour of their space which left us speechless and worked from exploring their four floors of studio space. LUNCH TIME. Excited we had an opportunity to eat this day we all ventured to different locations for lunch and enjoyed a couple hours to get off our feet and relax and ponder everything we have experienced thus far. Last and final trip was to Perkins + Will where like TVS-Design we were greeted with an alum from i.arc…how exciting! Her and her colleague gave us insight on their institutional and healthcare projects and answered our last questions.

 We then ended the trip with one final group shot – and embarked on the long journey home. 

OH- AND THANKS TO P.DIDDY + T.DAWG  FOR PUTTING UP WITH ALL OUR SHANINIGANS!

POETICS OF SPACE [chpt. 2 +3]

2 [house and universe] 

Throughout chapter 2 Bachelard really puts into perspective how important it is to look at things as indivual units but make sure to think of things in the grand scheme. a drawer + a dresser + a room + a house + the lot + the universe. When looking design, and objects in that sense, I really start to understand the [roots charrette] because it was an item that we took, magnified, and put the magnified piece of the object into perspective with its surroundings, studied it and then placed the small piece into the universe. Anyway- in chapter 2 Bachelard is relaying how an object is placed in the universe and how it related to the environment. The quote on pg. 38, "Isn't it true that a pleasant house makes winter more poetic, and doesnt winter add to the poetry of a house?" Really started to put my mind in the right spot for this chapter. It is true. If you live in a comfortable, pleasant house, it makes winter less cold, and less miserable. When a space is inviting you dont want to leave it, you want to stay confined in the space and enjoy it. Bachelard goes on in this chapter poetically speaking about how the space and universe shouldn't be two juxtaposed objects, they should correlate with eachother, helping and "awakening" each other. 

The scene Bachelard paints for us when speaking about a horrible storm and a house battling each other, brought me back to the first chapter where he talks about attic + cellar and how as a class we discussed how each of them meant a different variety of safety to us. Going off of that,  our homes are our shelters, our safety nets, they are what we hide in during a storm, to keep us and protect us from bad, we ask it to battle the natural disasters, and for the most part, they do protect us. When I was reading the description of the storm and the house and that battle, I instantly thought of our institutional project and how we as designers now have the opportunity to provide the students with a safe shelter and home, one in which they feel safe to educate, teach and be themselves in. I want to achieve all that in the institutional building as well as a space where they can daydream, interact with and creatively think about the space that surrounds them, together all of these opportunities and objectives can allow students to grow stronger. 

3[drawers + chests + wardrobes]

a quick note about chapter 3..

I found it interesting when bachelard spoke about how dressers, the drawers with it, the knobs on it, all have a part of intimacy like us humans. The shelves, in a closet- they lack privacy when the doors are open, the items inside are exposed and open for viewing. How do we as designers face the opportunity to work with public vs. private, solids vs. voids - especially in a space like an educational area? 

im not going to lie, i did a lot of huffing and puffing during this charrette. There may have even been some choice words coming out of my mouth after i finalized my 5th set of 32, and realized I still had a ton more to go. BUT in the grand scheme of things, I will agree that it was a useful exercise, looking closer to how joints are related, how objects are put together, as well as magnifying bits and pieces of an object help a designer to understand the object better. The sketching process and all that came along with that helped me with designing my passage way. I wanted an outdoor space, where color, light and shadow could inhabit the space. I envisioned the passage way being either a sky walk from one part of a building to another or just a walkway thats facing out into the exterior space. The passage way reminds me of The Modern Art Museum in Barcelona, Spain. The Modern Art Museum was an all white building for the most part, yet utilized its window spaces with different colors so that the light + color + space could have a different effect depending on the time, and weather.  

MR. Ryan - NOT my dad...

There were three Mr. Ryan's in my life during my high school years...

1. my daddy

2. my history teacher 

3. my math teacher ( son of history teacher)

I always thought it was ironic- and when people didnt know the teachers they would ask if we were related..which I wasnt. Mr. Ryan the math teacher was this cute young teacher with curly hair who sometimes wore glasses, lucky for me, math wasnt my strong suite so I got to spend some quality time with him went I would go in for math help. Both Mr. Ryan's were laid back teachers, easy to get along with and always did a fun twist on what we were learning. 

Mr. Ryan ( the older one, the history teacher) thought he was such a tough guy- he'd walk up and down the isles rambling on about civil war- or whatever we were talking about that day  and blab on and on about how great he was because he was Irish - who would have thought that with the last name of RYAN! He was constantly comparing "guns" with the guys in the class, and giving them a tough time about not being in the weight room. His four leaf clover - located on his lower right ankle ( thats how often he showed it if I STILL know the location of it) was displayed almost just as much as his guns.

The point is...throughout all these crazy endevours in their class, they made learning fun and interesting- putting a twist on it with their personalities. Now, the young mr. ryan has a window cleaning company..and randomly in the summer i find myself making awkward conversation with him, while he's on a ladder cleansing my windows... WEIRD.  

does study hall count as a favorite class?

Really? Does study hall count as a favorite class - because it would easily be my favorite, hanging out with my friends, getting into trouble for talking to much, and writing notes in middle school and high school to pass to my boyfriend at the next bell.... Oh boy, that was certainly the life. 

But on a more serious note, my favorite subject in high school was my creative writing class. It was a time when my mind could wander and think of all of the crazy things I wanted to write about (within measures) and really enjoy putting the pencil to the paper. My teacher was a bit crazy, and definitely had the reputation of being a hard @$$, but I think creative writing let her mind and soul wander and also allowed her to rid herself of stress and focus on creative experiences. She would allow us to day dream and allow our eyes to wander to each other or to the large windows we had in class, because she believed it would help us with our writing - and I too believe it helped.

Torch was the name of our school newspaper, and not only was I involved because it was 7th period and a lot of the time we would skip out, when there wasn't an Issue to be written that week, but it was a time again were I could be creative with my mind and enjoy putting my pencil down to the paper and allow myself to write about something I felt passionate about.

Writing this blog has made me realize I have lost my passion for creative writing, I could blame it on the i.arc department for stealing my creativity for the projects we do within these four walls, or I could blame it on myself for not continuing to enjoy writing. Coming to college and being forced to write, or read books you don't enjoy, takes away bits of your creativity and your desire to focus your attention on those activities. It's harder to be creative and passionate about something when you are forced to do it, and within Torch and creative writing it was our option to engage in those classes and it was our creativity and passion which kept us going through out the semester. 

ohh Bachelard...

 " polarity of cellar and attic, the marks of which, are so deep, in a way, they open up two very different perspectives for a phenomenology of the imagination." 

the cellar and attic are in fact, two very different spaces in which beings interact within the space differently. Bachelard speaks about how the action of descending and ascending effect the way people view a space or interact within the space. Ascending + descending are sometimes viewed in a religious manner as descending into hell and ascending into heaven, which for most people make a basement seem as a dark and gloomy space. After discussing it with the class in detail, you really do see how the cellar and attic are spaces of polarity and how each imagination views and interacts with the space differently.