28 days and counting.........

trying to keep on track with our group schedule-- we have been in the process of experimenting with the shell of the building that was designed up until spring break. once we started working within the interior of the shell--we have found that the square footage within the shell is smaller than the square footage listed within our programming document. this gave us the opportunity to not only to increase the scale of our building- but also to re-orient the axis established throughout the building.


we have incorporated a retaining wall that creates a structural wall component vertically throughout the east side of the building. as seen in the process section on the left- the thick vertical line represents the wall within the ground that has been in-set 15 feet from the front of the building. the dashed lines represent the wall continuing vertically to create a division of hallway + classrooms/ auditorium space.
continuing with the expansion of the building footprint + experimentation with the building's axis- this plan represents the changes + differences from the above plan. we then proceeded to think about the structural components within the building + the grid positioning. this structural grid has already started to help us layout the interior spaces on all levels.

apart from moving forward with the design- we have already started thinking about the presentation format for our final critique. kemena and i are in charge of coordinating the presentation boards- so we have be thinking of ways to tie our physical presentation with our actual design of the project. as of now- we have talked about using 24" x 36" boards with each person having 3 boards to utilize for their indivual space they will be designing + 8 boards being dedicated to the group's building's design. so with that all added up- we are taking up around ummmmmm 24 feet :) what space we could present this in-- i don't even know. once we further develop our designs- we will have a better idea of how much board space we will really need. so i guess we'll see.....

a design walk around campus.

to take advantage of slowly approaching spring weather- as a studio we took a walk around campus to talk about the institutional buildings we have right in our backyard. since we do need to take into consideration the uncg campus guidelines within our group designs- it was nice to see it applied on the current uncg campus buildings.

our stops consisted of:

the HHRA building
music building
petty building
new science building

as we traveled along to each building- i began to sketch elements within each building that should/could be incorporated into our design. both the HHRA building + the music building had a similar design language in terms of a circular rotunda at the entrance then hallways breaking off from the center. these ideals reflect similar ideas that our groups has been discussing in regards to our central core + its interaction with the two side wings. we took special note of wayfinding both on the interior + the exterior of the building expressing both the positive + negative applications of each. clearly- wayfinding is a key tool when designing an institutional building and it was interesting to find that some of the buildings had poor or lack of signage within the building. there also was time spent discussing the regulations + codes that came along with circulation pathways [stairs, ramps, elevators].

overall- it was nice to take a break from studio and to get a chance to analyze the buildings we pass by everyday and be able to take the knowledge learned to apply it within our own individual designs.

lee street...here we come........

assignment 4.1: design plan

since we have completed our materials assignment and our first group critique- we are ready to move on with our individual designs within our main group design. by thursday- our group plans on finalizing our design so we then can work within the shell. i am getting excited about this next phase of the project because i will be focusing on the signage[wayfinding] within the building as well as the cafe [food service]. i'm excited because i get to incorporate my love of graphics within an environmental setting [both interior/exterior]. i'm also excited because i have never designed for food service- so i'm looking forward to tackling a new design challenge!

below is TEAM B's design plan from now until the end of the semester:

assignment 3.0: material study.

for my material study- i focused on both exterior + interior materials. i kept in mind the design of our building + application of materials onto the building. for the interior i found three textural materials that will aid in the movement of our gestural building: modular arts sculptural panels, skyline art glass, + lumicor acrylic resin panels.

for the exterior - found this really interesting project that was displayed in bejing, china alongside the summer olympics. the project is called greenpix- and it is a wall of a building comprised of solar LED panels that retain and harvest energy to produce its energy to display itself at night. the panels project any type of digital media whether that be photos, movies..etc. this is something i thought would be a really interesting material to include in our park on site to display student/local artist's work.

pre break review.

exterior perspective of the building-- view from lee street

our design consists of a central core joining two forms together. the core acts as a circulation volume to join each level together. the view that faces lee street also faces the south side- allowing that side to obtain the most amount of sunlight during the day. we have designed for a sunscreen- made up of perforated metal structured by wood frames- to line the south side of the form dedicated to the public spaces. the other form is dedicated to the studio spaces which will have windows to allow light to illuminate the space during the day.

exterior perspective- view from the north side of the building [train tracks] looking onto the cafe.

adjacency diagrams that show the relationship between the programed spaces of the project. we have divided the levels starting at the bottom being the most public into the top being the most private [studios]. we are utilizing the core as the main circulation area from level to level.

comments from critique:
-a series of context plans [relationship of building to site] to answer the question what is lee street missing that the project will fill in?
-in drawings- show an active park- why would people want to come to our site?
-relate the core to the retaining wall [materiality]
-connect building to campus [through physical connections: bridge?]
-the first level is the most important- design for a good first impression
-iconic buildings are usually tall- extend the core to project upwards [emphasize views and their importance]
-extend the mullions on the first floor lobby to connect to the second, third and forth floor
-design the site so the user's experience is controlled- traffic/ amount of people/ what they experience first, second, third...etc
-spread the building out farther onto the site to take advantage of the size of the site


after the critique- i think that it is safe to say that our group will really be able to take a lot from this assignment and utilize all the feedback we have received. we know that up until this point- we still have a lot of work to do to finalize materiality, form, and usage of the site. we need to explore ways of connectivity to the campus and the surrounding community whether that be through form, materiality, or the site. by march 26th- out groups goal is to finalize the design so we all can move forward with our individual designs of the interior....

campus l.i.g.h.t study

to kick off the design process after splitting up into groups- my group [the art/gesture group] decided to study the campus at night and observe how the artificial light interacts within the natural environment. one idea that our group has discussed to incorporate into our interior architecture building is a change in the ‘skin’s’ appearance based on the light qualities of night and day. below are some images that I took during our [very cold] adventure showing some detailed light patterns composed of texture, contrast, form, and spatial relationship. this exercise allowed us to understand how patterns were created in the environment- whether it was a window opening in the building, the pairing of fixtures + textural materials, or the placement of fixtures.

glass blocks allow light to penetrate through the bridge's surface to illuminate the walkway during the night. [ a possibility to experiment with semi-opaque materials + light-- maybe instead of placing the materials on the ground plane- there could be an opportunity to place the material overhead or within the space as a room divider]

library entrance with focal lights to create a dramatic contrast on the columns to elongate their appearance.

view standing within the library looking towards the oakland deck and admission's office. the parking deck is one of the brightest building on campus at night due to the amount of negative space on each level.

patterns created on the ceiling of the rotunda area in the EUC. the simple placement of fixtures create this pattern within a defined circular space.

assignment 2: sketch/ study models

i approached the beginning of this assignment differently then i have tended to do in the past. this assignment was given to us so we can generate 10 different ideas about the conceptual form of the building based on the finished program document. so i jumped right into making sketch models [one of my weaker points] to produce multiple ideas about form, then sketching off the 3D model. i continued to do this process back and forth while compiling my 10 sketch models and sets of sketches. i felt that this process really helped strengthen my design process and how begin to think about volume, mass, and form of a structure.

below are the set of sketch models + sketches that i came up with for the proposed interior architecture building on lee street:


after finishing the models and correlating sketches- the diagrams above explains the flow chart of ideas that i came up with during this assignment. i really focused on the idea of a central core that essentially connects the public [community area] to the private [studio] spaces. through developing the idea of the central core- the idea of organizing the building on an axis came about. the tilted axis allows for an ordering system within both the public + private space.

this chart helped me realize that i kept going in circles with the same set of ideas over and over again. i should have stopped myself a one point to shake myself off and start in a complete direction for another idea. sometimes its just needed to step away from your work and gather inspiration from elsewhere to push yourself into a new and innovation direction.