happy cinco de mayo aka happy end of the semester!

so yesterday marked our last and final presentation of our fourth year! wow...i can't believe that we made it through this program..it sure has been quite a roller coaster ride. so many ups + downs when we thought projects would never end, sunrises were sunsets, and when we rarely slept- we thought were inside our sketchup models. even though we has countless sleepless nights- i wouldn't change anything about my time here in the i.arc program- every project has taught me something and has made me into the designer that i am today.

anyway....yesterday our studio held a critique where we shared with fellow students, faculty, and guest critics both our group project and our individual projects. the poster below shows our final group design of our proposed 'school of architecture' through perspectives, floor plans, + a section. i feel like our presentation went really well- we received some thought provoking comments and things we could have done differently on our poster relating to presentation graphics. but overall- i am very pleased with our group's outcome.



below is my individual design of the cafe. since most of the semester was dedicated to the overall design of the building- we had about a month to design our individual interior space. it was just impossible to detail + design the entire space- so i decided to focus on the ceiling, booth dividers, and the menu systems. my designs + details steamed from the architecture + geometry of the overall building. i did this by continuing the exterior atrium wall into my space as a ceiling plane that turns into a menu system. within the poster below- there is an exploded ceiling axon that explains the components of the ceiling system. the details of the booth divider and menu system is shown both through the perspectives and sections. i am going to continue the use of cedar planks from the front facade hallway into the cafe- but instead of running the planks horizontally like in the hallway- the planks will run vertically forming the menu system + booth divider.

16 more days...pre-final pin-up.

we had our pre-final pin-up this past thursday afternoon where my group shared our building design with the class and some guest critics. we worked really hard to solidify our ideas and present them well so we could move forward with our individual designs. we produced some perspectives, plans, sections, and a model to explain our ideas to the class. overall- i feel like the presentation went really well!


this is the front facade perspective showing the louvers we intend to place in the studio area [left side of building] to allow there to be some control over the amount of sun entering through the south facing windows. there is also a sunscreen placed in the middle in front of the atrium to also block some of the direct sunlight.

this is the north facing facade [the back of the building] that opens up the views towards campus + downtown. we still have some things to work out with this facade [i.e window placement + shape] to make it relate to the rest of the building. right now its looking like a condominium. ha.

we had some really great comments/suggestions given to us during the review. the critics suggested us to focus on the views we want to capture + think about how light comes in/out of the openings. light is just as important as views. horizontal layers have been created on the front of the building and it would complement the back if we were to create vertical layers. right now it appears as horizontal layers.

the roof perspective shows the planters that hold vegetation that helps to insulate the building. solar panels are placed on the studio roof to capture + harvest solar heat throughout the day. the placement and shape of the panels still needs to be thought about carefully.


long building section showing the horizontal layers and the "floating" critique room that will connect the roof to the atrium.
studio section showing the spacing between the floor levels and windows to make room for the adjustable sunlouvers from nysan.

our group need to sit down and talk about the comments given to us during our review as well as dicuss the concept behind our project. the idea of 'iconic' views and capturing them through our building as well as creating gestural movement as you pass by the building has always been part of our design process. but we just need to solidify our ideas into a nice conceptual statement to be able to explain to others our driving design point.

after our review-- our group chatted with patrick to talk about all the ideas we thought about throughout our design process to try and narrow down those ideas to a select few in order to come up with a concept:

-views in + views out
-skin
-welcoming
-flickering- moving pictures/ capturing scenes
-slipping through
-stop motion picture
-theatre/ on display
-prisms

and it really came down to the idea of showing constantly changing moments throughout the building both on the outside and inside.

while we were listening to travis explain some nice presentation graphics for us to consider about our final result- patrick gave us a little present written on a note card.

fleeting [adj.]: passing swiftly; vanishing quickly; transient; transitory

one word that really begins to explain everything we have been considering throughout this semester...thank you patirck!