Saturday 24 October 2009

3 star Urban - Hotel design

The first design project of the year has started and its a doozy, i have to design the entire interior of a hotel in a site (either urban or rural) chosen by the tutors along with the star rating specifications (either three or five star), it goes without saying that I'm looking forward to getting stuck in.

The class will be working with the Scottish tourist board with the view to create a "hotel expressing a fresh and innovative take on the diversity of Scottish culture and heritage". We have only been given a skeleton brief so far so i can't really tell the extent of what we expected to design but i am guessing that it will be something like: Entrance, Hallways, 2 standard rooms, Restaurant, Cafe/bar as well as branding and other elements.

I have to admit that to begin with i wanted to design a five star, in terms of materials you can be a little bit more frivolous and then also include pieces of furniture by designers instead of more economical options. But now the challenge of sourcing materials (which incidentally is my weakest point), thinking about sustainability and the life time of my design is turning me round to the idea of working within the constraints of a 3 star urban space.

When visiting the site we were brought into this huge room that was apparently used as a ballroom before they had to close it because of health and safety issues which i think i would like to use as inspiration for my project. Abandonment, Simplicity, Entombment and ethereal.

Wednesday 21 October 2009

Detailing Over

The detailing project finished on friday, in the end i decided to take on the QMU stairs and try my best at dissecting the design through speculation and discussion with my tutors. Whilst i found this project very interesting in the end i felt a little frustrated with the way that everyone was confused about how to upload the details or indeed how to make the details themselves. When it came to presentation time i didn't really know what to say about the project, Digger spoke to us like we had been tackling details for years instead of making points about our details that we could improve on.

Saying this i do understand that we all have to work harder this year to improve our understanding of the building process, design process and the delivery of the plans/sections etc to builders or other professionals involved in the realisation of projects.

Sunday 11 October 2009

Details

On Thursday we had the last crit for the diagram project. I have to admit i was a little bit nervous about presenting my idea as i felt that maybe i could of done a little bit more work into contemplating my reasoning's behind the finished product. I personally felt that the crit itself went on for too long. If im honest i didn't even listen to the last few presentations because everyone started repeated themselves and there is only so much self indulgence you can listen to until it gets old. 

After the crit we were given a short research project where we had to go and collect images of details ready for the seminar that we will have on construction detailing next week. 

I came across this staircase when i was applying to take a Japanese language course at the Glasgow university...im not sure if it comes under the umbrella of detailing but i really liked the way that the stairs are separate from the handrail. And the shape of the 'canopy' at the top of the stairs, it looks really complicated so i wonder if Drew will be able to figure out/give some hint as to how it is being held together.

Wednesday 7 October 2009

Diagrams

[Provisional]

The process.

The good interior.

Should strive to provide a place to inspire individuals, making use of all the relevent/applicable/responsible elements at the disposal of the designer to create something that can enhance the space and maximise its potential.

Sunday 4 October 2009

Projects end

Its more than halfway through the project and i am still struggling with the idea of it. How can you represent your feelings in a way that can be put down onto paper in such a regiment and structured way? Leona (The dyslexia student liaison at the GSA) helped me realise that this task would be difficult to me because of the way that my brain works, the way i learn/communicate is much more visual than factual....this doesn't mean that i want to create some pretencions graphic system to communicate my ideas, i just want it too be simple. After the iterim crit drew suggested that the graph could be a sentence summarising what we think makes a good interior and about the processes. Maybe an Acronym?

IBOTP - IM BORED OF THIS PROJECT.

I got the last film from Berlin developed today. Its just as bad as the others but it does have lots of pictures of Daniel Libeskinds Jewish museum. Mmmmmm Deconstructivism.