Design Workshop Faye Ye

DESIGN WORKSHOP 2017, SEMESTER 1 TUTOR: GREG MISSINGHAM FAYE (XUFEI) YE

INTRODUCTION Designers are driven not by their their

Curiosity.

Knowledge but by

Taking risks What we don’t know

Curiosity

What we already know Limited

Defined

Knowledge

Free Questions

Answers

Always ask why Learnt Infinity

Other people’s work

What we don’t understand

KEY NOTES

Other people’s work

Approaches: Have to do with what you are trying to achieve Methods: Have to do with the tools you use to get there Generative design methods: brainstorming (visual brainstorming/body storming) — the use of body to develop ideas sounds intriguing, curious to how it really works); visualisation; creative notebooks; role playing Analytic and exploitative design methods: Playing; Arbitrary juxtaposing: combinatorial arrays; Prioritising: Gregory’s 7x7 Methods; Analytical treatments — flowcharting, data mining, networks such as bible diagrams Evaluating and decision making design methods: checklist; decision trees; decision matrices; delphi method

DESIGN WORKSHOP INTERPRETATION

Gryohon House - Innovative design - Geometric roof - Lion-shaped chimney - Utilisation of solar technology (solar panels) - Domestic home with its own charm - Quirky design, specifically on the chimney, that is very unique - It has a fairy tale like appearance What this house attracted me the most from the beginning was the shape of its roof, very geometric and simple. It’s one of the designs that I usually take inspiration from as my past design aesthetics has been modern, clean cut edged and geometric formed. The harshness of the roofing, whether material wise or its shape is in contrast with the timber, organic decking and garden.

Exbury Egg - Contrast of man made and nature - ‘Egg’ to reflect residency - Inspired by nesting sea birds - Minimalism This art piece like home is protrudes itself from other through its form and choice of material. The use of natural timber can be interpreted into two ways, one being a blend with nature, while the other would be contrary against the natural view of human processed material. It’s form of an egg evokes the idea of what I believe home, like chicks in a shell, this space tries to express the idealistic home by interpreting us, humans, like chicks, wants an enclosed sanctuary for relaxation and comfort. That in this space, we are free to commit to our own will and would not be disturbed by others. It provides a sense of security and a safety nest.

Snail House - In situ concrete - Colourful - Symbolic meaning of preserving the planet The snail house is an explosion of colours that you can immediately react to, it’s playfulness it fully represented on it’s exterior, through the snail form and choices of colour. The small details such as lady bug as chimney adds to this childhood naiveness and purity. It almost looks like a statue made by a child using clay. It awakens that children inside everyone, creating smiles as people walk past this monumental colourful snail.

WORKSHOP EXERCISE Logo To be honest, when I was asked to design a logo, I was stuck from the beginning. There was not really an idea in mind to where to begin. I followed what is had done in my usual design process, which was look for inspiration. Whether it was online or from daily objects, I was inspired by one of the art pieces I had previously created. It was in the form of a light bulb. Very comical element, like in the cartoons, when an idea is raised, it’s represented through a light bulb. Thus I wanted to base my logo on the theme ‘idea’. Everything begins with an ‘idea’, all our designs are ideas imagined in our minds.

While it’s a logo to represent me, the most common idea of all would be my name or initial. Thus I wanted to incorporate the letter ‘F’ from ‘Faye’ inside the light bulb. It’s a simple design, only placing the F as the safety wire. What I liked about this design is it’s simplicity, however, it does not seem memorable for a logo. I believe adjusting the thickness’s of the lines weights in different areas also using two contract colours such as black and yellow could create a fascinating effect. The theme of simplicity lead me to use a rectangle, based on the figure group principle to create an F. This logo nevertheless is too common and lacks the spark.

Joining ‘idea’ with ‘making’ completes the process of design, which is thinking and doing. I tried to represent this element using a pencil, and this to form the light bulb shape along with the letter. The end result I was satisfied with, because it really represented what I believe design is, it’s a process that happens in both the mind as an idea but can also be made or drawn by hand in reality.

Group collaboration is the hardest, as every individual has their own unique idea, it’s challenging to blend these ideas to form a group logo. It requires scarification, for one’s idea to be predominant (happened to be mine) and working together to further improve the logo. Thus we ended with this logo with our initial letter, while maintaining the simplicity from their logo design.

DESIGN WORKSHOP REFLECTION Through the readings detailing on creativity, I was intrigued in this topic of what really is creativity. Like many of the professionals in the design industry such as Richard Tucker, I also disagree on the definition of creativity defined “as the production of novel and useful ideas in any domain.” Specifically on the word useful, is there a way to measure which ideas are useful and which are not? I doubt it, usefulness can apply differently to people. What we always encounter to be a useless idea seems to be ideas we cannot overcome, they are not useless, they are only challenging. And this unwillingness to solve this challenge is what results in a useless idea. Nevertheless, I have a strong stance in believing there is never a ‘useless’ idea when it was produced through a creative process.

Like Richard Tucker’s view, creativity is not as simple has producing an idea. The production involves in stages, creativity is more than what just pops in your mind.

There has to be a reason for why it did, the things that inspire you to create it, there must be an origin to it. While from the origin, in our minds, we actually develop this idea, which is still considered to be part of the creative process. Creativity itself can have various stages, it also exist within various stages in the design process.

Many are mistaken that creativity only exist in the brainstorming stage, actually it undergoes all of the process; this sometimes lead me to wonder whether there is a difference between creativity and the design process itself. The differentiation between these two terms are not as obvious.

In the work exercises, rather than just saying what interests me from the design, I tried to deliver in words of what these design convey at me. What do I see when I look at them? I began with some keywords, jotting down as dot points for referencing; while in my analysis, i tried to examine the building as close as possible. How would I relate to the building? What does the building represent?

What are some factors that create conflict within the building? I really like to explore on these elements, specifically in clashing of materials or the form of building. I personally am at fascination over these conflict that can be created in the design.

However, I need to look deeper into, what are the purposes of creating the contrary, they are more than just there to see, what does the designer want us, the experiencers to indulge through our senses. Like creativity explored in both lectures and readings, I want to ask as many questions as possible. Be creative in not only the designing process, but also during the analysing process, as these questions

A1

Models of Designing, Design Thinking, Design

Agendas and Designers’ Frames of Reference Learning Styles

Knowing Styles

- Active : Reflective

- Absolute Knowers

- Sensing : Intuitive

- Transitional Knowers

- Visual : Verbal

- Independent Knowers

- Sequential : Global

- Contextual Knowers

Personally, I would say that I am a sequential learner. Which is someone who approaches learning and problem solving in a “systematic” manner.

I’m wavering between absolute knowers and transitional knowers in my studies. I lack the security in believing my own work, thus requiring approval and guidance from tutors.

Systematic means that their approach is to use a series of logical steps. Similar to computer programming, there are priorities into what to be completed first.

Characteristics: Sequential learners can help themselves learn by asking the instructor to fill in any missing steps and to reorganize their class notes into a logical order. Another way they can help themselves is to try to relate the subject material to a topic they already know.

Project design ambitions =

Inspiration & Perspiration - Linear, Feedback & Cyclic Refinement Models - Pre-Design > Sketch Design > developed Design > Documentation - Preparation > Incubation > Illumination > Verification - Generation > Exploration > Evaluation of Ideas

Brief (from client) + Design Agenda (responding to that Brief) + Designer’s Agenda (your ongoing, evolving designer’s interests across all projects you do)

DESIGN WORKSHOP IMPORTANT If you want to surprise yourself, to produce a good design, then …

Never immediately try to do or to design the best or the most …

Always, try to tease out what is possible (even if it looks very strange at first).

THEN choose.

REFLECTION Being a sequential learner, I prefer there to be guidelines set our for the projects I do, thus I would know whether I am close to completing the process and can check off the areas I’ve done. Perhaps its the lack of creativity in me that hasn’t been explored yet, I feel more challenged dealing with a free-form topic with least rules than ones with many restrictions and requirement. I prefer there to be some sort of guidance when it comes to my design project. And I prefer following these steps to reach my final goal. Thus when starting with my design, I tend to go the old school route of brainstorming and looking at precedents for inspiration, then identifying the key points and further develop from there. I have my own set of logical steps developed over the years through experimentation in projects and classes, and is likely to continue this process until I find a better way to start. There are many times when I want to adapt to global learning style, however the big jumps in between is not as comforting than smaller steps, with more detailed process. I realise taking smaller steps allow my design process to be more enriched, and detail examinations can allow for exploitation of possible directions, challenges and advantages.

I believe my knowing style is between an absolute and transitional knower. That is although sometimes I like taking bold experimentation, I still seek assurance from lecturer or tutor to make sure I have the exact details required. Honestly, I know this in some way limits my exploration in designing, but I tend to stay in the ‘comfort’ or ‘safe’ zone. The zone where what the tutor says is the truth and that there is this truth in design, that there is right or wrong to a design. As much as I want to deny it, I always fall down the trap of there being a wrong design. Sometimes I take the criticisms as this design is wrong and there needs to be a new one made. There are also times where I persistently still base my design on the same idea yet getting criticisms after what I believed improved. Thus it becomes important for me to identify the boundary between a ‘wrong’ design and design with flaw that can be improved, just that I have looked over those. Gamestorming is exactly the way its represented in the name, it’s discovering the goal through series of games instead of setting the goal right from the beginning.

Learning about game storming has changed my perspective over how I should begin a project. I have always thought that it’s the ‘right choice’ to decide the goal first prior to everything else, therefore I can reach the finish quickly. Having this goal set up first really limits my option to explore during the development stages, whenever I would think should I go in that direction, should I try this, I always stop myself from going on further because it was unrelated to the goal I had, thus I should not waste time on that. While this chapter explores another way, goal being the end result, and actually really using the process to discover what is really wanted to be achieved.

GAMESTORMING NOT BRAINSTORMING Gamestorming is a discovery and innovation method.

The advantage is that it breaks down barriers, improves communication and helps to generate new ideas, insights and strategies.

Every game evolves in stages, as follows:

Designers are driven not by their Their

Curiosity.

Knowledge but by

The Ten Essentials 1. Opening & Closing — Give innovation its shape. Know when it’s time to open and when it’s time to close, don’t try to do both together.

2. Fire starting — To create anything new, you must first create a compelling challenge. Start with a question and see what it ignites.

3. Artifacts — If a great idea sin’t captured, does it make an impact? Use whatever you have to make ideas tangible, portable and sharable.

4. Space — Walls are for working and for sharing. Any conversation of reasonable complexity needs a whiteboard.

5. Generation — When opening, populate your world with as many and as diverse set of ideas as you can. Obey the laws of brainstorming: there are no bad ideas (yet) and stick to the topic at hand.

6. Randomisation — Not everything comes in order. Practice randomisation, filling in the blank and forced analogies to break down the pattern we’re all stuck in.

7. Sketching & Model making — If it can’t be drawn, it can’t be done. The fastest way to make an idea concrete is to sketch it out, and you don;t have to be an artist it ‘think on the page’.

8. Improvisation — Brainstorm with your body and see what comes naturally.

9. Selection — You can’t do everything and when it’s time foe selection, be ruthless. Start with criteria and make choices. Vote, rank, prioritise.

10. Try something new —You won’t discover and invent new things unless you get used to taking risks and try new things. Make it practice to challenge yourself ad you will inspire other to do the same.

DESIGN WORKSHOP

Basic diagram of 3 stage game design

As we all know in gamestorming, it’s simple when we create a game space (shared world) that has its boundaries (limitation).

Rules are also applied for the game to work, artefacts carry the information of this game, and this act of playing within this world amongst players, we arrive to the stage we desire, the goal.

Series of games is used when the initiatives are too large to be processed in one stage, thus is divided in deliverable phases.

Diagram series of games

A fuzzy goal straddles the space between two contradictory criteria: At one end of the spectrum is the clear, specific, quantifiable goal and other end is the goal that is so vague and impossible to achieve. Fuzzy goals must give a team a sense of direction and purpose while leaving team members free to follow their intuition.

To define a fuzzy goal you need a certain amount of ESP: Fuzzy goals are Emotional, Sensory and Progressive.

A2 Design Sprints WORKSHOP EXERCISE Design Brief of Inspiration Hotel A hotel with required number of rooms/spaces for different functionality; it should encourage/inspire creativity but also suitable for mediation/concentration Designer Agenda: - ‘A place integrating with nature’ - To design a hotel that is a place if escape from current chaotic environment - Provide accommodation through rooms While in the planning process of inspiration hotel, one thing that needed to be considered prior to everything else (I believe) was the arrangement of different functionality of spaces. Where would each space be placed and what was the reason behind it. The required area of each space must also be taken account. Thus using logical sense, it’s convenient access for public on ground floor, thus having gallery that is public-welcome.

Rooms that are private and silent be placed on same floor and higher levels to distant themselves away from the noises of other rooms. I find it also crucial to know the area of each level, having them every spread or at least ground floor covering a larger area for a solid base. As I believe have a group floor of 100 and first floor of 500 is not practical or realistic enough.

My key theme identified from the brief was a place of escape, as the hotel designed for inspiring and meditation for people who want to find calmness. There must be a contrary factor away from the urban environment people live in, or else why would they come here in the first place.

Thus I wanted to utilise nature, being contradictory to chaotic city, be integrated as part of the design, allowing for more open spaces and windows for the view and reflect nature on its facade.

DESIGN WORKSHOP Urban

Rural

Enclosed Steel (cold) The structure of the hotel determines it’s shape and form. Whether the hotel wants to be an enclosed building or an open encouraging space depends on how design agenda and brief.

Location

This brainstorm was used to sort out the basic ideas underlying this hotel, Divided into 4, it’s location and the three important factors of technology, amenity and poetry.

This was to explore that various option this hotel can be designed towards.

Timber (warm)

Structure

Open

Silence Room Studio

Inspiration Hotel

Private

Function

Delight

Silent Neutral tone

How the mood and experience users get is dependant on the way Public hotel is planned. Based on the form, function rooms, tone, colours etc.

These are all influential in how users enjoy this Gallery hotel.

Healing

Semi-public

Library Living room

The functionality of hotel is listed in the design brief as requirement. These spaces are required to be planned in order for the hotel to run it’s business. There are public spaces that welcome general public to attend, while more private areas for accommodates.

CRAZY NINES

Selected design to be further explored of the exterior of hotel, incorporating ve design.

Simple ground floor plan with entrance extruding outwards to invite guests. Lacked direction as it was the first design.

I utilised many geometric shapes in my design, thus I wanted to have something more organic and natural. These curved buildings almost piece as puzzles, yet the gaps between the building would provide users with a unique path experience that is almost like a

Overlapping of geometric shapes, where the whole building is created like a path rather than one tall, monumental piece.

Cubism, and playing with the exterior, for it to be revealing, completely enclosed or fully exposed.

This crazy nines exercise was a fa allowed thinking time when it cam With each drawing timed to 30 se to be formed in the head and tran were barely even thought of, while expanding from that to create patte

DESIGN WORKSHOP

on. Plan view egetation within

ast and quick exercise that barely me to coming up with these designs. econds, it required immediate vision nslated down in pen. Some designs e drawing a line or shape, just erns or repetition to build a design.

Aerial view of building, inspired by De Stijl, using rectangular shapes intersecting to form the spaces. Clear division within all spaces.

A crystal form small loft, which can be used to host private studios for accommodating. Single and private spaces ensure quietness. Blends in well with the mountain trees.

Glass facade creates zero distance with nature.

Rectangular form, creating a tower amongst all for the view. Using strip windows to enhance view and incorporate nature. Contrary with the tall tower and shorter building below. Clear division between public and private space.

Hexagonal shapes connected to form an arch. Functional rooms can be divided amongst the hexagons. Individual spaces rather than one large building.

CRAZY NINES Experimenting with just the walls, I was ignorant of using furniture to create its own unique space. Rather than limiting my design in a cubed room, I wanted to expriment with open spaces, and creating paths through the curves of the chairs and tables. Achieving both functionality and experiental characteristics.

This design was inpired by Sou Fujimoto in Milan “Forest of Light”; where I wanted to create a dark space with light only coming through the ceiling, It creates sense of calm and peacefulness that fits well with the silence room.

When the crazy nine activity was based on the interior of the hotel, I’m use to using a 3D perspective view of the room, or later changing into a cubed space.

The first designs I really lacked a direction of how should the interior look like. I simply placed large amount of windows to show that I wanted the hotel to be exposing to nature and the forest. I later played with the walls, how some walls with different material to create shapes and openings in spaces. I also wanted to experiment more on organic forms, how the walls can curve and create a slope within the room to add some more interesting element to it.

DESIGN WORKSHOP

Based on the selected design, which was an aerial view of geometric shaped roofs with vegetation closely enticed to it. I drew a perspective view of my proposal for the hotel. Utilising the geometric element for the rood, planes would fold and drape down to the wall, creating these unique spaces in between. Also creating enclosed and expose spaces. Vegetation is crucial in my design as it plays the natural blind for the glass facade. Printing nature as part of the facade through reflections.

A long extruding tube is introduced as the entrance of the building, wanting the building to be mysterious and intriguing to enter. The storyboard introduces the entrance through a close up of the tube. Where you are able to recognise that it’s a dark long space with penetration of lights through small openings. This path of light and dark hoped to inspire users for their projects. Different openings capture different scenes of the forest, and the scenes would be different from different angles. Rather than framing pictures, I try to frame the environment in my design.

REFLECTION Working through a design brief is no stranger to me, as I’ve been through a couple of studios working through projects that has its own design brief. The way I interpret design brief is always highlight its key word, as that’s going to be the core of the project. And expanding on this idea while still maintaining the requirement of the brief is the most challenging part of design. Over experimentation results in failure to meet the brief, yet lacking experiment may result in a dull, lack lustre design. Thus it becomes important to balance between the two.

It has been a long time since I’ve encountered design agenda, in previous studios, we seem to have briefly scanned over, never really went into details anymore. As it did not need to be stated, rather the design agenda should flow throughout the design and in presentations.

A3 Communicating Design What is diagram for?

- Capturing ideas + giving them form (organization, UX, geometry, siting, context, blocking & stacking, etc.)

- Consolidating diverse data as one possibility - Exploring options - Consolidating diverse outcomes as one project

TYPES OF DIAGRAM

Bubble Diagram

Matrix Diagram

Analytical Diagram

DESIGN WORKSHOP Bubble Diagrams of Floor plan

Metricon Floor Plan The bubble diagram represented the floor plan of display homes, the most common houses with 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. Instead of drawing the floor plan out in squares, I represented each functional room with three different categories: functional dining and food; social and cultural; individual. And paths of family/public access common routes and individual accesses to their own rooms. For example, bedrooms are in diagonal patterned circle as it’s classified as individual space, while the living room becomes a solid cycle for it’s characteristic.

Celebration Homes Floor Plan Applied the same categorisation as the first floor plan, this time using rigid shapes to represent the space. More relatable to a floor plan because of the squares.

These diagrams are only a simple representation of the floor plan in one perspective. There are so many different ways in which you can categorise and produce various bible diagrams. It is a great tool to use to convey message rather than having to write 500 words explainng it. Most people understand piectures or drawing faster than reading phrases.

WORKSHOP EXERCISE

The drawing was conducted using the non-dominant hand, which was my left hand.

From the cursive and trembling lines it’s evident that I did not have a tight grip with this activity. Using non-dominant creates a very different effect compared to other sketches.

While this activity involved with drawing the ‘idea’ of the building, not the actual building but the core message of it. I was mislead by the idea, thinking that the appearance or form of the building must be the idea. However, it actually requires a deeper examination while looking into it. Finding the idea is basically finding the symbol of the building (in my own interpretation). It’s the image you see and immediately reminds you of the building.

For example in this case, I thought the facade was considered the ‘idea’ of the building. While Greg clarified why that it only a drawing of the building not the core theme by pointing out its actually the different orientation of the singular house. It’s the basic component of what forms what we see now.

Thus in the following example, I tried to extract it’s most basic shape from it’s form to represent what I believe is the ‘idea’ of the building.

DESIGN WORKSHOP

Mies van der Rhoe’s Farnsworth house We had to draw the Farnsworth house through impression and extract the basic principle behind it. The key feature of this architecture was it’s steel frame and glass facade. The simplistic yet elegant feature of the house.

While the idea extracted from this house was it’s framing that held two planes together. It can be further interpreted as the fixing points being permanent in position can allow the plane change freely in its shape. For example, the apartment above QV had this system, which is also utilised in many other design.

This shows that many buildings can have the same principle behind it, although the appearance may differ, it’s structure remains similar.

The Jewish Museum in Berlin (1989) is a deconstructivist architecture created by Daniel Libeskind. It’s known for the sharp edges of the structure and the empty rooms and dead ends users run into. The theme of almost a maze or no apparent way out created through visible or invisible structural elements.

The building also has hidden symbolic meaning beneath it. The zig-zag form of the museum was in reference to the star of David. The empty rooms were not only for user’s spatial experience but represented the emptiness remains after the Holocaust. The experience created in this museum hopes to renact the same experiencee of Jews in German history. The anxiety and loss of direction are formed through the complicated routes and dead ends.

I identified the zig zag form and chaotic light penetration as the bases for the museum. It’s shape and contrast with light and dark plays an important role in the design.

DESIGN WORKSHOP REFLECTION Communicate design effectively is one challenging task to complete. Yet through these past few weeks, I have learnt and came to understand some of these tools and how to use them. Take this week for example, diagram is one of the most common ways of communication on paper. It’s simple and easy to read just from glancing. More effective than long phrases or a speech. Yet I had never knew they can be categorised into so many kinds. Understanding more about diagrams would help me in presentation of design projects for a neater finish. It can also reduce word count as I have a tendency to write too much in my past projects while not enough figures or diagrams.

Other than diagrams, I’ve gotten more through workshop exercises of extracting the most important information. Defining and draw out the core idea behind the design. It teaches me where to look for this matter, and for the future when I analyse buildings I’m able to quickly identify the principle and main idea. Not only so, it helps with reinforcing the memory of the building and architect in my mind, expanding my knowledge over the architecture history. This is crucial for me because I have encountered difficulties in memorising building names in past.

Especially when exams are over, that part of my memory is just lost. Perhaps that’s telling me I haven’t really understand the building styles enough to immediately recognise a building, and the core characteristic that I have missed.

For ongoing Design Workshops, I hope to catch up on some of the readings I had missed or briefly scanned through. Also reflecting on my past design project and actually further develop it even more. I aim to try new design processes such as gamestorming and see if that would work out for me or just take some aspects of it and apply it to use.

B1

Cinema + Architecture

ARCHITECTURE IN FILM Before taking the course of architecture, I had little conscious over the buildings and background in a film. It was not as notable as today of the influence of architecture can bring in a certain scene. Through this lecture, I was really able to see the great impact of architecture in films, the matter of aspects and views and how each view is controlled to persuade audience.

The utilisation of angles and perspective in films give audience the designated emotions directors wanted to achieve.

Their emotions are manipulated through what they see, for example, the mood of depression expressed through dark tone and cluttered space. It’s interesting to see how easy we can be influenced by a film, it also shows the powerfulness of manipulating perspectives to present what the directors want us to see.

In relation to designing, how should we take what we have learnt in this lecture into our own design process? When we design a space, we need to consider many things.

One of the very important factor would be user experience. What do we want the users to feel in this space? How do we encourage them to feel certain emotion or commit certain action? Our design should be directing them to use this space. Where using angles and perspectives much like the film, we are able to guide users to see certain view and walk in certain direction.

While in the exercise of filming the theatre, or in our case, filming the MSD tutorial room. I began filming standing from the door. When introducing a new space, the perspective of the camera should equal the perspective of a user walking in, thus i chose to start from the entrance. A straight view of what you are able to see stepping into this room. Then from that perspective, closing into the corner of the room, starting from left to right. Close ups are used to emphasis certain features of the room. Angle of camera is balanced at the same height, often moving up or down for different features such as the ceiling and windows to the desks.

DESIGN WORKSHOP DESIGN A HOUSE NOTES How does someone stand at one point and see 3 different depth of field - Depth of field: small — mosquito- eyes work differently form camera, much more sophistication How do you set someone to notice small things on large ground - through contrast of shine and matte - For example: Courtyard - ending the route, forces people to look down to find another way to get across. e.g. manny Japanese courtyards have stepping stones as a separate path How do you get someone to pause or slow down - Notable method by Roman Polanski — create illusion that there’s something in the corner - Architectural dare — curving corridor (enticement; curiosity to go around the corner) Design a house. This sounds like a very simple design project, yet many things are left blank. Whenever I receive a design project, I tend to ask myself many questions based on the topic given. In this case, there are so many questions left to be determined because there aren’t a set of boundary for this project. There is no specific brief to the house, what should the house be for, where is it located, how big does it have to be, does it need to be practical… These questions all popped into my head. The first direction i sought first was who should the house be for. Is the client myself? Do i want to design my dream house. I did not want to limit myself into what I wanted, but rather to challenge myself create something that is unique and outside the box.

Thus in my design, I wanted to create a hotel that accommodated guests. Rather than one big block of building with rooms, I wanted to create individual housings for guests in the forest. The houses strutted in the shape of prism, steel frame with glass facade for a 360 view of the environment. Allows close up with nature, creating almost like a tree house effect. Lifting the rooms above floor for better experience.

REFLECTION When I was asked to draw the interior of my house design, I feel like I was stuck. I found it difficult to draw the perspective inside, as when I was designing, I hadn’t really given much thought about the interior. I was only focused on creating the exterior, ignoring the practicality and the size of the spaces.

This has always been a problem I have, when creating a design, a tend to think more of the exterior and facade of building and less of the internal space. Like in this case, when I was asked to draw the internal space of my house in long shots/close ups, I find it difficult to imagine it. The 3D plan is unclear and I’m just weak in this ascent of drawing.This needs to be something that I will work on in the future.

DESIGN WORKSHOP REFLECTION How does your design make someone do‌ This is the question we should all ask ourselves when we are designing. While in another subject, I had learnt about Chinese and Japanese garden, they used very similar methods in slowing the pace of users viewing the garden. This method was creating a path that is angled and requires turning and turning. This slows the footstep of users compared to them walking in a straight line. While slowing them down allows an extension of time for them to really enjoy the view. Chinese gardens also uses windows and doors as an important architectural factor, it can guide people to look at the designated views designers intended for. It also acts as a frame for the view, and can be influential in stopping or slowing down users.

While this reminds me of past project in Designing Environment, where we were asked to create a space that can be productive for students. It should be a space that encourages productivity, however students cannot stay here for too long. The space needs to have a purpose, where users are able to do something in it. This first design project was a definite challenge back then, especially when I was clueless in what design can make a space be productive. I thought only basic ideas such as a place to lie down or a place to read books, where students are doing something and not wasting their time. However, this was not creative and it didn’t really show how this space differs from like the library. Until I actually learnt from other classmates that the space can be an experience, using the form such as walls to guide users through; thus making the space productive and users would not stay there for very long. This was when I started to really look into users experience and realised the importance of it.

B2

Design Decisions

DESIGN DECISION - A moment you choose between options - Resolving a question inherent in your project - Selecting a design method to employ next - Selecting to edit and reduce elements in your design - Selecting a metaphor for your project - Selecting the scale at which you will focus on the next stage

STUDIO EARTH

Design decision exists within every step of the design project. Every decision made effects the next step on how the design would result in. It is no doubt that there are a thousand possibility for every design, and it is up to us the designers to select one of the possibility and develop it to its extreme. Looking back at the previous studio work I have done, I often question myself how would the design look if I had actually done it this way. There are no perfect or complete design in this world, every one of them are full of potential.

Studio Earth project was to design a secret space in herring island, while the design should also reflect previous work under the topic of point line plane, mass and fame and infill. I had grasped the right direction for this project when I was creating the sketch model. While the difficult began from developing the sketch model into a design. It was much more than enlarging it and placing it on the site. How would it relate to secret and the three topics.

My first draft was criticised by the tutor, where it had lost the essence of the sketch model, from it being light and delicate into something too dense and heavy. I was too stuck into the thought of having to have an underground space to fulfil the topic of mass. And this backfired, the result was unpleasant.

However, during that process, my thoughts were too restricted in having an underground element that my final continued this form. I tried to lighten it through openings of the facade to reduce its heaviness. Nevertheless, although they presentation was applaud, the problem of draft still remained. If I were to change the design now, I would abandon the the basement and played more with the folding planes on top to create the different spaces.

DESIGN WORKSHOP

STUDIO AIR

Studio air project was to develop a garment relating to the site and brief. This design was the one I felt least impressed with.

The reason behind it was because I felt like as a group, we did not push the limit of the design far enough. There wasn’t much of disagreement or big decisions in the process, everyone just went along with what there was to finish it before the deadline. Especially when we had to combine our ideas together, it was difficult for a unanimous idea. We were slight loss in how to perform our idea using grasshopper as well as the actual model.

I must admit that we were taking this lazily as we tried to create something that is possible for both grasshopper and actual model. I wanted to go crazier in the design, however the time running out and lack of skills in grasshopper discouraged me to do so. While currently looking back at it, perhaps Taking greater risks and exploring more would have created a very different result from the one now.

Digital design fabrication was the subject that had taught me the most. It really pushed the limits to designing and fabricating the model. It’s one the very project I’m proud to present because of the hard work undergone. We faced so many challenges in the design process and solved them to end up with this result. The limitation on material size that couldn’t produce such large panels.

Resulting in using creating a puzzle for the panel, utilising glue and reinforcement strips on the side to prevent it from breaking apart. The process of weaving all the strings in took around four days to accomplish.

Aside from what we had accomplish, the stability of the sleeping pod attaching to the chair was in question. There was risk of it buckling under pressure. This model dos not have a very fancy/ cool exterior, it’s rather humble in its form and colour. It’s the details created such as the panels and attachment on to the chair that makes it the highlight. Would I have done anything differently?

Perhaps on better finishes to make the joints seamless. However, this design compared to my earth project, there are less insatisfaction and changes I would of made due to the extent explored. It shows the impact of working in a team compared to individually that it allows the design to be more mature as in the design process, there is always someone to guide, discuss, criticise the design with.

DIGITAL DESIGN FABRICATION

B3

What to Do When Stuck

DESIGN PROCESS To produce a good design: - Never try to do or to design the best or the most beautiful, the perfect - Always, try to tease out what is possible (even if it looks very strange at first), then choose.

When we are stuck: - Take a Break - Changing Designer’s Frame of Reference - Changing Medium of Working - Changing When You Work - Arbitrary Exercises - Arbitrary Time periods When I am stuck on my design, I always tend to take a break from the work, leave it for a few minutes. Sometimes, I find it more helpful visiting pinterest as there are so many inspiration in that website Blocks: Perceptual Block - Cannot see problem or useful information – eg through stereotyping Emotional Block - Fear of risk, unable to tolerate ambiguity, prefer to judge not generate, cannot relax Environmental Block - Lack of cooperation, trust; autocratic leader, distractions, lack of support for realization Intellectual Block - Inflexibility, inadequate use of approaches, insufficient and/or incorrect information Expressive Block - Inappropriate language / mode of approach, inadequate language / mode for expressing or recording ideas

DESIGN WORKSHOP DESIGN ACTIVITY (POETRY)

The activity involved in creating an unconventional transport vehicle that did not have to be practical and emphasised purely in the imagination. While my design really took the imaginary part to its extreme. My design surrounded the concept of ‘tube city’, where to get from one destination to another was through sliding down tubes. These tubes are located upon the sky surrounding the tall commercial buildings. While the translucency ensures enough sunlight reaches the ground, it also allows user to enjoy ‘floating’ in the sky.

Disadvantage: - fear of heights Aerial plan view of how it runs across the city buildings.

- one destination and one person per ride - unable to carry much accessories/luggage for the passenger

DESIGN ACTIVITY (AMENITY) The activity my group came up with was based on a design brief. Students are to create a mind map within the first 15 minutes based on the design brief, considering the following questions and factors. Materialit, allocation of rooms, exterior and interior, how does the envionrment /surrounding impact your design, rustic or modern, how would the family utilise each space? There are many questions to consider when looking into this design brief. One factor i wanted to emphasise was how would the family utilise each space, is each space permanent, does living room purely have to be just a living room, how can each space’s functionality change, how would your design encourage these changes? There are many questions I was inspired by when looking into this brief.

Aim: It aims to generate new ideas and proposals for the construction and delivery of a new house and its setting on a former site for a golf course that’s surrounded by a lake. The design responses should demonstrate a concept of beauty whilst providing a home that responds to the brief, from concepts to details.

Users: ‘A Lake House’ will be inhabited by a family of 7, to include 4 adults and 3 children, it will also need to accommodate guests.

The Site: Formerly a golf course and golf club house, the site now hosts a residential home that comprises of one residential dwelling with several out buildings that is surrounded by large lakes and agricultural/forestry land. The site and surrounding area is rural in character and within the Metropolitan Green Belt. Access is via a driveway from one main road and a number of footpaths cross the site.

DESIGN WORKSHOP

Glass facade extension to the take, enjoying/floating on top of the lake.

Contrary of modern and rustic nature, free-form trees vs cubed housing.

DESIGN ACTIVITY (TECHNOLOGY) Part 1: Come up with a futuristic material Examples: -metal foam -transparent steel -aera gel -light transmitting concrete

Part 1: Come up with a futuristic material Examples: -metal foam -transparent steel -aera gel -light transmitting concrete The material I came up with at first was a freeform gel; as its transparent and can be easily moulded to create different form, almost like a clear played. However, I realise this type of material would be hard to use in large context, as a single crash could change its form; thus one movement can effect the stability of its whole.

The second material I thought of was edible timber, having materials that are edible makes it easy to change just by eating (?) it, its actually something that exists. Edible utensils are a great way to reduce the use of plastic and a small step towards sustainable development. Edible timber however cannot be used as structural elements; as termites and other hazards can eat the structure of the house down causing collapse. The idea behind edible timber in use besides turning them into utensils was creating garment out of them.

The form of dress can be altered through eating from formal suit to a day dress.

DESIGN WORKSHOP REFLECTION During the activity that my group came up with, I find myself very weak in creating this design. The reason behind that is that I already have this imagery of how the lake house is going to look like in my mind. In my head I knew that I wanted to create this glasshouse sitting on the water for a refuel impact. But looking back at my design and other precedents, there are so many examples like this. I can’t find anything particularly special in my design compared to others. Also, one topic that could have been explored was is one space a permanent function, would a living room only be a living room? Can it perform more functions. This could have been an interesting direction to look at, but I was overly concentrated on my first imagery.

The activity that I thought was the most interesting out of all was the futuristic material. Because there is really no limits to how far our imagination can expand in this case. Whether they’re be anti-gravity materials, transparent or many other characteristics, it allows our mind to be set free. At first, it was very difficult to think of anything, which happens in lot of cases. I tend to deal with more restrictive topics better than those that require imagination and letting loose from the limitations I set myself.

The more I do these activities, the more I realism weaknesses and things I want to change. But it’s very difficult to leave the comfort zone you are so use to in. Often looking at precedents and other people’s work, I would always think how did they think about that, why can’t i think of the same thing. Or I would see a design that I really like and actually recreate something very similar in a design project that I think matches with it. This is when I release what I’m doing is wrong, I should’t be holding an answer and finding the question that fits with it. Rather I should be using the question to create something of my own, my unique response/solution to this question. Using precedents as inspiration taking parts of what’s behind the idea and incorporating it in the design process. Not replicating the characteristics but adapting them, look for its weakness and resolve it, improve it to become something better.

C1

Developing Design Ideas

DESIGN A POP-UP In class exercise, we were split into groups based on technology, amenity and poetry, while everyone were to choose the area they have not touched on yet. Poetry is the area for which I have not really looked into in previous activity, it’s an area that really concentrates on the emotion or aesthetic of a product, different from amenity from it’s functions and technology into how things should work. Poetry in my interpretation is an area for imaginary expansion, there are not so much limit to how far you could design. It focus on the symbolism of what you a designer tries to convey, what each element in your design mean and how that meaning affects the users using it.

Class Exercise: Design a boutique retail pop-up Location: Melbourne Central It’s important to consider what you are designing and why?

Look into...

- The emotion, symbolism , shape and form - Method of narrative - Story of the store - Space of narrative - Each space how they carry the narrative

Narrative becomes an important aspect to building around the design project. What’s the theme we are trying to create? How are we going to build the theme? With colours?

Material?Lighting? Shape and form? How are we to guide the users to come through the pop-up? What’s the experience users will have? There are so many questions that a arises based on just purely the narrative of the shop.

Our group’s first decision was to decide what the pop-up is going to sell. As it’s a temporary store, what’s something that doesn’t rely heavily on permanent facilities and it’s okay for exposure unlike more regular enclosed stores. Pop-ups undoubtedly lacks privacy and that can be used as one of it’s attractive points, 360 degrees showing off the content makes what we are going to sell important. It needs to be a product that’s fun and eye catching whether in it’s fun characteristics, colour or sound. Clothing and jewellery pop-ups are some of the most common, but we wanted to challenge ourselves to create a more unordinary pop-up. Food (drinks/candy) can be a great option in attractiveness, while in the end, we settled with flowers. It has it’s own natural character and the variety in smell, size and colour has its own charm to many potential buyers.

DESIGN WORKSHOP DESIGN A POP-UP Product:Flower - Creating a path to guide - Maze like path —puzzle breaking into pieces (e.g A whole cube, breaking into pieces like tetris, re-re-organize these pieces in a maze/pathway)

- Space and senses - How should the path be like, one destination to another destination (Point A to Point B) or one destination to various (Point A to Point B C D)

- We wanted to have a more complex path for users to experience, unlike those with just one permanent end or start, we wanted to explore the concept of possibility and choices.

- Hedge maze was one of the ideas suggested, flower walls used as barrier and structure of maze. There comes the question of how to make flower into walls, using the idea of wine racks as the base of the walls, flowers are placed in each ring. And filling here rings would form a flower wall.

The flower wall concept also gives consumers a chance for close contact with nature/flower, also suggesting the idea of a DIY flower pop-up, as many now prefer self-service over someone following you around, we wanted to incorporate this into our design.

Consumers are able to pick the flower they want for their bouquet, using their own vision rather than setting those ready for them. They can pick the flower on the way of the maze, coming towards the centre table, where the wrapping and paying process is located at.

The location of pop-up was decided based on few factors; 1. sunlight/natural light for flowers; 2. location with many people accessing and exiting; 3. wide and empty enough to fit a small maze. Based on these influences, the most fit location was the bridge between Melbourne Central and Emporium, the glasshouse design allows enough natural light but also allows those from the outside to see the pop-up store. It’s also a location with generous amount of people transiting through, thus it would allow enough users to come into the pop-up.

PRESENTING POP-UP Because of the poetic nature we needed to look into, we wanted to decide upon a theme or a story behind this pop-up shop.

Because of the product we selected, flower, the first idea that topped up in my mind was the movie Alice in Wonderland. The 3D movie directed by Tim Burton had this mysterious and mythical sense, where the contrary between the bright and dark in most scenes had incredible dramatic impact.

I wanted to have this kind of story behind the pop-up using the colours of the flowers.

While exploring the movie, we had better understanding of the origin and cruelty behind these children stories. This area is actually fairly interesting to research upon, however, due to the time limit, we didn’t really incorporate much of this information in our design. But in the future, I’m looking forward to utilise the twisted facts behind the innocent tales in my own design.

Alice and Wonderland Tea Table Final Presentation Theme/Movie: Alice in Wonderland Concept: curiosity, innocence, fantasy world, childhood, fairytale, choices The whole theme of the flower maze pop-up surrounds the movie Alice in Wonderland, we wanted to explore the concept of childhood vs maturity; through the transition of colours from light to dark created by flowers; we want users to experience the fantasy of entering another world, much like Alice in the rabbit hole. Continuing on the journey as a child, we face many choices and confusion much like what’s created through the maze. The colour of flowers represent our mood as a kid, sometimes it can be light, sometimes aggressive and sometimes blue. The journey in the maze separates us from the reality, gives us sometime to return back to our childhood memories and a time to have close contact with some flowers, with natural light.

The Maze is contracted using flowers, users are able to pick our the flower they want through baskets provided in both entrances/exits. The entrances/exits depending on which direction you stand is guarded by the cards from Alice in Wonderland. We continue this theme with the tea table located in the centre of the maze, which it’s also functional in wrapping flowers and paying for the bouquet finished.

DESIGN WORKSHOP REFLECTION Whenever I’m given a design project, i tend to come up with lists of questions in how i interept the topic. Surrounding just a few key words provided in the design brief or the general topic, I like to extract these word out from the original content and create a mind map around it. Usually I like to start with synonyms of the word and expand upon that. I find this to be a very important step in my own design process, because I’m very reliant on these words to guide me through my thinking process. It’s the same with having your own design motif in a project, there is always a certain word or two that you would persistently use to describe your work.

Through my thinking process, I like to question myself a lot, many based on why am I doing this certain step? What is it going to look like? How would this work? It’s these constant questions that make me continually question my work and discover the weakness or areas I have not fulfilled. Unlike some designers who sometimes already have a image of their design in their mind when they read the topic, I’m someone who seems constantly lost. It’s hard for me to come up with an imagery straight away, and many times in these questions that I list myself, I start to doubt my work and sometimes lost in thoughts into how should I answer these questions in my design.

The lecture raised a topic that I’m fairly interested in, the scale of the project. I have not really thought prior to this how the scale would affect my own design tactics. Target audience is a factor that I put a lot less effort in exploring in my projects. Asking myself the question — who are the people that is going to use this site/design/garment? I often find it hard to come up with an answer besides potential users who passes the location. I now learn to classify these users as a big community/society, groups or individual. And based on the category, i know where to focus at, whether concentrating on the symbolic meaning, behavioural performance or individual’s perceptual experience.

While talking about the fairy tales and the bloody truth behind it, this is quite a big field to explore. We often overlook these stories for children, as children, we see them as bed time stories of a utopian world, however when we mature and realise the violence behind the stories that grew up with us, we seem to be shocked by this sudden overturn of what we had believed in since a child. While in architecture, we can project this emotion in growth into the shape or form, or the general experience users would have walking through the architecture. In some of the drafts forming in my mind, the design could be a structure with a very smooth and organic form, much like many designs of Zaha Hadid. While the internal surfaces are formed by sharp edges, both internal and external surfaces would be unified in colours, hiding the sharp edges. Gives users inside this chilled feeling but the pointy edges cannot be clearly seen and slightly camouflaged by the unison in colour. Using this misdirection to create something that’s there at your back but you are not able to identify where this dangerous feeling is coming from.

C2

Evaluating and Selecting between Ideas

DESIGN A PAVILION Design a Pavilion on Herring Island

Site

Form

Herring Island

Enclosed

Vegetation

Shading

Geometric

slope/ topography

water feature

Open/ exposed Mandatory Spaces

Organic

Circulation

Usage

Size

Symmetrical/ asymmetrical

Pathways/ transitional space

Symbol

Timber Steel

Mandatory

Secret Concrete

Toilet

Community space Personal/ private

existing building structure

Access/ exit

Material

Cafe Electrical room Place for children

weather Why? Fast Diagram

How?

Diagram is a fast and powerful tool to use to translate the relationship of why the design is this way and how the design ended like this.

DESIGN WORKSHOP TEAM ACTIVITY It is not my first time working with Cindy and Arwa, we had previously worked together to develop our logo during the first studio. This time, creating our own firm, we still continued to use our first name’s initial as the firm’s name.

Rather than creating a complex design, we wanted to keep it as simple as possible. The combination of ACF was something we had to solved first, AFC sounded too similar to KFC unfortunately, thus we went with CAF, which also allows it to be pronounced as caf for short.

While for our key principle design, we had a few different idea 1. Our goal is to create engaging designs that are flexible for client needs 2. Whatever great things we built together end up building us There were undoubdtly many drafts for the key design principle, because we have no worked together on a design project before, it’s harder to know each other’s aesthetics, whether they match or can be joined together in on sentence. In the end, we chose something that was both short and powerful in its meaning.

NAME: CAF Architecture Key Design Principle: Architecture should speak for itself

Explaining our key design principle; We are to create a design that is…

- Appealing - Expressive - Self-explanatory - Flexible for client needs

ARCHITECTURE

DESIGN A PAVILION The Herring Island project is based on one concept - a place for secrets. Thus there are so many questions we can consider.

Secret: for a minority of people; only they could identify it while others cannot; it could be something that only the architect knows but users don’t Do you want people to discover the secret?

Who should know about the secret? How do you decide who find the secret? What is the secret? This is the ultimate question, so what replay is this secret, why should it be hidden, it is partly revealed or completely in the dark without notice. Can the secret be tangible or it is intangible, purely an experience or something that you can touch.

Pavilion has to have shelter?

The geometric objects hung inside a splitted wall. The darkness of the hall contrarry with the light

Our group decided to explore secret in the context where only a minority of people who enter the pavilion can see. We wanted to utilise the height of people, creating blindspots for those with certain height but others can easily see. One idea was have gaps in the walls that are around 190cm tall, that way only those who are 175cm above is able to see what’s inside the gap, while those shorter would just pass by it. The interior gap would be where we store the secret, it can be a view that no one else could see, or interior there could be a story about herring island or some play inside. Each gap can be a different scene, adding together a story that allows people to follow the gap and walk through the pavilion.

The second idea I proposed was abandoning the form of a pavilion, this place doesn’t have to be restricted with walls or roads, but it could be objects that guide users to a path. My idea was having thee geometric balls hanging onto the tress. Inside these abstract shaped objects, I continues the same idea for secrets, having scenes of stories inside. Where people who look up can see the interior and be attracted to the story. The geometric objects can be hung around the trees to form a path.

Another idea that was developed form tis was having the objects to have different cuts that allow the sunlight to penetrate through. The different shapes cut onto the object can be projected on the ground. Depends on the time of the day, the shadows casted on the floor can produce different pattern and the pattern can perhaps be a way to provide direction or some kind of guide for the users.

DESIGN WORKSHOP REFLECTION Team activity is not always my strong point, it really depends on what role you can play and how your group mates react. I try to be more of the listener and ones who provide suggestions to ideas, but whenever it comes to a group task in design studios, I end up becoming the leader and one who comes up with most of the ideas.

At least usually I’m the one who talks the most in the team trying to get everyone to participate. It’s harder to work in a team where no one speaks than a team that everyone wants to talk.

At the first year of studying architecture, my skills in leadership and communication was completely different than what’s now. I have improved immensely in communicating my ideas verbally and visually. Especially in verbal presentations, I’ve become louder to speaking my thoughts and design process without having to draft everything beforehand. I believe it’s been the practices and presentations that I have done in all previous studios that have helped me to develop such skill. Thus this is why I’m becoming more confident in a group, leading people to discuss their ideas.

But I am still facing difficulty in how to make everyone speak and share, or conclude an idea that would satisfy everyone. I hope in future group projects, I’m able to develop further in these skills and play a better role in a team.

Herring Island project was a project that I have done already last year, but it has been something that I’m not satisfied with. My work did lack a lot compared to others and this year discussing with current students who are studying this, I’ve been inspired more and saw lot more possibilities in changing my design. Thus using this chance in design workshop, I try to abandon the previous concept I settled with for Studio Earth, which was fragmentation, secret being most hidden underground but is partly revealed; secret being the darkness, but darkness exists with light, thus revealing secret is unavoidable. I tried to start fresh in looking into secret as the concept, how can i interpret in another way besides it being just the darkness.

The first idea of having gap in the brick wall as secrets for those in a certain height was considered a pretty rough idea in my mind. It in some way lacked creativity and all that was being proposed is purely a wall. I feel like a lot of times in my design, I tend to always start building with walls. But sometimes I believe is to challenge ourselves beyond just block building. Why does it always have to have walls? Why can’t other elements act as a wall but is multifunctional? Using some transparent or movable elements as the wall, for example like water, vegetation or just completely exposed. The wall idea also lacked thoughts into how tall should it really be to make sure only some people are able to see it. How would you know others wont tell each other and keep it a secrete. If they do tell each other, is this against the concept of secret?

The second idea I had was much more free form as the pavilion didn’t take form as a usual pavilion would, it’s not a shelter but it’s only object hanging on existing trees. Its a new way to explore things, using the existing natural elements such as the trees and sunlight to create the effect of secret. However, whether abandoning the shelter form of pavilion is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ is very dependant on how I can support my argument.

Why does pavilion have to have walls/roof/cover? Why can’t it be exposed and integrated with parts of the landscape? Does pavilion have to have a restricted area?

There are so many questions that can be explored within this.

C3

Design Communication

DESIGN & EXPERIENCE

Section/ topography of Herring Island

DESIGN WORKSHOP DESIGN & EXPERIENCE Variables Topography - RL relative level Enclosure - roof -plants -wall/face(NESU) -hand rail Materials -stone -alimiminum -brick These are the variables in design that mustbe considred in the Herring Island project. We can use simple diagrams as such to decide how the journey would be like, where should the roof be? What’s the distance between two features?

GARDEN DESIGN Bernard Tschumi’s design approach is fairly interesting, it’s actually something I’ve been try to work towards. He finds form far less interesting than a creative solution to a design project. While in most of my case,I always think about the form first, which I find this to be restrictive in developing further. It’s not totally abandoning the form or denying it’s importance, but it’s removing it from its prioritised position. Using form to elaborate further rather limiting the imagination.

Garden designs are influential in their ways of interpreting users experience. In my past journal reflections I have always mentioned users experience in design projects as I find that to be the number one factor I focus on when developing my design. I always question myself, how would I feel when I’m in this space, how would others feel, why would they feel this away.

Through this, I’m able to develop a design that achieves the desired mood or feeling I want to transfer to them. While looking into various garden design, special features all around such as the bridge or rocks create different turning points. And we cant sometimes use these in our own design. For example, rather than bridges in internal space, we can create slopes to slow people down.

REFLECTION Prior to Studio Earth and it’s Herring Island project, I have never thought about utilise natural landscape to be part of my design. I have always thought of just a flat surface, place my building onto it and that’s done. Part of me is also unwilling to challenge myself to have my design on slopes as that require much more measurement and exploration into the topography of landscape. However, in Studio Earth, i decided to challenge myself, rather than having my site on flat area inside Herring Island, I planned by pavilion close to the edge of island, providing both the slope, vegetation and river for me to utilise. And it also pushed me further in using natural sunlight in contrary with shadow to create the light and dark effect of hiding and revealing secret.

Before studying about architecture, I’ve always thought we are only responsible for the building itself, the environment around it is up to landscape architects. However, over the years it has proven me wrong, architecture is so much more than just the cold structure, it’s everything around it, the site, environment, even small things like the weather, soil condition, vegetation; it overlaps to the structural system to the people accessing and using this place. What we design affects these elements, yet how we design are also effected by them. It’s a two-way relationship, thus it becomes important to understand the surrounding elements that would interest with our design.

Presentation become key in architecture studio, how you communicate your ideas cross, no matter how good your idea is, if you aren’t able to convey it through properly, it’s difficult to leave impression other people’s mind. As not everyone is the tutor who went through your design process with you, being able to present your whole process using clear imagery and verbal presentation becomes crucial. Thus now I understand better why final presentations there always would be a guest critic or prior to that there would be other tutors coming in to evaluate your work. I have had presentation problems in the first year, afraid to speak and cluttering too much words on the poster makes my idea very unclear. It was then looking at other high score examples that I realise how important it is to make the presentation clean, with larger diagrams and images, less words, speak them rather than writing them down. I have improved much more in presenting my ideas, scoring higher in this section compared to others.

DESIGN WORKSHOP REFLECTION So what really did I learn in Design Workshop? Purely precedents, design approaches? No, its much more than that, rather than learning the design styles or how to design, I’m reflecting on my current design decisions and steps, evaluating how mine differs from examples provided. Exploring the weaknesses that I face in designing, such as having a fitted answer before the question is even explored.

I’m learning how to think through these process, learning about the way I learn, understanding where I fit into when it comes to design.

There were so many tools provided to assist you in achieving better in design studios, providing different direction of thinking and exploring the topic. However, because I’m currently not doing any studio, I have slight disadvantage in this. But it allows me to look back at the previous work and reflect on areas I would have done differently and why, what other topics could I have explored more of and areas I have ignored previously.

Studio exercises are what I believe helped me the most throughout this semester.

Small exercises keep my head running and keeps me in pace with small design projects even though I’m currently not in a studio. The crazy nine activity was one that I thought could push you to your limit with the time restriction, rather thinking too much, it allows you to draw what immediately comes to your head when you hear about the topic. This gives you a chance to see on paper usually what goes you your mind, the things you might have eliminated and the things that you might have ignored in your brain.

How has design workshop changes me? Quite frankly, I still don’t know yet, I feel like I would know the answer when I begin my next studio class, as the changes and things I have learnt from Design Workshop aren’t really just facts, but they are the way I would do things, which can only be shown when I start another design project. But what puts of me would I wished to have changed? A lot of habits that I have when starting the project is being shown, the way I use precedents and focusing on form too much. Design Workshop would remind me of these habits, and hopefully in the future, I am able to explore another direction differ from the current habits.

One things that have definitely increased is the times I question myself. The amount of questions I would ask myself about this design. There are so many questions that can arise through a simple design task, and these provide guidance to how the design would end up like. But how to answer these questions is still something I need to work on. A lot of times, I list these questions, but I could barely answer half of them with my design. Then I would give up, which this is somethings that requires more practice and patience. I hope in the future facing design challenges, I am able to use what I’ve learnt in this class and other studios to overcomes and provide the creative solution for the problem.