Dillon, Lauren

I enjoy being very loving because I have a lot of passion for things as people and if feels good to consistently share that with others. Honesty is the most important because I find an unhonest person is untrustworthy and does not deserve my trust. Friendship is so important to me and requires a lot of respect to be successful and I specifically make sure to expect dependability. My creativity gives me purpose and i find being purposeful gives me so much happiness. To be able to be flexible with situations allows for me to be more positive toward change or life itself.

% Arabica Coffee

The % Arabica coffee shop is located in Chengdu, China and is located in the courtyard of the new Chengdu Regular shopping center. This Japanese coffee brand is renowned for its white minimalist designs across 17 different countries. ARCHIEE is a parisian architecture firm that blended the structural and minimal design of Japanese culture with Paris cafe culture to create this design. This interior design successfully enriched the customer’s experience at all stages and encouraged them to enjoy their coffee in all stages of the space as well as enjoy the views of the surrounding landscape. In sequence the spatial design is a horizontal composition with a mirrored reflection between the upper and lower section, which is a reference to Japanese reflecting pools. A sculptural element starts the sequence of spaces by creating a buffer between the entrance and the service counter to create a tunnel like interior feature.

Where is your memorable cultural place?

ARCA Wynwood Design Center - cultural center Miami, USA

The Arco Wynwood Design center’s colorful exterior contrasting with its neutral interior is a cultural experience for natural and technological materials. The overall experience when entering is to explore the theory of our current economic ideals of material construction is like a force of nature. This is like a museum grade experience as visitors transition into the large warehouse like space that is divided into two staggered stories. The bar like shape of this space allows the spaces to flow in a linear fashion. The monochromatic neutral color of the interior allows the focus to be on th products. . Having the materials be showcased in such a manner that they are presented to the visitor as a force of nature and allows the visitor to have an interactive and sensory experience with the products . The Axon in particular showcases the spatial proportion from the large warehouse space to the smaller display rooms. The configuration of the products and interactions with the space create an experiential design that focuses on displaying worldy products with organization and class while offering a custom, intriguing, and unique cultural experience between suppliers and designers.

Where do you want to be treated?

QUB rooms / TAMARA wibowo Architects

QUB Hotel is a 10 room, 3 story hotel designed by TAMARA Wibowo Architects. Located in a dense commercial strip in Indonesia the layout of this long yet skinny site was well designed. The facade is varied sizes of opening to blur the contents of the interior and visual understanding of each floor. Also louver windows are located at the front and back of the building to allow for cross ventilation through the hallways that span the entire length of each floor. The staircase located in the back is fully perforated to add transparency and movement as well as ventilation. Room doors do not face the main hallway and allow privacy with openings within the wall. The occupant has the understanding that this renovated space allows for enjoyment of personal space as well as shared communal interaction within the circulation. The play on light brings a natural element to rather straightforward commercial design of the hotel. Greenery is planted within the openings of the facade to bring fresh air through the cross ventilation of the circulation sequence.

Royal Hospital for Children and Young People in Edinburgh / Projects Office

The Royal Hospital for Children and Young People designed by Projects Office is located in Edinburgh and is made to feel like a non-institutional inpatient care facility. While looking distinctly different from most hospital the bring colors and patterns with the rounded corners and openings gives a lively feel to the interior. Designed after many patient and family interviews to create a space with subtle details that make a third place that is neither a hospital or a home. Features are customizable in the personal spaces to be customizable so each patient has a personal experience which can be then brought to a clean slate for new incoming patients. This is a healthcare space that has curated furniture, lighting, colors, built-ins, and spatial layout creates richer and more useful spaces. As a facility for 5-18 year olds a coastal theme is portrayed through shapes, graphics, and color scheme to reiterate a sense of third place and resonate with a playful and joyful theme with the youth. Rounded archways, furniture, and wall dividers give a sense of safety and privacy to the patients. The most important part of this mental unit for youths is to avoid feeling of isolation or selection so there are seating area inset into the walls of main and private areas to allow for the therapists to visit with the youth in a more togetherness manner. This sequence of transitional zones throughout the facility create each space to have a usage with opportunities for pirate or public interaction.

Homme Store

The Homme Store is designed as a unique experience as an addition to this casual men’s wear retail store, it juxtaposes an urban environment within a highly commercial shopping mall. The most significant aesthetic features to accomplish an urban shopping experience is the exposed structure, ventilation, and lighting systems. Added with the oversized ceiling height, this Homme concept store addition uses royal blues to invite the visitors to seek the new space. To further identify the urban identity the compact spiral staircase directs visitors into the store with industrial rafters for clothing displays and mirror elements to further explore the products. After a visitor completes their shopping experience there is a centrally located check out desk that leads customers to seek refreshments at the bar located in the back of the store. This bar feature is a way for the shopping experience to be reworked into having the visitors combine their time shopping with a cocktail bar experience. The use of materials, colors, lighting, and spatial proportion elevates the dull commercial retail mall experience into an innovative and exciting shopping and drinking adventure.

Which space do you think best embodies equity, inclusion, and social justice?

MLK1101 Supportive Housing / Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects

The MLK1101 Supportive housing located in Los Angeles, CA is an uplifted housing development for previously homeless individuals to thrive. This 100% affordable housing project offers 26 units, on site ground level parking, social hub, bike storage, car charging station, community garden and relaxation patio, tiered breezeway for solar shading and cross ventilation.This design offers a sense of community and social interaction through its placement with the street and openness with L shape design. Prioritizing social equity as well as the health and well being of the residents with cross ventilation, inclusion of elevated green patio for enjoyment and social space away from the noisy street, and environmentally responsible LEED gold certified design including solar water heating and high efficiency appliances. The shared amenities of this design gives back to the community and residents by offering a shared kitchen as well as clubroom to sponsor educational meetings as well as social events. The apartments vary in floor plan to allow for many different residential needs from individuals to families looking for a chance to better themselves and become apart of the community.

Santa Maria Goretti Church / Mario Cucinella Architects Mormanno, Italy

The Santa Maria Goretti is a Catholic church located in Mormanno, Italy. This religious building serves the local community through its architecture presence and sustainability contributions. The art of the design, the use of light through skylights, the courtyard design ties with nature, greenroofs, and community services offer a welcoming space for the community to worship. The flow from the tall clover shaped church with an entrance through a cross opening to the single story building in the back that has a central courtyard that leads to parish meeting rooms/ classrooms and the priests’ house then to a garden offers many multi use spaces. The moments of compression and expansion used within the spaces creates a sense of seclusion from reality and offers sanctuary for religious reflection while feeling close to nature with the use of gardens, courtyards, and skylights. The curves walls, roof line, and ceiling drapes offer an organic and unifying feeling compared to other orthogonal worship spaces.

Where do you want to live?

Corzuelas House / Tectum Architects / Argentina

The Corzuelas House by Tectum Architects is a gridded L-shape residential home located in the foothills of Argentina. One enters the concrete prefabricated exterior through a broad wooden pivot door and enters into the living room that then flows into the kitchen. This then leads into a hallway to the bedrooms. An L-shaped courtyard interlocks with L-shaped floor plan to offer views and an indoor outdoor experience with the large sliding doors in the living spaces. The L-shaped layout of the interior offers a separate wing for the bedrooms/bathrooms and living space. A perforated block wall separates the views of the courtyard from the street.

What is your plan after this semester? -> I will be working as an architecture intern for a global architecture firm in Dallas, Texas this summer. Then I will be studying abroad in Rome, Italy for the fall semester.

In the field of interior design (or in your major), what does it mean to learn about Human Factors for Design? -> As an architecture major and an interior design minor, human factors embodies the essence of how one experiences the space. Learning about human factors for design allows me to target the clients needs on a closer level that lets me become more aware of how all the parts of my designs can benefit the visitors.

During your learning inside and outside the classroom, did you encounter any difficulties? -> Not as much as a difficulty but something to spend more time on. I found the act of researching precedents that were implementing design factors that were very intriguing and innovative to be a difficult task but to be very rewarding to discover and learn once I found projects that were doing great things.

What is the composition of the process of travel through a transportation facility in your memory?

Lounge at Strigino International Airport / Nefa Architects

This Is a new passenger terminal at Stringio International airport. Designed for business class passengers there are cylinder lighting that is a warm glow to bring comfort to the space. Light wells in poles shoot down from the ceiling to divide space and offer mor illumination. Providing maximum comfort with a reception area and two soft lounge spaces. The entry is a lit hallway that transports the visitor from the busy terminal to the peaceful lounge. An intended image of an industrial city with the material choices makes this space intriguing, powerful, inviting, and productive.

What is the space of your desires?

Creative Care

I chose to reimagine this desire space axonometric of MLK 1101 Supportive Housing located in Los Angeles, CA due to its successful integration of human factor design through interesting roof line, purposeful program design, positive accessibility, and incorporation of inspiring environmental design practices. I combined attributes from the Royal Hospital for Children and Young People in Edinburgh to add elements of curvilinear wall built-ins and more welcoming spatial design of the amenities, as well as incorporating color blocking and environmental factors like skylights and courtyards from the Santa Maria Goretti Catholic church located in Mormanno, Italy. As a desire space I chose to incorporate the interesting roof slope from the MLK 1101 Supportive Housing social project throughout the sequence to enhance the experience of each space to further its environmental factors of skylights, rain collection, and breezeways. From my progress throughout this semester I wanted to incorporate the favorable design factors from the social, healthcare, and religious project studies to create this artist live-work design progression to allow for visitors to fulfill their desire to have a resourceful, pleasant, welcoming, inspiring, and wholesome indoor-outdoor creative environment.

What did you learn by examining the interaction between behavioral and environmental factors? -> I learned that there are many solutions to problems but certain designers really execute the discrepancy between these two more successfully. I learned that as a designer if you were to take these two factors and let them work together the experiential design of the project is a lot more throughout and beneficial.

What would you like to tell your instructor? -> This class has allowed me to take time from thinking about my usual design perceptions and to take a step back and really analyze the design features at play at a lot of different programmatic projects and see the benefits of implementing human factors in design, so thank you.

Designing Above and Beyond | Meaning, Aspiration, and Purpose Personal Statement

Introduction Most define a retail store as a place to buy goods, however for designers it is an opportunity to connect the consumer to the brand, by utilizing emotional and physical connections. Retailers target the clients needs and have evolved with the digital age to offer advanced connections with technology. However technology has offered its own effects on the in-person shopping experience. Designers are now facing the difficult challenge of bridging the gap between the online shopping experience to that of shopping in brick and mortar stores. Retail design has had to overcome the ease and personal experience that comes with online shopping and design the retail experience to deliver consumers goods and services with similar ease in a design space. Forbes has found,“New research proves that consumers are expecting, if not demanding, highly personalized experiences. And the good news, for those businesses that can deliver, is that customers are typically willing to spend more when they receive such custom-tailored service. They want personalized recommendations” (Forbes, Personalized Customer Experience Increases Revenue And Loyalty 2017). This has led to the incline of retail stores searching to design retail spaces that focus on the personal experience of the consumer. This offers retailers to seek a personalized experience for the consumer to create their own unique shopping experience that finds their needs, as well as gain the freedom (see figure 1 above), to take back their power over basic marketing schemes.

Description In a changing world retailers must view their responsibility to the consumer as a customizable and personal experience,“ One size does not fit all. Knowing what your customers want and need could be the one thing that solidifies their decision to do business with you” (Forbes, Personalized Customer Experience Increases Revenue And Loyalty 2017). In the Innovation and Experimentation Studio I was a part of this semester let students dissect the ways retailers are pushing the envelope of customer connection and bringing back the customers who want to shop in stores more. After dissecting many retail design practices, I chose to focus my design project to target a retail experience that gave the “freedom to choose” back to the customer. Reviving a commerce experience that doesn’t rely on the marketing schemes of corporate brands to believe they know what is best for the consumer. By listening to the needs of the people and supplying design concept stores that ignite interest and bring the consumer to hold the power over their purchasing. The idea of brand transparency brought me to create a space for customers to better themselves with products that share the information customers need to educate themselves and trust their purchasing decisions.

Pop: Honest, Lifestyle, Retailer When being tasked with designing a retail store that enhances the in-person shopping experience with the implementation of technology, I chose to design Pop, an honest lifestyle retailer. Branding on the essence of bursting the bubble of mainstream marketing gimmicks to deliver full brand transparency and an empowering, educating, and honest shopping experience. The design of this store is centered around a circular walking ramp that connects the three floors. The program organization was a progressional decision that would further target customers’ needs on a more intimate level. Starting with the bottom floor there are community care products including a cafe, bubble bar, and community hub that allows visitors to donate their old products for brands to recycle. Then one would make their way up to the second floor that offers confidence and self care products as well as a beauty bar to further help customers find products that fit their exact needs and wants for skin, hair, and accessories. Lastly making it up to the top floor, that targets creative care needs that include music, art, and home supplies as well as a restaurant and rooftop garden. Choosing to emphasize the idea that it is “cool to care” I developed interactive kiosks that allows for the product information that is available in most online experiences to be accessible at the touch of a finger to let customers have access to everything they need to know on each of the products available through complete brand transparency. This also plays into the idea that this retailer is seeking the needs and wants of the consumer by supporting their decisions in a very honest and trustworthy manner. Overall this design plays off design elements of color, material, lighting, and ceiling height to invite the customer to create their own shopping journey that allows them to find freedom in the retail world again by gaining the power to choose the best products for their needs based on brand transparency assistance.

Conclusion As the designers of the future, the responsibility is in our hands to create solutions for the issues facing the built world. While that seems like a daunting task, the retail world offers many opportunities for improvement and bettering the lives of people and businesses. Seeking design experiences that connect the consumer to the brand on a very personal and customizable level allow products, displays, and amenities to be used as tools of betterment and not marketing gimmicks.

References Shep Hyken. (2017, October 27). Personalized Customer Experience Increases Revenue And Loyalty Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/shephyken/2017/10/29/personalized-customer-experience-increases-revenue-and-loyalty/?sh=5114ca7f4bd6 Bartuska, T. J. (2007). The Built Environment: Definition and Scope. In W. R. McClure & T. J. Bartuska (Eds.), The Built Environment: a Collaborative Inquiry into Design and Planning (2nd ed., pp. 3–14)