Hammond, Virginia

I am driven by my passions, and they push me to be very hard-working. I don’t like to give up easily, and I love to think outside the box. I strive to be my genuine self, and not put up fake personalities around others. I think it’s important to work hard and be persistent for your own goals, but while also being caring for those around you.

Where do you want to work?

ZENTRAL Café Restaurant / Messner Architects

Zentral Cafe is a restaurant in Italy. It is comprised of three main zones. The first zone is the entry bar ordering area. It has a darker professional feel. Zone two is a bright seating area near the entry. It’s next to the big archway windows, and allows in a lot of natural light. It blurs the line between the public entry and private seating. It’s the primary “statement piece” of the interior design. Zone three is a more shaded back room of seating, with a more personal feel. As you move through the space, the zones get more personal and private, and move further from the outdoor entry.

ARTi Architect Office by ARTi Architect

This office was designed by ARTi Architect, whose office now occupies the space, in 2021. It is located in Bangkok, Thailand. The focus of this office was to have outdoor balconies along the office that you enter through. The architects believe that working closely with nature elements is very important to wellbeing and working productivity. They created shared workspaces, to allow people to interact and collaborate more freely with their coworkers and the nature around them.

Where do you want to be treated?

Hotel Magdalena by Bunkhouse Group and Lake Flato

This hotel was designed with the city of Austin as its inspiration. It draws from 50s Austin lake houses, musicians from the area, and artistic themes related to the city. You enter into the mid century style lobby, with shelves of vintage items above it. It’s meant to take you back in time to the inspirational places the building is based off of. The bar and its patio also are designed with a vintage feel, utilizing antique items and items from local artists and craftsmen. The pool area is a central social hub for the hotel as well. A major theme of this hotel is socializing with others and bringing together people who love Austin and its history. The guest rooms draw from smart design principles from well known architects as well, maximizing their use of space and the guests’ comfort.

NEXUS8 Traumatology Clinic by MAGICARCH

This project aims to stray from the usual idea of care and form. MAGICARCH wants people to reimagine the way they understand healthy spaces. The space utilizes out of the ordinary geometric shapes and bright colors to symbolize the diversity of care that they offer. The variety of spaces they create are different for each kind of care they offer. The space creates different “atmospheres” for different treatments.

Where do you want to live?

Kettl Tea Flagship - Michael Tower Architecture

This project is a small, intimate tea shop. All the sequence areas take place in the same room, from entering alongside the merchandising display, to sitting alongside where the ordering takes place. The close adjacency of each location in the shop makes for a small-town, local experience. You feel closer to the shop employees, and their low amount of seating makes the location feel like a more personal, intimate experience.

House in Tsukimiyama - Peak Studio

This home was designed specially for the experience of the family that lives here, with two young children. It was designed to integrate the human experience with nature, in a home with changing levels that mimics terrain and natural topography. It utilizes a lot of warm wood and natural light to bring outside elements inside, and create a playful place for the family to grow into.

How is the authority of gov. and religion expressed in space?

Jadgal Elementary School / Daaz Office This elementary school was intended to be sustainable and fit a very low budget. They wanted to create a functional and flexible space that fit the needs of the community. The space is designed in the form of a circle, with the schoolyard in the middle. Each room is multi-functional, and has a lot of outdoor space to use for learning as well. This is a space where the children can play and learn outside, and they are not constrained to standard educational practices.

Shonan Christ Church - Takeshi Hosaka Architects

This chapel is simple in design and prioritizes quality worship experience over ornamentation. It utilizes natural daylight and warm natural materials to focus the user on the worship. The curved, organic roofs allow light rays in.

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

Where is your memorable cultural place?

Platov Business Terminal / Nefa Architects

This project is a business centered rest area within an airport. It is specialized for people traveling for business. It creates special zones for passengers, whether they just want to wait in a traditional lounge for their flight, visit a cafe bar, or if they have work to do, they can go into one of the private business rooms. There is also outdoor seating and garden space if you need to relax outdoors, or perhaps take a phone call outside. This terminal provides multiple options for people on business trips to take a break or continue to work before their next flight.

Arts Project Australia / Sibling Architecture

This project utilizes a white and green palette and curving forms to come across as welcoming and calming. This is a studio for artists with intellectual disabilities, so the colors are used to draw attention to seating and guidance help, like railings and pathways. The space is meant to be a tranquil place where the artists feel like they belong. It uses simple furniture that can be moved around depending on the workshop or intended use. The LED lights can also change colors for different moods.

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

MLK1101 Social Housing / Lorcan O’Herlihy Architects

This project is all about increasing the experience of those in need. It is a social housing project that creates community and working spaces for those in need of good quality housing. It includes a community garden and a community room with a shared kitchen for tenants. It also has a green roof of grass and plants, and nearby retail spaces allow for tenants to get jobs. The residents are formerly homeless people, and LOHA offers this space for people to get back on their feet and enjoy a very nice place to live and socialize. The individual apartments are accessible for tenants that have disabilities or illnesses that require additional care. LOHA has put a lot of care into making sure these residents that have been overlooked in the past have all the best living arrangements and ease of access in the new social housing complex.

What is your plan after this semester? -> After this semester, I am working a summer internship full time for Verdant Studio in Rogers. In the fall, I will return for my 4th year of architecture school.

In the field of interior design (or in your major), what does it mean to learn about Human Factors for Design? -> It means to design with humans in mind. It’s about designing for human comfort, human experience, and human lifestyles. There is a lot of variety of purpose in design, and you need to understand the setting you’re designing for. However, you always have to design with human interaction in mind.

During your learning inside and outside the classroom, did you encounter any difficulties? -> It was a transition period to settle into a more “normal” life this semester with Covid and the mask mandate lifting. Overall though, I had a good semester.

What did you learn by examining the interaction between behavioral and environmental factors? -> I think that I saw them before as two individual issues to be considered, but now I know that they’re interconnected. Discussing them both in design has helped me to integrate design thinking and systems thinking more, and I understand more how to consider behavioral and environmental factors as interdependent factors of design.

What would you like to tell your instructor? -> I enjoyed this class a lot! I liked how many examples and case studies we looked at, and I also enjoyed hearing about your personal work experiences. Thank you!

I chose to alter my isometric of the Gallery of ARTi Architect Office because I felt that the original isometric of the space was too bland for an artistic working space. I drew elements I admired from some of the other projects studied in the sequence diagram, such as the accent lighting, the freeform desk shapes, and the brightly colored rug feature. The original isometric was much more grey scaled and bland, and the office isn’t like this. The ideal space for an artistic office for me is brightly colored, comfortable, unique, and a place where you are free to express whatever forms or ideas you want.

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

Introduction Humans in general, and in the case of this paper, architectural designers, need to take a more active stand in bettering our world. Too often, designers take a passive role in creating exactly what the client wants, and not striving for better. Meeting the baseline of standards is not good enough. Our future does not improve with average performance. Our future does not advance with mediocre design. Our future needs above and beyond. According to the UN Environment’s Global Status Report of 2017, “buildings and construction account for more than 35% of global final energy use and nearly 40% of energy-related CO2 emissions.” This is due to the advancement of technology, and the passive stance on our environmental health that humans everywhere have taken. Despite its massive impact on every single person that exists and will exist in the future, there is a global lack of care given to the environment.

Sustainable Design Sustainable design is something that is necessary for our future. Not only does it reduce negative effects of the construction process on the environment, it also promotes the health of the building’s occupants simultaneously. (Fibreguard, LEED) Sustainable buildings create healthier spaces with cleaner air, access to more daylight, reduced pollution, and an overall higher quality space. There are companies that incentivize and encourage sustainable design, such as Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design or LEED. LEED boasts a long list of benefits of getting your building LEED certified, showing that it meets many standards of green building. LEED certified buildings have innovative healthier indoor environments, which can lead to improved employee recruitment and retention, lower utility costs, lower waste handling costs, potential tax benefits, better employee performance, and much more. LEED buildings boast a long list of benefits for the company and its workers, while also shrinking the size of the building’s carbon footprint and overall, being much better for the planet. LEED, and similar companies such as WELL, Green Globes, Green Star, BEAM PLUS, Energy Star, and others, help to advertise the multitude of benefits of designing more sustainable architecture, and incentivize those who do so.

Going Above Client Desires In the design world, many clients may not ask for their project to be sustainable. That doesn’t mean it can’t or shouldn’t be sustainable. In one of the Fay Jones visiting lectures this semester, Tenna Florian from Lake Flato Architects discussed how she brought design solutions to a client that were designed sustainably, despite the client not requesting this. She proposed more vegetation, and less clearing of existing vegetation on the site, and solar site strategies. The client was intrigued by these ideas, and they implemented them in the final project. Designers have the knowledge and ability to think sustainably and find ways to implement sustainable elements into their work. It’s about what the client wants, but it’s also about thinking above and beyond what they asked for. It’s important to not stop at the bare minimum.

Conclusion Design is about giving the client the best possible design solution to the problem they brought you. That doesn’t stop at just the issues they brought, it means delving deeper into the problem and delivering solutions to problems they didn’t know they had. It’s about thinking bigger than each individual project, and working towards solutions not just for this client, but for everyone. Sustainability should be integrated into every project because our future needs it to be. It’s not about going above and beyond just because you want to, but because we need to.

References AuthorConstanza Bianco Constanza Bianco is a 3rd year Undergraduate architect in the Universidad de Buenos Aires, Bianco, A. C., & Constanza Bianco is a 3rd year Undergraduate architect in the Universidad de Buenos Aires. (2021, May 31). Sustainable integration: The aspiration of future’s architecture - RTF: Rethinking the future. RTF | Rethinking The Future. Catalano, D. (n.d.). 9 benefits to LEED Certified Commercial Space. Corporate Real Estate Portfolio Optimization. Dubai’s ‘green egg’ – the future of Eco Building? (n.d.). What is green design? 10 benefits of Green Building: Newschool. NewSchool of Architecture & Design. (2022, January 5). Sustainable design. GSA. (2021, March 17). Why LEED. Why LEED certification | U.S. Green Building Council. (n.d.). Eco-friendly architecture: The importance of sustainable design. FibreGuard. (n.d.).

Introduction Systems thinking isn’t about just combining pieces. It’s about the interconnection of the pieces, and what they can do together. If you take apart a car, you’ll have a jumble of mechanical pieces, not smaller cars. It’s not about the pieces themselves, it’s about what they do together. Systems thinking is realistic, as the world’s ecosystems and businesses are interconnected. It’s about the symbiotic relationships between everything. As a design student, I tend to lean towards the philosophy of design thinking. However, the two are not opponents. It’s beneficial to see each of their limitations and integrate the two for efficient solutions. (UX Design)

Everything is a System The issue of not considering systems thinking is that there is the possibility of oversimplifying a problem, taking problems out of context, or treating the wrong issues. (Interaction Design) It’s important to consider everything around us as a system so as not to get lost in small specifics. It’s key to see the larger picture so that you can then delve into what smaller point needs to be fixed. Systems thinking helps designers think broadly, and notice overarching issues with a design. Noting these overarching issues allows designers to then narrow down on smaller things and learn how to fix them to better the quality of the bigger picture. Design is very detail oriented, so combining systems thinking and design thinking assists designers in remembering the importance of the bigger picture.

Systems Thinking in Design An example of systems thinking in design in practice is the creation of the Bauhaus curriculum. In The Scope of Total Architecture, Walter Gropius discusses how the creation of the Bauhaus was a constructive response to the First World War. (Science Direct) The Bauhaus curriculum emphasizes branches of design and art working together in coordination. Gropius believed students working in coordination would symbolize the working cooperation in society. Gropius believed that all the branches of design working together would be a better way to build systems. This approach of systems thinking through developing the curriculum was created to ideally fix the issues that created the First World War. Gropius saw the human behavior that began the war as destructive and outdated, and thought that this modern approach of design cooperation was an innovative way to embrace differences and create something bigger than the parts of each artistic branch. (Science Direct)

Conclusion Systems thinking is a valuable way to pinpoint individual problems in a larger picture. It’s a good way to value the whole, and not get bogged down or set back by small details. It is valuable for designers to integrate design thinking and systems thinking. Both philosophies of thought have limitations in some way, and to achieve the most efficient and successful design solutions- both should be utilized. The design process should include switching between design thinking and systems thinking and seeing them as coordinating. Ultimately, these two elements of thought are just parts of the larger system of the design process. To design for a world that is made of systems, designers need to understand how to think in the same way.

References Steps from the study of Coughlan and Ponto (2011) and approaches with ... (n.d.) Buchanan, R. (2019, June 20). Systems thinking and design thinking: The search for principles in the World We Are Making. She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation Gropius, W. (1956). Scope of total architecture. Allen & Unwin. La, T. (2019, July 14). Why designers should find the balance between systems thinking and design thinking? Medium. What is systems thinking? The Interaction Design Foundation. (n.d.). What is systems thinking? (benefits, tips, and components). Indeed Career Guide. (n.d.).