Sunday, March 30, 2008

Sleeping Spaces Redefined


This assignment is a little different from most of our assignments. We are making a sleeping space that is supposed to redefine the meaning of a bed. We must use only a certain amount of materials for our models, using a different amount of materials may be justified; however, it needs a purpose behind it. I don't like the spaceship looking egg beds such as the Lomme Bed (third from the top). I want to use contemporary strait lines; however, the comfort of the organic shapes bring something to the table as well. I just feel like the whole rounded shapes have already been done so with my next models I am going to try to stay away from the organic look.



Monday, March 24, 2008

CAPitalizing on Re-Use


Let there be light! Inspired by a contest from Terracycle, this project was to re-use bottle caps in a way that is interesting and still eco-friendly. Every day, bottles are processed in recycling centers and every bottle that still has a cap on it is thrown away. Thus, in order to get bottle caps we had to go dumpster diving! My partner Chelsea and I struggled with this idea of re-using bottle caps at first and wanted to steer clear of making something tacky and cheap looking. At first we had a coaster that looked like a flower and it was fun, yet bulky and cheap. Next we had a shower basket where the gaps that the circles made when connected allowed water to fall through, yet that also turned out to be very flimsy and cheap. Finally we came up with a bottle cap chandelier/ light fixture. We really liked the way that light showed through the clear bottle caps. We added colors that were of the same color palette as a Sun-Drop or Mountain Dew can. We even used parts of aluminum Sun-Drop Cans on a few bottle caps. There is a glue that is eco-friendly and glues together plastics, metals, and many other materials that can be used to attach the bottle caps. We used hot glue however if this were to be manufactured again, Eco-bond glue will be used. Overall, Chelsea and I are happy with out project. If we had more bottle caps I think we would use on the light fixture so the light bulb and wire is more clandestine.

Our First two iterations (shower basket and coaster)

The wire frame made out of recycled hangers


We cut out the flat circles of the bottle caps and glued them together to make larger circles.

Chelsea and our final model! Let there be light!
A view from underneath

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Time for a group assignment!

Team Ferguson

For this project we were divided into groups of about five. We analyzed buildings on UNCG's campus and sketched out their floor plans, uses, and architectural details. We then took our drawings, bubble maps, and detail sketches and made a presentation board. I thought it would be a lot easier to plan out a presentation board however I learned a lot from this experience that I wouldn't have guessed I would. For example, we had to have fifteen 8.5x11 drawings and they had to fit on certain size boards with many other different size drawings. We had to make a scale layout of what our board would look like in order to see if everything would fit and to make sure we had an appealing and effective layout. A lot of hard work and time went into this project, and a couple dollars as well. In the real world, presentation boards are extremely important to designers because it is the first thing a client sees and if the client doesn't like the board, the design usually doesn't come to life. Overall I was really pleased with my group's work and I am very proud of the outcome of our board.



To the very left, outlined in red are our detail sketches of the building. The diagram was done by heather and shows the different sectors of the Ferguson Building.

The next diagram was done by Christyn. This shows how the floor plan is layed out and what it connected to what.

The final diagram was done by Lily and shows the private and public areas of the building. As you can see the building has a lot of private rooms that we didn't have access to.

Our group chose earthy tones and coordinated the colors and the layout. We worked for a very long time on the board and I was not expecting it to take that long. This project definitely prepared me for our presentation boards in our studio class as well.