Weekly Blog Post 10/3

Friday is the day we are supposed to have everything due. Meaning we have to be done with our floor plans with furniture and lighting in them. This also includes our materials.
Still cleaning things up and adding some interest to my floor plan, I am at this point:

As you can see, I have changed the staircase to be back to a more circular staircase. I found that with the square staircase everything would have been messed up. It took up more space and would be outside our area of working space for the upstairs. If I moved the staircase back, it would cut into my student cafe and the distant classroom upstairs. This could not happen because I had just the right square footage and couldn't take anymore from it. 

What I have found is that I like the curved staircase more. It breaks up the linearity of my floor plan and adds interest.I like that when one walks into the entry, the curved staircase is more welcoming and less stiff. 

For the rest of the week, I will be making my ceilings more interesting and adding different materials for the floors and walls.

Concept Statement Draft

Friday 10/31
250 Word Concept Statement Draft:

We are designing the future of higher education spaces and the main focus is designing a new and innovative learning environment that tends to each type of learning style. With the inspiration of a maritime tree, I focused on how the tree grows and how it is reactive to its environment.  Just like the tree, the students should be reactive to their environment. For positive impact, the space has the flexibility to be arranged for different learning/teaching styles, between the tools used in the classroom, and the adjustable furniture. Looking at the maritime tree, you see that it is holistic. Smaller parts are interconnected to form a whole. The space I have created comes together as a whole for a balanced space. Each space is equally important because it focuses on the students’ needs, such as personal and social learning styles outside the classroom. The goal was to blend the lines between the lecture hall, classrooms, and the student café to support the fact that learning is unwavering. Having plenty of in-between spaces conveniently located around the building for students to meet with other students, professors, or even study by themselves did this. Learning happens from other students. By recognizing this, I designed a symmetrical space with the center being the student café so students can meet together here. From the center, each room branches off for a different use.

RCP Draft

Friday 10/31 our RCP (reflected ceiling plan) was due. This means lighting should be included and ceiling types should be included. We also had a 250 word concept statement due.

Floor Plan Update

My floor plan as of Wednesday. Though all the correction Maruja gave me were minor corrections, it messed everything up. The staircase is now to big for the area and it goes past the area of work we have for the upstairs. I am now trying to figure out a solution to keep it this shape, but fit into the parameters we have for the upstairs. I can't move it back because that would then take out square footage in student cafe and the distant classroom upstairs.

Weekly Blog Post 10/27

Today, I went and talked to Maruja about my floor plans that I had turned in on Friday. I was nervous about this because I wasn't all that confident in my floor plan. Talking to my fellow classmates about their floor plans and comparing to what I went through, it seemed that I had an easier time fitting all the requirements into the space, whereas they were having a hard time fitting everything in and meeting the required square footages. This made me worry. If I had an easier time, did I do something wrong? I triple checked all my square footages, and they were all correct, but I was still stressed that I left something out. So I was pleasantly surprised when Maruja said she like my floor plan and thought my circulation was "beautiful."

Some feedback that I got was to change my grand staircase from circular, to be more linear. The half circle seemed out of place when the rest of my floor plan was so geometric and linear. This made sense to me and I have to agree that it would work better if my staircase was half of a square instead of a circle. It also gave me more space for the upstairs room. She also said that I should fix the circulation by the active classrooms and the bathrooms. People may have issues getting in and out of the bathrooms when a class is getting out. She gave me suggestions on how I could improve this and make that hallway bigger. I was also told to rework the furniture in my faculty hub. With it being so linear, she said that it would be better to have all the furniture on one side of the room to allow for better circulation within the room. I should also get rid of the walls that are dividing the large in between space and instead use different carpet of ceilings to show that it is a different space divided off, yet still unified.

Showing the new staircase and a way to solve the circulation coming out of the active classrooms and the bathroom

Showing the new floor plan of the faculty hub, a way of dividing the in between space without using walls, and opening up the student cafe

Making it Work

I have found a better way of putting furniture in the floor plan. Turns out you have to double click on the downloaded file, wait for it to load in Revit, and then click "load into project." From there you can add as many pieces of that furniture as you want.

Friday we turned in a furnished floor plan of the upstairs and downstairs as well as an additional furniture floor plan for the active classrooms, distant active classroom, and large classroom. We are also to have two section cuts showing the grand staircase, and a perspective of the staircase.

Level one 1st floor plan

Level one 2nd floor plan

Level two 1st floor plan

Level two 2nd floor plan

Section with grand staircase in view

Section with grand staircase in view

Perspective of grand staircase

Struggle Bus

Currently trying to learn how to download the Steelcase furniture we are supposed to be using in our space off of Steelcase's website in Revit format. I am finding it to be very difficult and time consuming. I have found a way to download it in a dwg file and load it into Revit from there, but I don't think it will show up as a 3D piece. There is probably a better way of doing this.

Weekly Blog Post 10/20

This week is going to be a week full of putting furniture in our floor plans and getting reviews from the professors because the furnished floor plans are due on Friday. As of last week, I am still working on my floor plan to make it the best it can be with my concept. I have been having issue, still, coming up with a floor plan that will stand out and be different from everyone else in the class and be innovative. Finally inspiration struck and I decided to add a grand staircase (the professors wanted us to add one anyway so that people would know there was a second floor when walking into the building. It was also a good way to visually connect the two floors) as well as having the student cafe in the center of the building because I wanted to emphasize with placement, that this is the most important in the building. After placing the grand staircase and the student cafe behind, the rest came naturally and everything started to go together like a puzzle.

Weekly Blog Post 10/15

Getting off Fall break, we had schematic designs due on Wednesday. This entailed us to have a finished floor plans for both the upstairs and downstairs, two sections (preferably cutting so that the grand staircase was included), and two perspectives of what the interior is going to look like without furniture. 

I found this to be kind of difficult and time consuming because I did not have a set floor plan yet. I wasn't liking any of the previous floor plans that I created and I was not happy with how they went with my concept (or lack there of). This is what I ended up with. I am still not completely happy with this and I plan on changing the floor plan to meet my concept and the square footage requirements.  did not add a grand staircase because Steelcase said we did not have to and I have not yet created space for a grand staircase. 

Level one floor plan

Level two floor plan with room divider in middle

Perspective

Perspective

Section cut

Section cut

The feedback that I got back from Maruja was: Meets completion requirements for this stage, however there is need for further development. Make sure to abide by the building's original geometry which entails a flat roof. Absence of a monumental staircase is a concern.