Thinking Measuring Making

On the 7 th of January 2016, new project under the unit Spatial Design Studio Practice called Thinking Measuring Making was lunched by my course tutor Garry Layden. In the previous project I have been introduced to freehand drawing as a means of investigating, critical analysing and explaining interior spaces and also to experiment and evaluating my design ideas. But this project introduces me to how Spatial Designers use a different other of approach and design ideation tool in the approach of their works.

What? This project introduces me to the one of the most powerful approach and design ideation tool that Spatial Designers use, which is sketch modelling. This type of skill, Sketch models helps to explore the spatial characteristics of design plans. Sketch models allows us to understand the kind of work, see from different kind of viewpoints easily and quickly, and to experiment the work with different lighting effects, materials, shapes and forms. In this Project, I am require to produce different range of sketch models this project and also use some of the skills gain in the previous project that I have already been introduce to, like Essential Skill Sets 3D project, with the new skills introduced during this project, am required to use all this skill make, produce and present my design ideas of a Micro-Flats for two single-clients. On this same day we were introduce to a new project  Body cut space cut body project, which is done in conjunction with this project together with fashion students and with this project, am to produce a Speed Toiles.

So What? In this projects, we are to produce and deliver Numerous of preliminary, exploratory sketch models with different media, in different forms and shape; three Speed Toiles and One Micro-Flat model.

On that day after the briefing of thinking measuring and making and also introduce to the Body cut space cut body project, we then started making the speed Toiles with Fashion students. First to do this speed toile a calico fabric is need, after everyone had their calico fabric,

paper shapes  

cut calico fabric

we were all given five different shapes of paper and asked to cut three calico fabric for which shape of paper by drawing out the shapes or using pin to pin the shapes on the calico fabric and cut them out.

Frist  

    Second  

third

So after cutting the shapes out, we were them asked to take one shape from the each of the five shapes cut and glue them together in any kind of shape or form we went in 5 minutes, the shape and form created by putting the pieces of fabric together is called the speed toiles. After we were asked to do another two speed toiles, using the same process I use for the first one with the same time. So after this session of the day we were asked to sketch one of the speed toiles from three different views and bring them in for the next session on 14 th of January 2016 .

Also on that day, during the brief as I have stated previously on what is project is about and to do, to develop design proposals for two Micro-Flats both flats must fit within an overall volume of 4.00m high x 4.25m wide x 4.25m deep. And also contain sleeping area(bedroom), area for work/study/other activities, a kitchen area, a dining area, bathroom(a shower-area with a wash-basin and toilet), storage for clothes and enough space for visitors. And each flats must accommodate two different users and this users must be real people, so this will help to produce more convincing and grounded design proposals. So we were asked to look for two clients to design a flat for. For Interior Architecture students, we were told to select form a list of occupation as a client, first client must be a freelance teacher of Mathematics, Science or English and the second client must be a community-based cleric/priest/missionary, the Interior Design students were given two client, a musician and journalist. On the clients, we are ask to do research into our two clients and produce a mood broad for each one of our clients. So a list of question to find about the clients were given to us and the mood broad should be made base on what we find about the clients and bring them to the next session on 14 th of January 2016.

The list of Questions

• What is his/her name?
• What does s/he look like?
• How tall is s/he and what does s/he weigh? (This information may not be so easy to find, but do please try.)
• What does s/he do for a living? The more detail you can get here, the better.
• Does s/he have any disabilities (and if so, which)?
• What are his/her interests/hobbies outside of work? For example, is s/he sporty, an avid reader, a keen gardener, a passionate computer gamer, a ‘party animal’…?
• Does s/he keep one or more pets (and if so, what kind/s)?
• What tastes does s/he have in design, food, music, art, literature…?
• Is s/he an introvert or an extrovert? In other words, is s/he someone who prefers his/her own company or likes to socialize?
• How wealthy is s/he? (Again, this information may not be so easy to find, but do please try.)
• Does s/he prefer to get up early or stay in bed and then stay up late?
• Is s/he a hoarder, or does s/he prefer a simple, uncluttered life?
• Is there anything else you think you need to know?

My first client is Shirley McCarthy, 28 year old, who is an English and Italian teacher in Italy and the second client is Jonathan Morris, 43 year old American Roman Catholic priest currently serving in the Archdiocese of New York.

Picture of mood board

Moodboard for Shirley McCarthy

Moodboard for Jonathan Morris

With the sketch models, we were ask to produce a model of a basic Micro-Flat space with an internal volume of 4.25×4.25x4m at a scale of 1:20 and this must only show three enclosing so that people will be able to see into the space. Then place the Speed Toiles into it and sketch what i see.

sketch of one speed toiles from two different views

Also, we were told to make a lot of sketch models with different type of materials in different forms and shape.

On Thursday the 14 th of January 2016, the second session of this project, after our course tutor had looked and inspected the works we were ask to produce for that day, then we were told to divide the 3-dimential model that was created and do more sketch model base on the researches that had been done on our clients.

First Model

On Thursday the 21^st of January 2016, Garry, talked to us about “The Design Concept”. It is when a design develops or creates their own designs rather than copying the works of other designers. Frist, we talked about Theme or Style, how some buildings are design and decorated with some kinds and types of themes and styles. We were also shown some image that show theme and style. And we were also shown images of works that show design concept.

After the talk, our course tutor ask us to work on this project(Micro flat) using our own designs. We also had One to one session course tutor by showing him the micro flat model, the sketch models and him giving us more designing ideas on what to do. So I was told to use my sketch model in the space and see what design ideas I will get by playing with it and also was told to try and use the idea of suitcase building in my work.

Second model

The session on 28th January 2016, was the day of feedback on the micro flat. Models made by everyone was shown, finish or not finish On that day and some of the ideas of my mate was very create, crazy and interesting. Which I will be using some of this ideas and mine ideas in my future projects, also the advice given to my mates. After showing the model I have done to my tutor and my mates, the feedback I had from my tutor was excellent work for the model I did, on completing the two flats with windows, the interior part and lot of ideas. But I was advice by my tutor to scale up the interior items in the two flats.

Third Model

With this model i worked on the dimensions of the kitchen and bed, more research was done on the dimensions of a kitchen cabinet and bed(the dimension of the beds in the two flat are for single bed).

After the scaling up of the interiors of the flat, one to one session was held with Garry on Thursday 11 February 2016, he was happy with how far I have come with the two flat and the interiors but the scale for the bathroom was not will done and was too small for my clients to use. So Garry help me by doing some bathroom measurements and scale, how to position the toilet, sink and the shower area. In the image above you can see my other client(the teacher) do not have a bathroom, so I now have to create a bathroom to that client and I will have to be creative about that because the space there is not enough.

Final Model

    Front view    

  Top view

After several attempts, i have complete the final model for this project, with this final model all interior and measurement of the flat and the bathrooms which i was straggling on is now all to scale.

Now What? After variety of approaches and techniques use in this project to produce a microflat have really help me improve my understanding and knowledge about spatial design. The introduction to Anthropometric and
Ergonomic during the project is essential for me in my future project and even after my course as a spatial designer. Working with speed toiles and models to develop and generate more ideas was also an essential part of this project, that leads to design concept. What i also like about this project was how challengen it was to create and fit a bathroom, kitchen, bedroom and some space in a small area, it is the kind of challenge i like. Now i am going to work more on Anthropometric and Ergonomic to get more understand.