My Design Process

After completing all of the coursework and readings for this class, I identify my design process with the Arts and Crafts Movement. Like John Ruskin, I prefer to use a traditional craftsman tool such as a pencil, pen, and trace paper, to formulate my design and ideas. I understand my designs better when I hand draw everything down to wall sections. Plugging in design ideas into an electronic device, takes away from my understanding of how things should work, stand, or connect to other design elements, since the majority of systems and design components are given in programs like Revit, AutoCAD, or Rhino.

Even though my preference of designing deals with standard artist tools, my design process also falls in the category of Ville le Duc’s teachings of design, which uses technology to innovate designs. Once I have worked my ideas and designs on paper, I do plug them into an architectural computer program, Rhino, in order to better preserve these ideas and make it easier to fix edit them in the future. I also enjoy rendering my perspectives and sections in 3ds and editing the product renderings in Adobe Photoshop, by adding people, changing scenery, or adjusting the brightness of the perspective.

               

As far as organizing my spaces and developing a structural system and building envelope, I take the functional, social, and movement approach seen in many of Eero Saarinen’s and Rem Koolhaas’ work. I think about how a person could move about a space and what activities may take place within the site. My Professors Dan Woodfin and Olon Dotson instruct their students to approach design in this method, and with their design projects I found myself more successful in the outcome than on projects structure and system based. Dan Woodfin exhibited the functional approach through his beach house project, where I was instructed to develop a pedestrian pathway that led to the beach front but also branched off into a separate more private path leading to the living quarters, which hovered over the path and private from the public spaces. Olon Dotson addressed the functional approach through a project which required me to design an urban farm located in the inner city. His program for this project was very open, and I had to come up with activities and functions for this project which would bring the residents and other visitors into the space, requiring a lot of cultural and social research about this area.   I was extremely fascinated with these projects and their design strategies. As a result, most of the projects I have done lately center around social aspects, circulation, and activities, and their building forms and structure imitate these notions. 

Beach House (Dan Woodfin's Studio)

Agriculture in the Hood (Olon Dotson's Studio)