3rd Year Studio Critique

On Monday December 6th I attended the west studio 3rd year critique.  The students had completed one project in which they each created their own designs and one project that they completed in groups.  

The individual project was a laying out a new design for the psychiatric ward for child and adolescent patients at Central Regional Hospital in Butner North Carolina.  Their goal for the project was to create an environment for the patients that has a less institutionalized feel to it where they would be able to feel more relaxed and at home.  Each student came up with their own approach to the project and then they each presented their ideas to the hospital staff and they choose different elements from different projects to use in their renovation of the ward.  In their project each student had to design a visiting room, group/activity room, and an individual room for either a male adolescent, female adolescent, or a child.  The design that I found to be most appealing was Kalani Gonzalez's.  I thought his idea of using animals as a kind of mascot for the groups and decorating the rooms to look like the habitat of those animals was really interesting.  Also I felt his idea succeeded at creating the least institutional feel in the environment for the kids because most kids love animals and adventures which his idea conveyed.  His presentation board also stood apart from the rest because it was not composed of all clean cut lines and yet it still got the message across very beautifully.

Kalani Gonzalez's project.

Kalani Gonzalez's project. (center)

The second project that the 3rd years presented in the critique was a group project of ideas for the renovation of an old historic building at 106 West Parrish Street in Durham.  The clients for this project want to turn the space into a loft and bar area called The Horn.  This project required more research on the students' part because not only did they have to follow the clients needs and wants they also had to follow historic preservation guidelines.  They had to keep the rustic feel of the building and protect the building's history from when it was built in 1908.  I think that the group of Smith/Dean/Loloci did the best job on the project with the given parameters.  The other projects were really intriguing but they listened the most of all the groups to what the client said they wanted and they worked to put their own spin on it and they were successful.  I think they connected with the intended crowd, young newly married couples, well and the steps they took to make the bar on the first floor more open were a success.  To make the area seem more open and welcoming they put sliding windows along the street front of the bar so that when opened the exciting sounds of the bar could filter out into the street and attract new customers.  The way that they laid out the bar area also helps to pull people in by putting the more active areas at the front of the bar such as the band and then having the more private areas nestled into the back where it would be quieter.  Then they used a pathway in the floor that wound around to all of the different areas to help pull the space together.  This group also provided an interesting solution to the issue of the lack of natural lighting on the second floor of the building by creating a shaft through the center of the building that integrated each area of the building into the entire space which connects back to the open feel of the environment within the space.  Something that I found in their project that tied to what we are learning in drafting about using perspective people in our drafting is how they used realistic perspective people which really helped in being able to visualize the space and made it seem more realistic.  Since they were a group of three while all of the other groups only had two they had an extra element in their project and had to make a piece of furniture to go into the space and they made a lamp that could be used in either the bar or in one of the residences in the loft above.  

Smith/Dean/Loloci's project.

Each of the students had their presentation board with their finalized ideas pinned up on the wall below their name(s) and they each had a well composed booklet filled with all of their preliminary papers with drawings, designs, notes, and ideas.  All of the students were formally dressed for their presentation and most of them came prepared to present and talk about their work.  As they presented some of them used notes while some read straight off their board.  However, the ones that I felt had the best presentation were the ones who came knowing what they were going to say and spoke to us directly without any kind of help.  These presenters made eye contact with us which kept us engaged in the presentation effectively while those who used a guide did not get their ideas across as well.