Depot Model

This is the Depot Project Model. There is separation between the Public space and the Private space. It will be a wooden fence and the patio will be a recreation space for the residents, but can also be used for art making by the artist.

Depot final boards

The Depot project was a different project and I loved coming up with different ideas for the space. The gallery space for this project was probably the most fun for me. I designed these cylindrical rooms for art displays. Too many times I have seen art galleries being way too plain and boring. I wanted to try different things with the walls and found it interesting to work with the circular shape that came from my parti and concept model. I learned about visual impaired designs in interior spaces and applied them in my designs in the overall building design.

Future Primitive

Future Primitive
Mike Jobes Lecture

This lecture had a lot of information and a lot of examples of the material we have learned in our class about the built environment. A living city was the main subject of this lecture. For many years, people have been trying to figure out how to make the natural and the urban core coexist in the same space, without having rural or suburban environments separating them. A living city would mean that it makes its own energy and cleans its own water. Green ways such as cleaning water and air naturally would be what it takes to make a living city. Making every 3rd street in a city a green boulevard, full of trees, a creek, forest like was an idea that Miller Hull was working on for downtown Seattle. In order to make this a living city, the buildings would have to have a limit of 5 stories to let light in every building and green streets. Mike Jobes wants to make the buildings cooperate with nature, not to have nature cooperate with an urban core like environment. He mentioned that although this process requires a lot of thinking and preparing, he envisions this plan happening 50 years or so from now. How would people react to the dense wild in the dense urban? The urban wilds would take some use to, not unlike any other “movement” America has been through, such as pre-fabricated homes or the super mall. The strip mall which is usually L-shaped with an island was looked at. Strips malls are great and should not be destroyed. It opens up opportunities for immigrants with low leases and brings layers of culture into the U.S.A. The idea was to make the strip mall a greener space, a Strip Mall Farm. Still having a building and parking, but above parking spaces would be huge trays of plants, and vegetables, and these trays could move up and down so the farmers would be able to take care of their production.
Having a sense of “Deep Time” was another subject he discussed. Feeling like you are part of something much bigger than what you feel. If you were to extend both arms on the side of your body, starting at the tip of your first arm would be the creation of earth, the creation of living things would fall on the elbow of your second arm, and only the tip of your nail of the second arm would be when humans were created. Hearing that just made me feel like such an accomplishment. We humans tend to forget where we come from and how amazing it is that we are here and we have invented so many things. I feel like we should repay the earth by making a greater effort on having a greener life such as living cities. The earth is sick, global warming is happening and we need to do something about it before it is too late.
Another subject of this lecture was about a project that Miller Hull took on. It was a house for Habitat for Humanity. It was called Habitat house of the Immediate Future. I have had experience on helping designing and helping with the construction of two habitat for humanity houses in the Palouse area. Seeing the ending product of the Miller Hull agency made me realize that there are many options you can pick even though you have a very limited budget. The house Mike showed up was very contemporary looking. He described it as a “Simple House” not referring to the aesthetics, but the construction of it. They used double stud walls, prefabricated parts, triple-glazed windows, fiber cement panels, and used rain water under the house for potable water use. All of this sounded very expensive to me, but since it came out as a net-zero energy house I guess that made up for the material costs.
Relating this material with the built environment is very easy. Looking at how people tried to separate their houses from the streets with trees was a great idea. Now the idea of having a forest as a street would be fantastic and bring neighbors together and make them socialize instead of getting in their garage and car and coming and leaving without saying a single word to anyone, or seeing anyone. I believe that the front door as the main entrance would be reintroduced if such a thing as the Urban Wilds would exist. This lecture has mainly about the city. We have talked about people wanting to get out of the city because of its illness, chaos, or just to get away from work. They moved out into the country, which then became suburbs. If the Urban Wilds were created, I believe that people would want to come back into the city. If they wanted to escape their jobs, or the noise of the city they could just walk down the next street and find a small forest there to relax and enjoy nature and clean air. It would be as equal as Central Park in New York, just much more accessible and repeated multiple times. Of course the automobile will still be in the picture, but in Seattle, the underground tunnel has been drilled and it will make way for more public transportation, and reduce the percentage of use of the automobile. This plan to have a true creek with salmon in cities might sound over the top, but we have seen this happen in suburb like areas. How hard would it really be to have clean water running trough the urban core? I would like to be alive and see this happen one day. I believe that this idea could lead to a great future for humans and the earth.

Academic Showcase

Spokane IDI

Linear urbanism is a re-visioning of infrastructure. Contiguous interventions follow existing linear urban features in ways that more fully connect the city in ecological, functional, economic, social and cultural terms. Linear urbanism proposes a method to re-naturalize our cities, facilitate improvisation, and integrate previously disjointed economic, social and environmental conditions. This poster presents these concept in three case studies, in Sao Paulo(Brazil), Spokane, and Belgrade(Serbia).


Implications for the Development of Interdisciplinary Foundation Course Pedagogy

This poster was an introduction to the new school of Design and construction and how we worked together with the different disciplines. They addressed that the implications for the new schools are to employ teams for creative projects, emphasize creative processes over solutions, allow time for group discussion and individual reflection, facilitate discussions so students understand perspectives.

[depot] Client artist profile

The artist/client that I chose was Jeremy Lepisto. His art consists majorly of Kiln Formed Glass. This poster is a brief introduction of the overall Depot project. I feel that my research has been succesful so far, whether it's looking up the process of my artist or finding visual impairment designs that have been proven succesful in the past.
My artist has been very generous and has answered all of my emails with plenty of information on his process and how he envisions the gallery space to be. I am thankful that he has been so open and helpful and he has even shown interest in the final outcome, which I will send him pictures off once complete.
This poster I feel is one of my best posters reffering to the layout and background as well as the writting. I feel like I have improved in poster making in InDesign.
This project for me is one of my favorites so far and I am excited to see what my final outcome will look like.

Habitat For Humanity: Second Poster

Habitat For Humanity

For this project, we had to build a house for the association Habitat for Humanity. Our teacher gave us the lot size and location and the minimum square footage of the home. This was also a team project. We worked well together and came up with a special idea to set back the garage at an angle to it wouldn't be the first thing you would see from the street. We also popped out the square footage in the back to make a laundry/utility room, which is great and covers the back porch from the wind.
Another important aspect of our design is to make the space look bigger than it actually is. The public is space is somewhat seperated by half walls but also has the open feeling since you can see through the house. This project started out slow but it all came together in the end.

Inclusive Design related to Vision Impairment

For the depot project, we first had to research different topics to get contextual information that is useful to this project. Our team did inclusive design related to vision impairment. I researched a commercial case study and found a school for the blind in New Mexico where they designed the interior to be very helpful to the different stages of blindness of the students attending the school. Using colors, ceiling height changes, control of light, and textural features on walls, the students had confidence walking through the school and know where to go and how to get there with all these features.
I also talked about the tactile museum in Prague, and how it was designed for the blind. Brail was written down and the art works were pieces that you could hold and touch.

Vision Disability Ability Workshop

In this workshop I learned by looking through a plastic bag or little tool to show you the different kinds of blindness, how living and walking through different spaces affect your confidence, ability to move, and vision of course. Walking with the smeared glasses on, discomfort was the word that I would attach to it. Even with just those temporary glasses, I hated not being able to see exactly what I'm touching, smelling, hearing, etc.
I think the built environment should mostly be accesible for any kind of disability no matter the cost. In all public spaces at least. With advanced technology, now the world of disabled can somewhat feel more comfortable and more independent in the built environment. This will hopefully grow and be worldwide someday.

Carrie Vielle Studio

Friday the 2nd of march, our studio went down to Colfax to visit Carrie Vielle's art studio to see what it was like and what the artist usually needs.Her studio was a little shed with three different stations which were tables that she switched between for different stages of her process for her paintings. She made sure to tell us that Storage was very important for her and most artists. Whatever the artist asks for in storage, double or triple that amount. Another important thing she talked about was control of the lighting and how important it is to artists and their works.
The overall studio was quite small but seperate from the house which is important for an artist since they dont need to be distracted while in the creative process of their artworks.