Since we break off at the end of May we have a lot of time during the summer so these are some of the plans that I have made for this time.
Books
Blink: The Power of thinking without thinking - Malcolm Gladwell
Outliers: The Story of Success - Malcolm Gladwell
I have chosen two books written by Malcolm Gladwell due to really enjoying reading his book 'The Tipping Point' I thought it would be interesting to see what some of his other books are like.
Did you Spot the Gorilla?: How to Recognise the Hidden opportunities in Your Life - Richard Wiseman
I chose this book as the clip it talks about I have been shown before and thought it was very interesting, so I thought the same about this book which talks about the same concept.
Natural Flair (Eco Architecture) - Taschen Publishing
I have chose to look at a few books to do with my discipline as from doing this current project it has got me very interested in sustainable architecture and how it can be built in a good way.
Sustainable by Design: Explorations in Theory and Practice - Stuart Walker
I have also chosen this book for some of the same reason as the previous book, although I thought it would be good to look at a book that is not necessarily specific for my discipline but it could provide me with inspiration on doing other things or ways of doing things.
Blog
Personalise
I need to spend time on making my blog my own and adding a personalised background/logo.
Portfolio
I want to create a portfolio containing all the work I have done over the past two years for anyone to see if they come onto my blog.
More content
I need to spend more time adding more post around the things I come across in day to day life and my design thoughts rather than just sticking to the assignments and studio projects I have.
Twitter account
I need to set up an account and would like to link it into my blog so that it is easy for people to find.
Details
It is important that when people come onto your blog that they can find out a bit about yourself as well as finding out about your designs.
Contacts
Other Disciplines
I feel it would be good to get in contact with some of the students in different disciplines especially textiles and jewellery as there has been such a divide over the past few months.
Exchange students
As there are a number of students in my course that are going away on exchanges it would be good to keep in contact to see how they are getting on and what there projects are like etc.
People in Industry
Connecting with people who are in the architecture and interior design industry is important as they open up the chance of potential employment or even a period of placement.
Twitter
Using a twitter account will help find and follow fellow designers and people in industry that could help me with inspiration in the future.
Friday, 15 April 2011
Thursday, 14 April 2011
Barcelona
At the beginning of the Easter break I went to Barcelona with two other girls from my course. I was so looking forward to being able to get away and forget about the current project for a while, and what a beautiful to be able to do that in. When we arrived early on the Tuesday morning we dropped our stuff off and went a walk up the main street outside our hotel ’La Rambla’. We came across a market which we thought might have only been there for the day but luckily enough it was there the whole time we were. It will filled with lots of different stands from meat to fish, fruit and vegetables, chocolates and jellies, ice cream and nuts, and then there were hot food stands.
That same day we were walking about we found the Cathedral in the centre of Barcelona, it was such a beautiful building was just a shame that there was so much scaffolding around the outside. Once you went inside there was only a little amount of structural support which was good so that you could see the grandness of the building.
The following day we tried to follow the map we had to find the beach but instead we came across the Park de Ciutadella, on such a beautiful day it was nice to sit and take in everything around us. It was such a large park I don’t think we managed to see it all as it was getting late in the day and we had a big walk to get back to the hotel. When we left the park we seen the Arc de Triumph and then made are way back.
After having lunch we made our way back in towards the town to Casa Batllo and La Pedrera, which from the outside are beautiful to look at. We never ventured inside them as we thought that the outside of them were the main features of the buildings that we wanted to see. After looking at all the designer shops we went to Park Guell, it was a stunning day with the sun shining which made the park even more spectacular. It was just a shame that there were people out trying to sell bit’s and pieces which I felt took away from the atmosphere of it.
Barcelona is such a beautiful city and would definitely love to go back when I get older to see things I hadn’t seen and everything else again to see the changes that had been done over the years.
That same day we were walking about we found the Cathedral in the centre of Barcelona, it was such a beautiful building was just a shame that there was so much scaffolding around the outside. Once you went inside there was only a little amount of structural support which was good so that you could see the grandness of the building.
The following day we tried to follow the map we had to find the beach but instead we came across the Park de Ciutadella, on such a beautiful day it was nice to sit and take in everything around us. It was such a large park I don’t think we managed to see it all as it was getting late in the day and we had a big walk to get back to the hotel. When we left the park we seen the Arc de Triumph and then made are way back.
We had an early night that night as we had planned to go round a large area of Barcelona to see most of Gaudi’s buildings and a few more. First thing that morning we took the metro and went to ’La Sagrada Familia’ and all I can say is unbelievable. I was so taken aback at the scale and magnificence of it. As soon as we got inside the Cathedral I was totally speechless, the inside was beautiful from the stairways to the pillars to the stained glass windows. We spent a lot of the morning just sitting in the cathedral taking all of it in.
Barcelona is such a beautiful city and would definitely love to go back when I get older to see things I hadn’t seen and everything else again to see the changes that had been done over the years.
Assignment 5A - Planning for the Future
For the final assignment of this semester we had to look at the topic we chose in semester one and develop a proposal of how we would develop it further using techniques developed in the second semester.
The topic I chose was ‘Smoking‘ at the start it was a very open search from why people started smoking, to health related problems, legislation and advertising and how these all related back to design. I took it on further in the final assignments in semester one. I started to focus more on the advertising side of smoking and how it has an affect on people who do smoke. My main focus was on the question, ‘Does advertising have any affect on smokers/smoking?‘. The research that I have already completed was secondary research based, when looking into advertising in relation to the effects on smoking that information was full of statistics that other people had collected from doing there own from of primary research, articles and journals that people had wrote. I feel that the information I have already collected now needs more specific questions and data collected which would be best done using forms of primary research. Finding the information myself has come at a good time especially from doing the assignments in the last (second) semester, they focused on the use of techniques that would help collect primary evidence. From completing these assignments I now know which methods would work best for the information that is needed.
The first form of primary research I will carry out will be an interview of local people in the Dundee area, an interview would gain important information from those people who smoke. I would ask non smokers similar questions that the smokers were asked to find out what both sides feel about advertising and what effects they had on them. With an interview you can get the questions you need answered and also be given information that you may not have thought to be relevant. The only problem with an interview is that the interviewee could be making the answers up which would result in the answers being invalid. The best way to get round this problem would be to ask people who are comfortable with answering the questions, there is more chance of getting honest answers back from them. Before going straight into an interview I think it is best to mind map the topic first. I did this on an other assignment which was to carry out an interview and record your findings, the mind map helped high light questions that would be good to ask and brought up others that link them together. With some answers people give you they can lead onto a question you may not have thought of so it is best to have time and note taking space to allow this to happen. From this you can gain a lot of vital information.
The second research method I will use will be an observation, since from doing the pervious assignment with an observation I felt it gave you more of a realistic view of something. With an observation, it gives a first response to something, I would ask a couple of smokers and non smokers to come and watch a number of smoking advertising clips and images individually to see how they all reacted to them. This I feel would give you an insight to how effective advertising is at first glance, as well as getting to see how they react when no one else is round them. Although this does not give you any information on what the people will do after seeing the images but there are no easy ways of recording that sort of data. It would be an interesting experiment as I think that the reaction between the non smokers and smokers would be a lot different than one another.
The third form of primary research to be carried out would be a visual analysis, at the start I thought it wouldn’t provide much information, but thinking back to an older assignment I felt the same at the start of it but in the end I found out a lot from looking at a persons belongings that what I thought I would. The type of image I would look at would be of people smoking or of an advertising campaign, the only problem I have with this type of research is that the information gained is only what you yourself make of the image making the results very bias. What you get from an image and what someone else could make of it may be completely different. For this technique I would ask a number of people (smokers and non smokers) to analysis the images to see if people saw the same things. This could make the information gained more correct in comparison to one persons reaction. An easy way to record this information would be on a brain storm, write down each word or phrase people came up with when they looked the image, and see if there were many of a similar nature. This could then lead into a mind map showing all the information grained from this analysis divided up into sections. I found that when completing mind maps it helped lay out information so that it was easy to read and simple to follow.
The methods of primary research I have suggested through out this proposal are best for the information I want to find out. All the information will be gathered and analysed which will lead to different statistics etc, this will follow in a conclusion that answers the question, ‘Does advertising have an effect on smokers/smoking?’.
The topic I chose was ‘Smoking‘ at the start it was a very open search from why people started smoking, to health related problems, legislation and advertising and how these all related back to design. I took it on further in the final assignments in semester one. I started to focus more on the advertising side of smoking and how it has an affect on people who do smoke. My main focus was on the question, ‘Does advertising have any affect on smokers/smoking?‘. The research that I have already completed was secondary research based, when looking into advertising in relation to the effects on smoking that information was full of statistics that other people had collected from doing there own from of primary research, articles and journals that people had wrote. I feel that the information I have already collected now needs more specific questions and data collected which would be best done using forms of primary research. Finding the information myself has come at a good time especially from doing the assignments in the last (second) semester, they focused on the use of techniques that would help collect primary evidence. From completing these assignments I now know which methods would work best for the information that is needed.
The first form of primary research I will carry out will be an interview of local people in the Dundee area, an interview would gain important information from those people who smoke. I would ask non smokers similar questions that the smokers were asked to find out what both sides feel about advertising and what effects they had on them. With an interview you can get the questions you need answered and also be given information that you may not have thought to be relevant. The only problem with an interview is that the interviewee could be making the answers up which would result in the answers being invalid. The best way to get round this problem would be to ask people who are comfortable with answering the questions, there is more chance of getting honest answers back from them. Before going straight into an interview I think it is best to mind map the topic first. I did this on an other assignment which was to carry out an interview and record your findings, the mind map helped high light questions that would be good to ask and brought up others that link them together. With some answers people give you they can lead onto a question you may not have thought of so it is best to have time and note taking space to allow this to happen. From this you can gain a lot of vital information.
The second research method I will use will be an observation, since from doing the pervious assignment with an observation I felt it gave you more of a realistic view of something. With an observation, it gives a first response to something, I would ask a couple of smokers and non smokers to come and watch a number of smoking advertising clips and images individually to see how they all reacted to them. This I feel would give you an insight to how effective advertising is at first glance, as well as getting to see how they react when no one else is round them. Although this does not give you any information on what the people will do after seeing the images but there are no easy ways of recording that sort of data. It would be an interesting experiment as I think that the reaction between the non smokers and smokers would be a lot different than one another.
The third form of primary research to be carried out would be a visual analysis, at the start I thought it wouldn’t provide much information, but thinking back to an older assignment I felt the same at the start of it but in the end I found out a lot from looking at a persons belongings that what I thought I would. The type of image I would look at would be of people smoking or of an advertising campaign, the only problem I have with this type of research is that the information gained is only what you yourself make of the image making the results very bias. What you get from an image and what someone else could make of it may be completely different. For this technique I would ask a number of people (smokers and non smokers) to analysis the images to see if people saw the same things. This could make the information gained more correct in comparison to one persons reaction. An easy way to record this information would be on a brain storm, write down each word or phrase people came up with when they looked the image, and see if there were many of a similar nature. This could then lead into a mind map showing all the information grained from this analysis divided up into sections. I found that when completing mind maps it helped lay out information so that it was easy to read and simple to follow.
The methods of primary research I have suggested through out this proposal are best for the information I want to find out. All the information will be gathered and analysed which will lead to different statistics etc, this will follow in a conclusion that answers the question, ‘Does advertising have an effect on smokers/smoking?’.
Sunday, 3 April 2011
SEPA Project
Over the past few months I feel like I have not been posting enough on my blog due to having such a large project on at the moment. So to make up for this I will explain what it is exactly what I have been doing.
This project is to refurbish an existing warehouse into an office building for SEPA, to begin with it started of as an 11week project due in before we broke off for easter but due to the size of the project and not having enough time to complete it we have been given an extension until the 2nd May.
Before starting into designing the office space I researched into what SEPA does and what it is they are trying to achieve. From finding out more about SEPA I came up with the idea of making in inside of the building as natural as possible and to make the inside of it feel like you were still outside. With this in mind I then researched into different types of natural design and how people have brought nature inside a building. The main thing that stuck out to me was the grass carpets, green roofs and growing walls.
With this concept in mind I continued to research it but started to think of the design of the interior and exterior of the building along with the interior layout. At this point I decided that I wanted to make most of the buildings walls in glass to create an open feel within the building and to also make the most of the natural light that would be available. This then followed on with the inside design, thinking about the insulation, types of flooring, the circulation of the building and a number of other things.
But I am now at the stage of completing the entire design in sketchup and now it is time to start thinking of making things final and to start the rendering process.
I put up another post when it is near the deadline with images of my final design and the sheets I will present with..
This project is to refurbish an existing warehouse into an office building for SEPA, to begin with it started of as an 11week project due in before we broke off for easter but due to the size of the project and not having enough time to complete it we have been given an extension until the 2nd May.
Before starting into designing the office space I researched into what SEPA does and what it is they are trying to achieve. From finding out more about SEPA I came up with the idea of making in inside of the building as natural as possible and to make the inside of it feel like you were still outside. With this in mind I then researched into different types of natural design and how people have brought nature inside a building. The main thing that stuck out to me was the grass carpets, green roofs and growing walls.
With this concept in mind I continued to research it but started to think of the design of the interior and exterior of the building along with the interior layout. At this point I decided that I wanted to make most of the buildings walls in glass to create an open feel within the building and to also make the most of the natural light that would be available. This then followed on with the inside design, thinking about the insulation, types of flooring, the circulation of the building and a number of other things.
But I am now at the stage of completing the entire design in sketchup and now it is time to start thinking of making things final and to start the rendering process.
I put up another post when it is near the deadline with images of my final design and the sheets I will present with..
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