Weeks 1-5 Reflection*

For my project I decided to cut the quarter into two sections; weeks 1-5 and weeks 6-10. I split it up like this because for my specific project there’s a beginning and ending meaning, weeks 1-5 is when I gathered the basic information about a design such as climatic conditions, site planning, heating and cooling of a building for different regions. Using this information I incorporated most of it into the designs posts on Word Press. Other material that I studied on is the materials that used in a construction from the “Building Construction Illustrated” text book. One of my readings i slowly ended up switching in a replacement for it because I noticed that I wasn’t going to be using one of the books until later on; the first book that I had was “Architectural Graphics” and I switched it with the Heating Cooling and Lighting textbook because it taught me more of the exact information of what I wanted to know. Even though I switched in this book I still plan on using the Architectural Graphics book to work on my blue printing and model making in future plans. Later on in this portion of the quarter I was drawn to elements of sustainability from looking up weather and alternative ways of heating, cooling and lighting, the inspiration to conserve and help the environment led me to research on Tiny Homes and LEED Certified structures. My plan in the beginning of the quarter was to have a design a week but I realized that was too much work into the project so I changed the proposal to a design for each week in weeks 1-5 and 1 design total for the second half of the quarter. My designs I hoped to be influenced by my critiques but they ended up being based off other reasons; week 2 was probably the only feedback design because I was still getting things going for the program, week 3 my home landlord asked me to design a shed in the back of the house because the current one needs to be taken down because it is an old structure from the mid 1900’s, week 4 and 5 was from the inspiration for sustainable design but week 4 was also influenced by an internship that my friend had introduced me to. Around the time of week five and six I began to get behind because my LEED certified building file in SketchUp got corrupt and caused me to have to start over while in week six where I planned my museum visit. After finishing up with the LEED certified home I have come to the conclusion of Sustainable architecture as my style of design. My reason is because green building designs goal is, to produce buildings with less reliability on energy consumption to mitigate global warming, they improve indoor air quality, financial benefits with bills but also because sustainable design for areas that are in poverty deserve to have the same life as the non-poverty areas. Throughout the critique sessions of this portion of the quarter the advice that helped improve my designs was “A house isn’t just a stand-alone piece, it needs life and furniture”, I liked this feedback because it leads to better presentation appearance and can keep the audience attracted, another reason why I liked it was because including the furniture can also shape the way the domestic space is constructed. Knowing the other possible ways of what shapes a domestic space is important for the designer because then he would know what strategies to implement to bypass problems such as weather related conflicts or the subject that the plan is for. Over all this portion of the quarter has taught me more about time management and pushing myself of what needs to be done, because while doing the designs there were interruptions with long shifts at work, taking time to maintain what I learned, and SketchUp issues that prolonged the other assignment due dates which generated a mentality for me of “Gotta make this look good while finishing it”. Having that mentality forced me to work with the time schedule that I had left to finish everything else, and thus shown me more about the when, where and how of time management.