Monticello vs. Falling Water

Falling Water 1937

Monticello 1737

For the first year students at UNCG, we had a required field trip to visit Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's private estate as well as Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water, in Bear Run, PA. After visiting both spaces, I was incredibly fascinated with Falling Water. Frank Lloyd Wright created his masterpiece for the Kaufman family as a country home to escape the hustle and bustle of the city life in PA.

I believe that Frank Lloyd Wright achieved his objective it in terms of creating a getaway. One of the most fascinating aspects of the structure for me was the architect's mastery of conforming a physical structure over a running creek without disturbing nor changing the environment to achieve his objective.

The horizontal lines of the walls, the banding of the windows, the rich warm colors of the inside, the use of technology and arts and craftsmanship was executed masterfully. As we were inside and touring the estate, I could not stop thinking how the lines of the physical environment blended well with those of the environment as if both entities existed as one all along. Every room had incredible outside views. In addition, Frank Lloyd Wright designed the interior furniture which complemented his architecture.

In contrast, Monticello did not achieve it's objective. Thomas Jefferson had to build Polar Forest in order to escape the crows which gathered at Monticello, which was intended to be his private getaway. Also, I believe that Monticello commands conformity from nature whereas Falling Water conforms to the needs of the forest and hence creates a more perfect union.

Eradicating Hunger Day...

Dining Space

Plan Oblique/Plan View

For our mid-term project, we designed a dining space to host a biannual event around the world to eradicate hunger. The paremeters of the project was to design a dining space, dining table, and a sideboard. I used a carpet as an inspiration and placed my dining space in SE Florida. I used many windows to keep my space open and bring in natural light. The biannual event took place during the summer and winter solstices and hence, light was an important consideration in the design of my space.

To control the light during the summer solstice, I used natural wood blind, glass block and for the winter solstice, the open space concept would allow light to come in during the darker winter solstice.

In addition, we had to provide a venue for social networking to be part of the dining experience. I created a projection screen in order to allow my diners to interact with other diners around the world via skying.

Material Rendering Study

Wood

Carpet

Textile

Tile

For the material rendering study, we went to the IARC library and picked out material in each category. We rendered our material selection. This was one of the early projects we had to do for our design visualization class. Part of the assignment was to render the material in full scale, and the second part was to render material 1"=1'-0"

I learned that it is a very time consuming endeavor and learned much through the process.

Value study

Value study in graphite, pen, and grey markers

Color week...

Two colors and its middle.

Two colors and its middle.

Three colors and its middle.

Four colors mixed with grey & their middle.

Color palette

Spring, summer, fall, and winter with the

color palette.

My design view

My Header

At the beginning of the semester, we were asked to design a header for our blog post which represented who we are as student designers. I pondered and came up with several ideas and yet could still not decide which direction to take.

I had many ideas and I was not sure how to visually communicate them since it was my first semester in the IARC program. I still was not sure about expectations. Our header had to be 2.5 x 8 inches and I originally came up with an idea which had a beige background and some old fashioned fonts. Every time I looked at the header, I did not like it nor did I feel like it represented who I was as a student designer.

I decided to wait a few weeks and see what I would learn in my Interior Architecture program. Once I felt that my R-mode was in session, I would give it another try with the design of my header.

I ended up coming up with an gradient gray header with many circles on the inside. To me, the gray scale is the quintessential representation of art and design students. The circles on the inside, represented my floating ideas about design, out in the cosmos, without rhyme or reason, they simply are there waiting to be trained and properly utilized.