So this begins the second part of my last year of school.  Degree Project was definitely a journey.

I was very fortunate to be working with my professor Paul J Donnelly.  We were really a great match and the balance we kept each other in, though at times frustrating, worked out well.

After discussing my Design Thinking book and visiting the site, we discussed strategies to approach the site.  What vector forces could the site give us?  Would half levels help with the interaction between programs?  How will all these things interact?

Like the Design Thinking course of the previous semester, I made it a point to start making as soon as possible.  Over the years, I have accepted the inevitability of crappy first efforts.  I also find that even if what I first make becomes absolutely irrelevant as soon as it's made, I know that by the act of making, I'm putting my mind to work on coming up with the next model/drawing/rendering/idea.

So I first made a model:

Something about vector forces pulled from the site.

Then I made some water colors:

I then scanned them and started working on a way to tie the exploration into the textures I was using at the end of DT to help delineate programmatic zones.

Something about the "mediatheque," public space and retail space layering on top of each other.

I also did some reading:

While there wasn't too much to directly pull from the Design Research store.  I really liked reading about the feeling they were going for and I liked seeing the feel of the spaces shoppers experienced.

Then came the Conceptual Review:

After the presentation, I had the feeling that using "protest space" just caused too many red flags to go up.  It's my belief that if I have to spend most of my presentation time confronting and overcoming the ingrained beliefs of my critiques, then I should find another avenue to achieve the same result.  Switching the way I presented also, I think, helped me in the semester to keep a more open mind about the project's development.

Anyway, a little bit after the review, I finished my context model and started testing out how my ideas would work on the site.

As a closer for this post, here was the course outline for the semester:

All for now.

Take care,

Christopher