In this media course, we focused on design process and development, using varied types of media to express design intent and understand our personal design process. We were given a simple program of a small memorial space in the Eugene Pioneer Cemetery with both interior reflection space and an exterior garden. With such a loose program and a focus on media my design changes between each design, but I maintained similar themes and built off my previous work each time.
For every assignment, our choice of media was totally up to us, so I chose to have fun and try something new almost every time.
Vision Drawings
To begin my design process, I started by using expressive media to capture the site and vision for my place through perspective, plan and section. Alongside these drawings I wrote down driving ideas behind my design intent to compliment my sketches.
This step shows the importance of incorporating site into design from the very beginning, and understanding what kind of structure will compliment its surroundings.
Charcoal and chalk
Primary Ideas
After analyzing the vision I created, I found precedent images, drew a parti diagram, and solidified my primary ideas in writing.
Hybrid: Charcoal drawing, digital photos and text
Structure- Organization and Detail
After deciding on my driving design concepts, I began considering structure and how the organization of my building and the structure would compliment each other.
Graphite
Integral Ornament
After considering the global organization, I zoomed in and spent time designing a special moment of my building, where water runs down the wall into a groove in the floor that forms a ravine. With blue glass tiling lining the gaps between columns and running into the ravine, there would be a glow to the space, aiding my light reflecting between the columns.
Watercolor and ink
Narrative Sequence
The natural next step in my process was being able to explain how a detail like the one above would fit into the experience of the place.
I expressed this through a narrative sequence, beginning with the first glimpse of the structure through the trees, and ending with a powerful moment.
This process allowed me to figure out what parts of my design I still needed to figure out, and helped me articulate the experience I wanted people to have.
Graphite and colored pencil
(Draft on left, final on right)
First Draft
Artistic Perspective
The final assignment of the course was to create a perspective in a new style or with an interesting point of view- anything to break out of the traditional architectural drawing.
I chose to use this drawing to understand the culminating meditative space in my building, while trying a new type of media and new style of art.
After considering what I wanted the space to feel like, I realized I wanted it to be layered, and manipulate light in a beautiful way. This led me to create a colorful collage using a combination of hand and digital media that shows my room layered into the landscape.
Hybrid: Graphite and ink on trace paper, Photoshop
