Earth Day

Sustainability.
Recycling.
Respect for animals.

Love Mother Earth, today and everyday.

Number 2584

Day trip to the Giants Causeway and the Titanic museum in Belfast.

Great day up north to discover the Antrim's coast and the Giants causeway.
The site is composed of 40,000 regular shaped basalt columns packed closely together as if to form a "stepping stone" pathway stretching out to sea.the columns were formed by the cooling and shrinking of molten lava from an ancient volcanic eruption over 60 million years ago.
Local legend tells how it was actually the giant Finn MacCool who created the Giants' Causeway to challenge his Scottish rival Benandonner.

We then headed to Belfast to go visit the newly opened Titanic Museum.

It is a very impressive building and the angled cladding gives it a very interesting texture and a playful light and shadow combination. There a couple of cafes on the ground floor, together with the reception and the gift shop. The void in the atrium goes all the way up to the roof and there are different staircases and escalators in the middle of it which make the building appear very large. the combination of materials was very interesting, especially the metal finish on the main wall which had been treated with fire to give it a special "wreck" look, just like the Titanic at the bottom of the sea. On the upper floors there were galleries and interactive exhibition telling about Belfast at the time, the company who build the Titanic and all the people involved. There was also a ride to see how it was to work in a shipyard at the time. It was very emotional to see the part of the exhibition regarding the impact with the insidious iceberg and the sank of the mighty Titanic. Examples of 1st, 2nd and 3rd class cabins were reconstructed to the finest details and it was very interesting to see how big the class difference was then.  The exhibition ends in an "underwater" theatre showing clips of modern cameras exploring the shipwreck at the bottom of the ocean, complete with a glass floor where we could walk and look down to videos of the actual Titanic as it is today.

The museum looks very good and it is going to be a major tourist attraction in the future, thus bringing more money to the city of Belfast and contributing to fight recession with the creation of numerous new job positions, which is great. A couple of weeks from the opening though and it already shows signs of bad maintenance in some parts, like wallpaper coming off in the corners and some chipped mdf boards. Also I was not very keen on the choice of fonts they had used in some areas, as it looked childish and not continuous with the rest of the exhibition. Circulation was also very tight in some areas and not very well organised (long Qs that could have been easily avoided would have they provided a separate path).

Food in the ground floor bistro was to die for!

Number 1597

Good design truly is all about the simplest solutions....

Number 987

Architects of portugese office Cerejeira Fontes executed a project of a chapel for a clergy school in the historical town of Braga in northern Portugal. The main idea was to connect the chapel with spaces of the St. Jacob’s centre. The volume of the chapel was integrated into the vestibule of the centre, whose neutral concrete walls allowed the new element to stand out. The mass of the chapel is made of wooden beams stacked onto each other, creating gaps that may also serve as storage compartments.

Transparency of the mass optically expands the interior of the chapel and allows bypassers to peer inside. Entrance to the chapel is found in one of its corners, where it opens up a complex shaped inner space. The wooden construction necks down with rising height and the top is left unsealed. This allows the visitors in the mezzanine above, to see into the chapel.

It is a great inspiration to see how a simple sequence of wood boards can be assembled at an angle to give the impression of a terraced mountain side!

http://www.architecturelover.com/2012/04/tree-of-life-chapel-by-cerejeira-fontes/?ref=nf

Number 610

Sweet, beautiful, brave, colourful everyday plants hanging upside down in my interior: goodbye gravity!

http://www.boskke.com/products/skyplanter/

Number 377

Terraces rising out from a sloping mountain= chair rising from wooden sticks.

The Rising Chair was created by Dutch designer Robert Van Embricqs. Its sculptural shape rises from a simple wooden plank to form a unique and versatile chair design. This chair looks nothing like the other chairs designed throughout the years. The idea behind this chair’s conceptual construction was created starting with the flat surface used for sitting. The designer started cutting beam-like strands that would eventually shape the chair as an organic seating unit.

http://www.decoist.com/2011-05-26/exceptionally-creative-seating-unit-rising-chair-by-robert-van-embricqs/

Number 233

 Visit at the Malthouse Design Centre, Dublin.

Today we went to visit the Malthouse Design Centre in Dublin. http://www.themalthousedesigncentre.com/

It was a great inspiration to see how a creative collective of designers work together in a shared space.
Co-working spaces is the way to go for the future, they're starting to appear everywhere in the world and I believe it's a great encouragement for young designers who want to start their own business to know that there are places like the Malthouse where you can share your knowledge and creativity in the most beautiful and motivating brainstorming environment! Their focus is to get you started with your design and prototype of your product and they will then help you branding yourself and sell your products, get your name on the market by organising events and advertisements. There are a number of rooms availabale, including "clean" studios where to develop your sketches and design, then there are a couple of manufacturing labs where to cut wood, fabrics and work with actual tools; also, there is a meeting room for clients meetings and an exhibition space. We were challenged today to produce a packaging for cutlery under 30 mins. We all came up with very different designs and intents. This is what my friends and I designed:

We were inspired by the hand that holds the cutlery and we decided to go with an oven mitten to reinforce the concept of cooking: from a selling point of view, the mitten would be included in the cutlery package to add value to the product. For the aesthetics we went for "grandma's cutlery" with a very retro/vintage/50's/feminine design that would bring on the concept of slow cooking as opposed to fast food.

It was a very interesting exercise and all  "prototypes" were great! We worked in the exhibition room which showcased a lot of products by new Irish designers who worked in collaboration with the Malthouse.

I particularly liked this lamp: "Hex Lamp" by Kooyong design.

Number 144

Project diagram inspired by Ching's Organisational Principles.

Number 89

Back to college tomorrow!
Hope all of you had a lovely Christmas and a good start of 2012!

Working on the next stage for my studio project. the concept chosen for my school of interior landscaping is terrace agriculture; in an attempt to see it as a metaphore I would say that: the sloping mountain represents nature/ the terraces represents the school/ the harvest represents the learning. I have built three concept models so far, and I want to try to incorporate more of the first model into my next one because there was where the concept was at its strongest. I am pretty happy with my block plans, only need to re-arrange the ground floor to try and attract as much external visitors as possible. We have been filmed during our last crit so we will be able to see ourselves while presenting, which is a great way to understand what to improve.

Objects of desire

Design: indulge in the individual desire and sell us MORE STUFF!
We live in the ultimate designer age, can we have too much of a good thing? Where do we get materials?

Marc Newson - address mass production, designer's goal. Dilemma: how can mass production feel a desirable one-off?
Peter Saville( Joy Division) Interest in producing things that he wanted.

Milano- design is an industrial philosophical affair. Ettore Sottsass at the end of the 1070's: Offer consumers' choice, variety and abundance - Memphis Blues. Bring some personality to the production. rational, functional, long-lasting, in the new fashion the customer was KEY. Memphis meant end of the modernism: collective good make way for individual desire,  rise to a new kind of design object.
 Michael Graves commissioned by Alessi to make an "american pot", associated colours to functions and his kettle was immediately a design classic, a "mass icon".
Redefining function: things we want but that we dont really need.
Philippe Starck - there are more parameters than the materialistic ones, pleasure seeking brands.
1987 big british recession >>> they opened to the swedish IKEA, giant automated warehouse.
Sweden IKEA most successful furniture company in the world, began in 1955.
Make furniture fit in a FLAT package. Ikea proposed opposite to luxurious products: flatpacked and cheap.
Low price, sustainable, flatpack, long lasting.
Computers ; 1984 the computer went personal. December 1946 -research programme on computers: demo showed computers can be useful everyday to ordinary people.
The first mouse that was ever built was in 1963, it was a wooden box with two wheels inside: it changed everything. Democratisation of computers. Larry Tesler - computer designer, make a computer friendly and efficient.
iPOD 2001. cradle in cradle design - glen oliver "think chair" its components are designed to be infinitely re-used.

Assignment one pt 2

DEFINE PROBLEM:

BRIEF

Who? the Client is Dublin City Council and the target are 3rd level education students, who are going to study interior landscape design,and the local community who

are going to enjoy the comunity garden on the roof top and use their own allotment. Results of survey and charts explained in the next paragraph.

What? the brief has 3 functions: A) School of interior landscape design B) community roof top garden C) administration and exhibition spaces

When? Works to commence in May

Where? 31-36 Upper Ormond Quay, Dublin 7

Why?The building occupies a space which used to belong to Dublin City Council and was used as a market place.

it was an important sapce for the local community: there a re a lor of residential buildings in the area and the market represented a focal meeting point for the

locals. Later in 2008 DMOD architects won the bid for the redevelopment of that site: construction works finished early in 2009 and the use of the building was going

to be offices. Despite being a commercial project, I don't think an office block is a good space for the community because most of the people living in the area won't

have access to the premises anyway. A place which used to belong to the locals has now closed its doors to the people of the area and only serves solicitors companies.

Another problem is that the entire third floor is still empty and it's currently a building site: this means that there is no need for more offcie space in the area

because no one is renting it, despite being a very central and attractive location.

How: use of sustainable ad durable materials, retention of existing structure approach.

RESEARCH:

 in order to better understand the target for my brief I sent out a survey to students of various institutions including Griffith College, UCD, KLC London and the Technical Institute for indoor gardening of San Francisco. It gave me information about the demographic group, their needs and wishes and their opinion and thoughts about the importance of indoor gardens. I have also conducted a primary research on three different typology buildings: the university of Salford Centenary Building - the building is divided in two separate wings with a central circulation space and glazing at both sides - , the school of architecture of Nantes - a system of external ramps leads all the way to the top floor/ the ground level is very well thought through as it cares for the students of the colege but also invites the community to join the premises with a hip cafeteria and an exhibition gallery - and at last the Zollverein school of design - very similar to the building im working on, both in size and shape/ there is a missed opportunity here fo a striking roof space: it could be a garden, a restaurant, a bar or simply an event/show space, but at the moment it's simply a lid to the building box.

I’m including the charts of the results of the survey to illustrate how I got to my target and my users’ needs.

IDEATE:

The initial concept for the design would be something related to nature. My initial ideas are  about scale and proportions. The idea is that:  an indoor garden brings the big trees from the big outside world into a small enclosed building > therefore nature becomes OUT OF SCALE. The initial visual concept would be that of recreating the feeling that the human eye gets whenever we look up to big tall trees. There is a big difference in scale and proportion and I think that this difference could be recreated using interior architectural features, like walls, floors and ceilings, but also through the use of materials, colours, light and textures.

Assignment one pt 1

Number 55

Studio Project.

The building I've chosen for my final studio project is located on 31- 36 Ormond Quay upper. It was completed in 2009 by DMOD architects. It is currently in use as offices and there's a shop on the ground floor. It is a four storey over basement building with two terraces and possibility for a roof garden on top. The south and  east facades have a limestone cladding, the north and part of the west ones show red bricks.The brief I've chosen is for a School of Interior Landscaping and Horticultural studies: it will also have a community roof garden and administration facilities. The brief relates entirely to my thesis so that helps me alot, especially when it comes to design the indoor garden in its technical details. The submission for the second chapter of the thesis was due last week and it was about technical requirements and details on how to build an interior garden.
The building is very user fiendly: it is a very new construction so it complies to all the newest Building Regs in terms of universal access design.The structure is rather irregular: bearing walls, stairs/lift core and a columns layout which varies every two floors.The research submission is due on the 30th. I have collected a good amount of responses through a survey I sent out to my friends, acquaintances and lecturers and students of UCD school of landscape architecture here in Dublin, KLC school of interior and garden design in London and The Technical Institute for Indoor Gardening in San Francisco.

        

Number 34

The genius of design - a summary.

"Something can always be better". Design is about problem solving but also aesthethics.It's a reflected image of its time, it depends alot on the economy, it dictates

trends and fashions. Good design has changed capitalism with mass production of goods and has introduced a globalisation in terms of materials and needs. Designers are

well inspired by craftsmen; the question is whether or not a quality craftsmanship product can be replicated by machines in mass production.At the beginning of the

Industrial revolution of the 19th century there was more appreciation for mass production as it was regarded as a new thing that could produce more goods for less,

thus serving more people. Notely the Draby iron pot in 1709 is iconic in those terms. later in 1839 fabric patterns designer W. Morris introduced the designers'

copyright and he went back to craftsmanship.Design has to be affordable for everyone, be "democratic". The object has to have a function first of all. The Bauhaus

school and Le Corbusier put function first ( the house as a "machine for living").
After the Second World War people started selling their "antiques". An iconic object from this era is the George carwardine Anglepoise lamp, born by a fusion between

design and engineering.
As opposed to european design, american design is more focused on the mainstream, rather than being exclusive (Dreyfuss designed "Joe and Josephine", figures based on

the average americans in order to deisgn around those measurements). from this time is also the invention of the roulett by W.Byam.
Blue prints of war - It explored design on the war front, such as weapons, which in the end are designed like all the other objects in terms of their ergonomics and

funciotnality. At this time Hitler understtod the power of design and communication and used it at his advantage as part of his regime propaganda.
60's & 70's - Chemistry led to Plastics, the greatest invention of this time in terms of materials. Everyday objects like the Tupperware kitchen  design were born at

this time. The 60's are also known as teh "plastics decade": plastic was fashionable, affordable and disposable.R.Day, Alessi, J.Colombo and V.Panton are all great

designers who contributed to history through the use of plastics. After the war Japan took on the leading role in the industry of electronics. Sony designed the

"Walkman" in 1979 which gave users freedom and liberation and promoted a more mobile way of living. Unfortunately for plastics they did not stand the test of time:

plastic it's a very brittle material, it ages very badly and it's not eco-friendly. As a reaction to plastic sustainability now is the main focus for designers.

Number 21

Visit to Tile Style.

Interesting class trip down to the biggest tiles showroom in Europe. Loads of information about natural and man made stone and all the process behind an impeccable tiling...

Number 13

Daintree building

Short stroll down to Pleasant place to look at the most sustainable building in Ireland.