Monday, 23 March 2009
Thoughts so far and moving forward!
Over the last few weeks I have been developing different ideas, I do have a habit of thinking these ideas up and doing a small amount of work on them and not carrying on with them. Particularly in this kind of module which has been labelled as one to have fun in and experiment. I am now going to write about and try and define my ideas so I have a focus and some points to work towards. It is also getting nearer to the Interim presentations so I am beginning to look at my work more critically and see what can be shown at this presentation to define the direction my work is taking to others.
I began creative work on this project by looking at housing, mainly around Middlesbrough, there are 1 million homes in the UK stood empty so I decided this would be a good area to focus on. After visiting Eco-build in London I saw how much work there was being done on sustaining homes so I focused on this area further. I looked around some of the estates in Middlesbrough. Student housing has always been a problem in Middlesbrough, with students living amongst the local community sometimes causing nuisance and letting their houses stand empty for many months of the year. From all this I came up with an idea that the area off Garnet street in Middlesbrough (Behind Psyche) Could be developed into a student’s village with landscapes links up to the University. After exploring this a little further I decided that I wasn’t focusing on Interiors which is my specialism so I decided I needed to focus on an Interior of a house. I live in a typical end Victorian terrace which is not very sustainable so I looked into this as a real life case study and what could be done. I had many ideas but found it difficult to get them down on paper. I spent a few weeks just going on thinking about all these ideas to the point my head got confused with all the ideas going round in it. I need to start writing down these ideas producing simple sketches, drawings, models as soon as I have these ideas. I think this will help me from getting confused in the future like I have done in previous modules. One of the main ideas I had to do with housing was that sides of houses or buildings in general could have an interactive panel which produced energy from raindrops and changes in air pressure from the wind. A large panel would be placed on the side of a building or in an appropriate space on the exterior, this would also act as an attraction to a building. I experimented visually with this idea placing different patterns on panels using Photoshop. At the moment I am still contemplating how I could make these visuals interactive to show the idea of the panel and how it creates energy. The panel would not necessarily produce energy for the house or building but could be used to power appliances around the environment such as street and traffic lights. This idea could be progressed further, whilst studying at Undergraduate level I researched into a nightclub in Rotterdam which generates its own energy from the dance floor. After discussing this with my working group it has led Richard Lotter to look at this concept in more detail as he is focusing his work on an eco-friendly bars and nightclubs at present. An idea came from this that part of the urban landscape could generate energy like this. Speed bumps could create energy as a car drives over them, even roads or footpaths could be designed this way so they are producing energy as people go about their everyday lives. Something that would have to be investigated for this is as to whether this would be worthwhile or whether these concepts would require more energy to power them than they are creating. These are all concepts that could happen in the future in an eco-town or city.
After this I began to focus on the Interior of my house and put some proposals forward as to how the interior can be altered to make the house more sustainable. These were all basic ideas, but it is a starting point. To me this just shows living in a sustainable home is not a difficult thing and it is not an option that we have if we want to protect our environment for future generations. These are all ideas down in sketch form but need taking to a more detailed stage.
After researching and exploring some ideas in housing I decided that this is not an area I particularly want to look into any further. This surprised me as I was quite enthusiastic about this at the start of this module, I felt I had a good idea but didn’t have far to take it without experiencing difficulty. As I was not enjoying the exploration of the houses I decided to move on from this and look at something else as I didn’t want to spend the rest of the MA developing a housing concept when my passions lay elsewhere. Another reason for my choice to leave this area was that my colleague Paul Millburn has a strong interest in this area and has done a lot of work previously, even though we spent some time working together and sharing research I feel that he has a lot more knowledge and I wouldn’t be able to pick up enough detail to create a good solution and design at this point of my studies. This could just be my lack of self-confidence but I wanted to return to something I felt more appropriate to my personality.
Following on from this I began looking at design for children particularly young children as I had outlined this as an area I wanted to look at in my learning agreement. In a tutorial with Stephen Bailey I spoke about my progress with housing and how I wanted to look at children’s Nursery’s. As my passion and ‘thing’ is sustainable design I still wanted my work to focus around this, Stephen felt this was a good area to look into as it is something that hasn’t been done before. After considering the Eco-build trip and noting the work currently taking place in today’s industry I decided that Nurseries was a good area to focus on. I downloaded a sketch up file of a nursery and converted this into a 3d studio max file to experiment with interiors of nurseries. I felt it was time for me to do some creative development and wanted to move on from researching and build up a portfolio to use upon completion of the course. I spent time experimenting with these and different surfaces made from sustainable materials. I then began to look in more detail at a company called smile plastics whose stand I had visited at Eco-build. Their work inspired me and immediately after seeing their surface made from wellies I could see how this would fit in my interiors, particularly with focusing on design for children. I was inspired and began looking at other surfaces made from recycled materials and how they fit within interiors including creating my own surfaces to experiment with. These were made from used carrier bags, plastic food wrappings and unwanted materials. The last idea links back to the Sustees conference where Dr Claire Hussey spoke about unwanted clothing and the journey it takes. An idea was that each ‘pattern’ would create a surface in an appropriate space, the surface made from food wrappers could sit on the edges of tills in supermarkets and food shops. The unwanted materials could create wall coverings in clothes shops. The plastic bags were the most successful surface produced and they could go in a number of places or be used to create a number of installations or fixtures such as lighting concepts.
Whilst developing this work I managed to arrange and visit a working nursery, to look at the facilities and spaces they had to offer. This was an extremely worthwhile visit which I have written about earlier on in this sketchbook.
Following on from the surfaces I created I began to develop and experiment with the patterns in my eating area of a nursery I was designing. I also looked at creating lighting fitting from recycled carrier bags.
The aim of writing this was to allow myself to realise what I needed to go back to and complete and to find the ideas which I wanted to progress on with. I have identified some actions to carry on with in the near future. Areas I need to ‘finish’ and concentrate on now for future development are:
• The Interior of a town house- draw up the plan using AutoCAD and make any proposals to the building
• Approach more nursery’s for visits to gain a wider area of research
• Take photographs and show how the surfaces could be used within Interiors
• Develop the lighting idea from the used carrier bags
• Concentrate on creating spaces using sustainable materials
• Begin to research Educating through design and how this can be done. How to make a Nursery more sustainable!
• Research from Journals in the LRC
I began creative work on this project by looking at housing, mainly around Middlesbrough, there are 1 million homes in the UK stood empty so I decided this would be a good area to focus on. After visiting Eco-build in London I saw how much work there was being done on sustaining homes so I focused on this area further. I looked around some of the estates in Middlesbrough. Student housing has always been a problem in Middlesbrough, with students living amongst the local community sometimes causing nuisance and letting their houses stand empty for many months of the year. From all this I came up with an idea that the area off Garnet street in Middlesbrough (Behind Psyche) Could be developed into a student’s village with landscapes links up to the University. After exploring this a little further I decided that I wasn’t focusing on Interiors which is my specialism so I decided I needed to focus on an Interior of a house. I live in a typical end Victorian terrace which is not very sustainable so I looked into this as a real life case study and what could be done. I had many ideas but found it difficult to get them down on paper. I spent a few weeks just going on thinking about all these ideas to the point my head got confused with all the ideas going round in it. I need to start writing down these ideas producing simple sketches, drawings, models as soon as I have these ideas. I think this will help me from getting confused in the future like I have done in previous modules. One of the main ideas I had to do with housing was that sides of houses or buildings in general could have an interactive panel which produced energy from raindrops and changes in air pressure from the wind. A large panel would be placed on the side of a building or in an appropriate space on the exterior, this would also act as an attraction to a building. I experimented visually with this idea placing different patterns on panels using Photoshop. At the moment I am still contemplating how I could make these visuals interactive to show the idea of the panel and how it creates energy. The panel would not necessarily produce energy for the house or building but could be used to power appliances around the environment such as street and traffic lights. This idea could be progressed further, whilst studying at Undergraduate level I researched into a nightclub in Rotterdam which generates its own energy from the dance floor. After discussing this with my working group it has led Richard Lotter to look at this concept in more detail as he is focusing his work on an eco-friendly bars and nightclubs at present. An idea came from this that part of the urban landscape could generate energy like this. Speed bumps could create energy as a car drives over them, even roads or footpaths could be designed this way so they are producing energy as people go about their everyday lives. Something that would have to be investigated for this is as to whether this would be worthwhile or whether these concepts would require more energy to power them than they are creating. These are all concepts that could happen in the future in an eco-town or city.
After this I began to focus on the Interior of my house and put some proposals forward as to how the interior can be altered to make the house more sustainable. These were all basic ideas, but it is a starting point. To me this just shows living in a sustainable home is not a difficult thing and it is not an option that we have if we want to protect our environment for future generations. These are all ideas down in sketch form but need taking to a more detailed stage.
After researching and exploring some ideas in housing I decided that this is not an area I particularly want to look into any further. This surprised me as I was quite enthusiastic about this at the start of this module, I felt I had a good idea but didn’t have far to take it without experiencing difficulty. As I was not enjoying the exploration of the houses I decided to move on from this and look at something else as I didn’t want to spend the rest of the MA developing a housing concept when my passions lay elsewhere. Another reason for my choice to leave this area was that my colleague Paul Millburn has a strong interest in this area and has done a lot of work previously, even though we spent some time working together and sharing research I feel that he has a lot more knowledge and I wouldn’t be able to pick up enough detail to create a good solution and design at this point of my studies. This could just be my lack of self-confidence but I wanted to return to something I felt more appropriate to my personality.
Following on from this I began looking at design for children particularly young children as I had outlined this as an area I wanted to look at in my learning agreement. In a tutorial with Stephen Bailey I spoke about my progress with housing and how I wanted to look at children’s Nursery’s. As my passion and ‘thing’ is sustainable design I still wanted my work to focus around this, Stephen felt this was a good area to look into as it is something that hasn’t been done before. After considering the Eco-build trip and noting the work currently taking place in today’s industry I decided that Nurseries was a good area to focus on. I downloaded a sketch up file of a nursery and converted this into a 3d studio max file to experiment with interiors of nurseries. I felt it was time for me to do some creative development and wanted to move on from researching and build up a portfolio to use upon completion of the course. I spent time experimenting with these and different surfaces made from sustainable materials. I then began to look in more detail at a company called smile plastics whose stand I had visited at Eco-build. Their work inspired me and immediately after seeing their surface made from wellies I could see how this would fit in my interiors, particularly with focusing on design for children. I was inspired and began looking at other surfaces made from recycled materials and how they fit within interiors including creating my own surfaces to experiment with. These were made from used carrier bags, plastic food wrappings and unwanted materials. The last idea links back to the Sustees conference where Dr Claire Hussey spoke about unwanted clothing and the journey it takes. An idea was that each ‘pattern’ would create a surface in an appropriate space, the surface made from food wrappers could sit on the edges of tills in supermarkets and food shops. The unwanted materials could create wall coverings in clothes shops. The plastic bags were the most successful surface produced and they could go in a number of places or be used to create a number of installations or fixtures such as lighting concepts.
Whilst developing this work I managed to arrange and visit a working nursery, to look at the facilities and spaces they had to offer. This was an extremely worthwhile visit which I have written about earlier on in this sketchbook.
Following on from the surfaces I created I began to develop and experiment with the patterns in my eating area of a nursery I was designing. I also looked at creating lighting fitting from recycled carrier bags.
The aim of writing this was to allow myself to realise what I needed to go back to and complete and to find the ideas which I wanted to progress on with. I have identified some actions to carry on with in the near future. Areas I need to ‘finish’ and concentrate on now for future development are:
• The Interior of a town house- draw up the plan using AutoCAD and make any proposals to the building
• Approach more nursery’s for visits to gain a wider area of research
• Take photographs and show how the surfaces could be used within Interiors
• Develop the lighting idea from the used carrier bags
• Concentrate on creating spaces using sustainable materials
• Begin to research Educating through design and how this can be done. How to make a Nursery more sustainable!
• Research from Journals in the LRC
Sunday, 22 March 2009
Progess so far
In a week’s time we have an interim presentation, we are starting to gather work towards this presentation by completing work which has begun. I have spent the last few days looking at sustainable surfaces and how these fit into the interiors. I have created some of my own ideas for surfaces from everyday reused materials. I am enjoying looking at Children’s Nursery's and managed to visit one recently. I hope in the next few days to be able to contact some other local nurseries to visit and to develop some of the interiors I have started to look at. Below are images of 2 sustainable surfaces which have really inspired me, they are from stands that I visited at Eco-build at Earl’s court. The first is for recycled wellies, which is how I linked my work with children’s nurseries, the 2nd is made by the same company, smile plastics and is made from shredded food containers. Examples of more materials like these can be found on http://www.smile-plastics.co.uk/dapple.htm
This is a website that has really inspired me and has formed a big part of the work I am researching and developing at the moment.
This is a website that has really inspired me and has formed a big part of the work I am researching and developing at the moment.
Sunday, 15 March 2009
Children's nursery
Over this last week I have begun to experiment with Interiors for children working on a children’s nursery. At the heart of this space will be sustainability and how to live sustainable lives. I think that design can educate, children are our future and we need to begin to live more sustainable lives. By designing a children’s nursery I believe that by starting children living good habits young they will go on to live sustainable lives in their future and adult lives. I have a number of ideas for these spaces and have currently returned to using 3D Studio max to experiment with these ideas. I have done this to expand my portfolio as the basis of it at the moment is hand drawing. I am researching into how an interactive panel on a wall may be able to generate energy aswell as provide entertainment for the children. A key interest in my research and experimentation at the moment is based on the works of the company smile plastics http://www.smile-plastics.co.uk/ I visited at the Eco-build conference in London and was inspired by the way that they created finished from recycled wellies, upon returning to Teesside I began researching and found that the company not only does this with wellies but lots of other unwanted products such as mobile phones, cd’s and plastic bottles. I feel this is going to form a basis for my project at present and am going to experiment putting these in my interiors possibly creating my own surfaces from recycled materials. A lot of the materials are bright colours which are ideal for spaces which children will use.
Wednesday, 4 March 2009
Research for Experimentation and Ecobuild
Over the last week I have been working individually and alongside my group to the theory of sustainable design. I now feel I have backed up enough knowledge of sustainability and should now move forward to looking at how this affects design. I also had a tutorial with Stephen Bailey, he advised that I produced 3 designs for this part of the MA. I began thinking about what exactly I wanted to gain from the remaining months. After giving this some thought I have decided to look into houses as this allows a large area for research and ideas. I want to look into sustainable living and the sustainable home. As a strong interest of mine is children’s design and I feel I have left this previously at an unfinished point which was beginning to get interesting I would like to return to this area. I am going to look into designing a children’s nursery or something along these lines. The final design took much thought, I think I would like to look into hotels and holiday accommodation as a final idea. I feel at this point it is too early for me to define by work and am going to continue on with my research and developing ideas instead of working towards an outcome at this stage. Whilst researching I found out about a conference named eco build in London 3-5th march 2009, though this is short notice we feel like it is too good an opportunity to miss and feel it could provide us with inspiration and many new ideas in which to build this module around. As a group, at present we plan to go to this conference on Tuesday, sadly due to commitments and the short notice we are only able to go for the day. We have planned exactly what we want to see and information to gather to allow us to gain as much info as possible while we are there. Once we arrive at the conference we will split up to allow us to gain as much knowledge to bring back to Teesside as possible.
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