Design Principle / Project 2

 Design Principle: Project 2 - Sense of Place

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Instructions

Recap of Project 2

The importance of Observation
- Being observant means to be attentive to your surroundings, to pay attention to the details and to be analytical about them.
- An active act of acquiring information, through the senses, of a subject matter in its natural setting.

- Enables designers to see the 'problems' as well getting ideas to those problems.

Sense of place
- A thought about a place you are in now, or a place you had spend some time at previously or, a place that had created a lasting memory and a good impression to you.
- Sense of place can be expressed through photography.

Fig. 0.01 Futuristic city

Fig. 0.02 Tokyo street

Fig. 0.03 Idle Hours by William Merritt Chase, 1894

Visual references

In this particular task, I would like to solely focus on 'peace' and 'comfort'. A place where I get myself to be lost in thought with the surroundings or simply a place to meditate. I truly love to spend some alone time in these areas as I was able to gather my thoughts and push away my problems even if it is only temporary. Something about the quietness helps to bring down the noise.

Fig. 1.1 'Nature' Photographs by myself

Observing nature has been one of my favorite pastime to connect myself more with the nature. I tend to notice minor details that I find interesting such as a caterpillar chewing on a leaf or a pupa hanging on a leaf. A part of me can visual myself to live in a place where I can interact more with nature.

I used to learn biology which gave me a bigger perspective on how important nature really is and thus I was able to learn to appreciate them more. It was traumatizing but worth it.

Fig. 1.2 Interior cottage

Fig. 1.3 Exterior cottage

Something about living in a cottage feels different than living in a modern house. I think that a cottage has more color to it and an earthy natural scent. It is also very cozy and perhaps allow me to do the things I love to do. It may seem traditional but it is one of the things that I wish to explore.

Fig. 1.4 Library

Reading books has been one of my favorite hobbies for the longest time. I yearn to have a library of my own or a reading nook in the future. It really brings me comfort and peace. When I think about books, I like to relate it with nature because of its woody scent. It brings a vintage style and a lot of history that makes me feel like I have time traveled back in the past.

Fig. 1.5 Movie Inspiration

I decided to take some inspiration from movies called 'Up' and 'Howl's Moving Castle'. I took the concept of moving houses as they can travel and observe every part of the world. I believe this is more exciting if a house of my own could move in its free will. I also decided to take some visual reference on their art styles regarding to nature that I found really amazing to look at.

Designs

Fig 2.1 Sketch 1

In this sketch, I decided to draw a cottage that resembles a mushroom in order to incorporate with nature. I drew the cottage on top of a small hill to give off that fantasy feeling. A cottage that was surrounded by nature truly brought the peace that I wanted to convey through this drawing.

Fig 2.2 Sketch 2

When I think about a library, I also think about nature. I wanted to include nature inside the library to add more color and life into the drawing. I imagined the sight to be breathtaking together with natural sunlight coming from the window. It would also be a fun experience to read books and observe nature at the same time. It certainly brought warmth and comfort in the picture.

Fig 2.3 Sketch 3

For this sketch, I decided to be more adventurous. I gave it a thought that what if I could travel around the world with a house instead of staying at a same spot. Therefore, I decided to add some legs for the house in order to move around. I came up with this idea by taking some inspiration from movies called 'Up' and ' Howl's Moving Castle'. These are my favorite childhood movies and their animation are still as spectacular as ever. I drew a few books escaping from the cottage to show that there is a library inside of it when it is moving.

Final Design

Fig 3.1 Colorful MasterPeace

For my final design, I decided to finalize my sketch #2. I believe this concept speaks to me of what I wanted most. I wanted to focus more on repetition in this design by accentuating the different colors on the books to make it clearer. I decided to add a lot of bright colors into this piece to make it look serene. Peace could come in many ways but I believe this was my own interpretation of how I imagined it to be. To be at peace, you have to be happy. This gave me a sense of place where I can be comfortable around with. Colorful and peace makes a good combination. Therefore, I decided to name it 'Colorful MasterPeace'.

Feedbacks

Week 9: My lecturer told me that I had a clear picture of what kind of a sense of place that I wanted through my visual references and photographs. All she needed is for me to show a few sketches of my designs. She also told me it would be better to mention the photographs were taken by me. She told me that I had various interests of spaces and she was interested to know how I would combine all the keywords for my sense of place such as nature, cottage, libraries.

Fig 4.1 Comparison Sketch #1 and Sketch #2

Week 10: Compared to the first idea of my sketch, my lecturer told me that my sketch #2 had much more originality. My first sketch has more resonance to my cottage visual references although it had a cute and pretty design. 

Fig 4.2 Sketch #3

For sketch #3, my lecturer gave me a choice if  I wanted to use this as my final design, she advised me it would be better if it was in a landscape format because the composition of the cottage is slightly off. She also advised me to add more nature into the background to make it look more natural and gave a better sense of place what I wanted to achieve. The movement of the books can be executed better if the composition of the sketch is improved.

Reflection

In conclusion, I am finally be able to understand on how to use the design principles in my design. Based on my first assignment, I had some troubles on how to interpret it into my ideas and therefore a lot of mistakes were made. At this moment, I believe I had a lot of improvements and I was able to execute my ideas well. Although it has only been a few months, the journey throughout this module has been a blast.

In my opinion, this assignment was really enjoyable. I decided to take a harder approach for this topic which has something to do with nature. Drawing nature is something that I always find really challenging to do including the colors. They are mostly random and need to take a lot of consideration. However, it is also something that I loved so I decided to choose something that is closer to my heart. Although there are still improvements to be made, I guaranteed to continue practicing my skills and continue exploring my sense of place. If it was not for nature, I would have picked something close to a city life. I think it would also be fun to explore this idea as I am always mesmerized with the city of lights.

Overall it was a memorable experience and the classes surprisingly was something I always looked forward to. I realized that sharing and having a discussion with everyone and the lecturer have make my mornings better. I can't wait to see what else I could work on till the end of this journey.