What went well and what I learnt

For me this project was very successful, I finished the module knowing I had done my very best and had put maximum effort into all aspects.

I think a lot of things went well but one that stands out to me was my model making, I’ve always been someone who hates model making because i’m not great at it and (to me) my models always look messy. This project was quite heavy on model making as a form of development and at the start this scared me. However after getting started and realising that the models didn’t need to look perfect and just needed to show my ideas I quickly got into the swing of things.

I stopped worrying about how messy they were and started making, this turned out to be a big turning point for me and although the thought of making a final model still scared me a little (especially after looking round the room at everyone else’s ‘rough’ models), I tried not to worry about it until I reached that point and worked on developing my concepts. When it came to the final model I had realised that the only reason I found model making so hard was because I was to much of a perfectionist. This development lead me to relax and just make, I chilled out and stopped worrying about how it would look next to other peoples models. This has grown my confidence in myself and I think it is noticeable in my work.

 

One other thing that I did well was taking on the feedback I got from my peers and in my tutorials, I tried very hard to take everyone’s feedback and expand on it.

One thing that I worked on a lot after sitting in a few tutorials was research. I conducted research throughout this project and not just at the start, one example of this is the research I did on defence buildings. Before researching defence buildings I thought that I had the final design I wanted to do and was anxious to get developing it, however after a tutorial with Jason I chose to take a step back and return to research, this turned out to be one of the best decisions I made in this project as it allowed me to sit back and think more about the purpose and origin of my idea and build from the research I had conducted.

Taking in and working on feedback is something I haven’t been very good at throughout the year and to take a step back and think about what has been said to me about my work has been crucial in this project and I am so happy that I did.

What didn’t go so well

Towards the end of the project my time management went out the window as I began to panic and focus on the looming deadline, this caused me to rush things like my boards and getting things printed for my sketchbook.

My A3 boards were a rush job as I had taken too much time in making my A1 board, I was being a perfectionist and it wasted a lot of time that would have been better spent on my A3 boards. As a result my A3’s were not to my highest standard and to be completely honest I was quite disappointed in them, they were messy and had a lack of information and context to them, which to me is a very important aspect of concept boards. A concept board should show someone who isn’t me and doesn’t know anything about the project or process how I came to my final design and what my thinking behind it was, I don’t think my final A3 boards that I presented portray this, therefore I went back into InDesign and created boards that are much more informative and neat.

I am so glad I chose to redo my boards as now they look a lot more professional and weren’t a rushed job.

 

Designers who inspired me

Tadao Ando and his ‘Church of the Light’.

James Turrell and his ‘Skyscapes’

I have expanded on these designers and how their work has inspired me in my research blog.

Overall

Overall I am so happy with the way my project turned out, I have learnt a lot about designing and myself through this project and think I have grown from it. I may have had my downs but I handled them and I fixed them and built upon them to create the best work I possibly could. I can say without any doubt that this is my best work (the boards at my exhibition my not have been but now they are). I’ve developed skills from this project that I will take through my years at uni and beyond whilst constantly building upon them. One thing I can say about this project is that I was not expecting to build a life sized shed in our studio but as crazy as it sounded at the time it really helped with visualising the size and scale of my design.

I have thoroughly enjoyed my first year of Interior Environmental Design at DJCAD and I am looking forward to 2nd year.