Connecting Spaces

The Northern Pacific Railroad Depot in Pullman Washington will be going under an adaptive reuse project to create a residence, studio, and gallery for Shelly and her husband; who is visually impaired. The original design of the depot will stay put except for minor changes inside the building. The original ticket window wall will not be removed so that visitors who visit the space can remember the history of the building. Because of the husbands vision impairment the building will be built under universal design as well as accessibility making it an important aspect for the client and her husband.

Depot Design- Study Models

The following are different design options for the adaptive reuse of the Pullman Train Depot to create an art gallery, studio, and residence. What you see is the top of the building at an 1/8" plan. The main focus was to divide up the three different spaces of the building, and to create a distanct difference between the public and private spaces. Also the gallery space needed a particular flow to it. I tried numerous flows such as free spatial, double load, and radial. None of which particularly worked best for my gallery. Doing this before creating my floor plan helped me such much in understanding the flow as well as that important aspect of making sure the public and private spaces are seperate. After doing this though I had realized that I was making my residential space bigger than necessary and I could greatly increase my gallery space.

Depot Concept Model

The idea generator for the concept model is the final parti that was also used for the textile design.Instead of keeping the parti in 2D, I decided to explore the concepts further more and create a 3D form that can be viewed in all views (therefore not having a base). While using the final parti I also looked back to my original inspiration many times.

The form givers for the concept model are unity, connection, contrast, strong lines, as well as curved lines. The connection goes back to my original inspiration of the two wheels being connected, working together, but not touching. The contrast was also from my inspiration picure of the dark black train and the grey gloomy sky. The curved and bold straight lines came from the train wheels.

The form giver are applied in the final concept model in the way the shape was created as well as the 2 contrasting colors. There are 3 strong bold lines that on each end have curved crossing lines all of which was made out of foam core. There is a quick connection of the curved lines but they are not touching relating back to the wheels. The colors black and white were chosen relate back to the contrast of the sky.

Final parti used for concept model

Final Concept Model- 3D

 

Creating My Own Textile

In the concept development process of designing my depot into a gallery, studio, and residence, I was able to get the chance to create numerous patterns and in the end pick out the best to be created into a textile fabric. There were many steps before creating the final product but I started by first having an inspiration. My inspiration was from a picture I took at the Pullman Train Depot. Outside of the depot was a broken down train and it grabbed my attention from the way it stood with the gloomy sky behind it. The train consisted of many elements and principals of design. I used those design principals and elements to create abstract modules. The modules had straight bold lines, curved lines, unity, connection, and contrast. After creating several abstract modules, I selected two that I thought showed my inspiration best in an abstract way. With those 2 modules I used Photoshop and InDesign to edit, crop, rotate, and repeat to create different patterns with different color schemes to use for my textile. Eventually I choose a final pattern and color schemed which my final 36”x36” textile. The final textile still consisted of principals and elements of design from the original inspiration such as strong bold lines, curved lines, connection, and unity. There were many color schemes that worked with my pattern but I ended up choosing the original colors of the train for my textile; red, black and white. When my fabric came in off of ordering from SpoonFlower, a 36”x36” piece of fabric with my textile, I wasn’t surprised at all, for it had turned out just the way I had ordered. I really like my pattern but I do wish I could’ve done a better job and making the lines match up a little better. Also I wish I had considered making my scale smaller. The module was placed at 3”x3” the original size, but I wish I had done it just a half inch smaller. Overall the process of creating a fabric is very long, but it was definatley worth the process because you get to see how many options you have. I am pleased with my very first created fabric but I know in the future I can do better and I plan to be more careful about matching the modules up. This textile will be used in 3D form in my final plan of the depot. I plan on using it as a 3 form panel that is partially transparent, behind the reception desk so it gives a little divider.

Final Fabric

Mike Jobes: "Future Primitive"

Future Primitive Mike Jobes
April 4, 6:00 pm, Carpenter Hall 102

                When first reading about the quick notes of what the Mike Jobes lecture was going to be about I was unclear of what he would speak about. The first minute of his presentation, made it clear, he would talk about sustainability. His first line was that he felt, sustainability, has been hijacked. I at the beginning of the presentation disagreed but by the end it made a lot more sense what he meant. He started off by putting up a slide show of phrases. Phrases that we don’t ever see or hear; they were contrasting. The phrases consisted of today’s world, like cities, and urban combined with words like wild, forest and ancient.

                Mike made it clear that he was a huge fan of dense urban areas as well as natural life. He questioned if those could ever fit together and if so he would call it urban wild; one of the first phrases Mike put up at the beginning. I was quickly confused because I thought we already had places like that. I first thought of Seattle. Such a big famous city, but is surrounded by parks and mountains and tons of greens. But Mike meant literally putting the two right next to each, not just next to each but intertwined.
                Mike continued on to describe some trips that he has taken. He goes to Israel a lot because his wife lives there. One particular thing that Mike loves is the open air markets. They are outside but if it rained there was shade. The food comes directly from farmers and it’s not over controlled. Down in Los Angeles, California, Mike has a ton of favorite restaurants. All of which are from strip malls. He questioned why strip malls? Because they are open to first generation families, several real cultures and real food. The strip malls may be ugly but they contain so much culture.
                He jumped back to cities and natural life being connected. “Living City: interconnecting natural life and urban city”. He then showed on the slideshow Capitol Hill in Seattle. An area in Seattle that I personally have been to numerous times. I could picture it in my head right then and there. But it wasn’t the Capitol Hill that I knew that he had shown. It was literally a living city; one street would be filled with buildings and the street right next to it was full of trees and plants, then the street next to it buildings again, and the street next to that nature again. And repeated this throughout Capitol Hill.  He questioned the room full of students and just in general: “Can you ever get the city so clean you can actually have salmon spawn?” He and us all knew that answer was clear that, that was impossible. But it was more of the concept behind the question, how clean can we actually get the city. He continued to show more and more unrealistic pictures of combining nature and the city. It was so interesting to consider and it made me want the cities to look like how he made them.
                Mike then talked about natural hybrids. I was confused at first but he gave a variety of examples such as how in today’s world we can take things out of their natural environment and create the same environment with technology and they can live just perfect. Another was the example of the Tower of David in Venezuela. 45 story tower that is completely unfinished with missing windows, walls, and elevators and yet homeless people have seen to taken over the building and have been living in the city but without any electricity, etc for them so in a way Mike considers it a natural hybrid.
                One of Mike’s most recent projects is actually with Habitat for Humanity. Something I can easily relate to considering me and my classmates had spent several weeks creating possible home plans for them. He praised double stud walls (which I now know a lot of knowledge about from earlier in the year) and said that they will not go away!  They also were going to put a bladder type thing under the house, as a rain water system for flushing which I found interesting. As well as they would have fewer windows to make sure air wouldn’t leak out.
               Overall I enjoyed Mike’s “Future Primitive” speech extremely interesting. There were times when I was a little confused about some of his contrasting phrases but he did a great job of explaining everything very clearly. He was a great speaker and I’m interested to hear more from him in the future.

NOTES AND SKETCHES :

Shelly Murney- Client Artist Profile

Currently I am in the process of designing the adaptive reuse of a train depot in Pullman Washington that will consist of a residence, studio, and gallery. I have been able to choose a artist myself that I will design the space for. Shelly Murney, my chosen artist, is a fantastic photographer. She photographs these great urban rural areas that everyone sees but don't always see the beauty in these beaten down areas. I've spoken with Shelly myself and learned so much about what she does and how much work she puts into her art. When designing the space I need to be sure to make sure that Shelly has enough space in her studio to work as well as plenty of storage. For my design of the depot I am focusing on vision impairment so we are saying that Shelly has a husband with vision impairment and that her residence will need to include vision impairment requirements. I'm so happy to continue working with my chosen artists to make her gallery, studio and residence the best it can be.

Frank Lloyd Wright

From researching Frank Lloyd Wright I learned a lot about architecture in the 1930's. I found a lot of interesting things that I had never known before. My favorite thing that I learned about Wright was his love for nature and how he was able to put all of his pieces of work incorporated into nature. I thought that his Falling Water house was amazing and the story behind it was super interesting. The fact that he covered the waterfalls instead of having them as a view so the owners could be part of the nature as an everyday thing was really different to me. Overall studying Wright has given me a new perspective on architecture and how his modern work has incorporated into todays world. This, and learning my other classmates research, was a great start off into our next project, designing a studio space, art gallery, and residential home for a selected artist. Some other great things I learned my other classmates were; Design styles, history of railroad depot design (which is the current type of building we are using), gallery and art display, lighting (which helped greatly in how our light should be for the gallery), textile design, and inclusive design related to Vision impairent (which must be incorporated through our residence).

Carrie Vielle Studio Visit

For my ID studio class we are in the current process of designing a residential home, a studio space for a selected artists and a gallery for our selected artists work. All with in one building. Carrie Vielle is an extremely talented artists that my class and I are were able to get the chance to visit her stuido space located 200 feet outside her home. She went into great detail about her work as well as how she came about getting her studio space which I believe is going to be a great help for when we start to build our artists studio space.
She gave us great feedback, things that I will keep in mind while building my artists studio space: What are my artists stages/ zones? That my artists is going to need TONS of storage and what ever I think they're going to need I should definatly double that. Some artists likes to have personal things displayed in their workspace, so to keep that in mind. That their studio space needs to be a complete disconnect from their residentail space physically and psychologically. Too many things to get them distracted. That their studio space need complete double duty- and can be changeable if necessary. That the artists will need an office area but that should be away from the creative space, so consider having office space in the residential area. Windows that are controllable for lighting. And what kind of trash and recycle stations might they need.
I got a lot of great information that I believe will help me a lot in creating my artists studio space.

Vision Disability Ability Workshop

On February 24^th at the CUB, me and a partner were given the opportunity to try a few different ways of getting a sense of how the visually impaired live their lives every day.  First we were able to see what it’s like to have 20/60 vision. While trying to read a newspaper all I could see was the big font and the pictures were a bit blurry. To me I thought it was crazy that they allow someone to still legally drive with that vision. Next we were able to see what a legally blind person would see from day to day. Which everything was fuzzy, but you could make out shapes and color.

Next my partner and I were given a pair of sunglasses in which the inside of them was smeared with petroleum jelly. We were given a set of directions and commands to do throughout walking through the CUB. We were both taken to an elevator and we could make out where the up and down buttons were only due to the fact that obviously the top button meant up and the bottom button meant down.  Inside the elevation we couldn’t read the numbers at all but we knew what was the main floor because we could kind of make out the star next to 1. The first ATM that we went to was easy to find cause it was lit up and the card swipe was easy because that was lit up as well but the buttons were a bit more difficult to make out. The second ATM we encountered was easier because it was all lit up and there was actually a visual hearing aid where you could plug in headphones.

The last part of our journey was to walk up and down two different sets of stairs. The first set of stairs was at the Holland-Terrell Library, which my partner participated in with the glasses. She said that it wasn’t too bad due to the fact that there was hand rails and the stair treds were black and the stairs were crème so there was a lot of contrast. The second set of stairs, I walked up, were by the resource desk up toward the ballroom. These set of stairs were a lot harder due to the fact that they were a dark green and the stair treds were black so there wasn’t much contrast. And there was dark green on the ground floor that gave it the illusion there was still another step so it was very awkward. 

After experiencing this is such a short time and such a small place with so many complications already, I defiantly think that the built environment should be accessible to everyone no matter the cost.

Habitat for Humanity

 For my studio class, Sophomore year, second semester, I got the opportunity to work with the local Habitat for Humanity and help design their next project. My partner, Green and I spent 3 weeks creating a potential home for our class that was under 1,100 sq ft. and consisted and sustainable materials and built under enviromental friendly conditions.
Green and I decided to divide up the house into a public area and a private area. There are two plumbing walls (one that's the mudroom and kitchen, and the second the two bathrooms). We had a double wall construction and we kept the ceiling of the heights all at 8ft for easy construction. All of our materials that we had chosen were sustainable and cheap.

We had a great time being able to help give potential ideas to their next home and it was really great being able to work with real life clients and continually ask them questions of what they liked and didn't like.I learned a great deal about using inexpensive material but yet sustainable and long lasting as well as constructing the house in a manner that is cheap and easy.  I'm very excited to see in the next few month what the team comes up with as their final design.