ARCH 2070 - Zach's Section

It is crazy how far the whole class has come to in terms of our overall Adobe Creative skills as well as our creativity. I remember in the beginning of the semester when no one in our SIA team was clueless about the process of design thinking because none of us are in the Architecture school. But if you ask me now to guess who was in the A-school based off of our submitted assignments and projects, I would safely assume that all 25 of us could possibly be enrolled in the school.

Based on previous emotional experiences when given an assignment, I have always been nervous and questioned my abilities to approach and complete the assignment due to my lack of background with design. But now, I feel sad. I am sad because it is our final project and that just when I started to get the hang of the process of diagramming and processing my design thoughts it is coming to a conclusion. However, I am super excited to take on this next project because this assignment will give us a more real life experience of applying our designs into something that could possibly be used to make an impact on our community in Charlottesville. 

This project is very exciting as it has a very real world application like the birdhouse, but it also is intimidating as I do not really know how to approach it and it being for the Charlottesville community is also intimidating.

Dr. Schmidt starting her tour by asking the crowd where the slave auction block is probably not exactly what they might expect, which makes it even more effective. Dr. Schmidt’s portion was sad to hear as you would expect more to be done to portray the real history of the area. One of the teachers says you literally step on the sign. This is a very powerful moment especially hearing that same teacher’s thoughts as she stood by that plaque.

I think Professor Cleckley’s idea that spaces can change the way we think and create a feeling of empathy is interesting. The first thought that came to my mind when creating something to memorialize John Henry James is the incredible weight that comes with that. It becomes so much more than lines and color and design elements when creating something for a purpose like that. It is good to hear that design can change some of the issues with the current ways we look at the past. I liked the phrase the search for redemption through designs that can honor the reality of the past.

I found the Tim Brown reading Design Thinking reading to be very interesting. The section that stood out to me the most of the “teams of teams” section. Having worked with our Design Research Teams I have come to realize how beneficial it is to have a solid group of people to bounce ideas off with and ask questions with, but then later in the process share our work with a larger group like our SIA sections or even the whole class. It would be too overwhelming to share everything at first with everyone, but once things become more fine tuned it can really help. I really like how for this final project we have an assignment where we can collaborate directly with our DRTs. I am looking forward to this. 

This week's resources have been really great to explore and reflect on. Starting out with the Wiseman / Kraft – Todd article, titled “E.M.P.A.T.H.Y.: A Tool to Enhance Nonverbal Communication Between Clinicians and Their Patients,” was one of my favorite resources to date in this class. I think this is such an important observation that is not at the front of everyone’s minds in the medical industry. I am personally studying psychology with hopes of becoming a clinician myself one day, so this article and this idea are really important to me and something I will carry far beyond this class. Extending these ideas to the world of design, I think it would be extremely useful to use this framework of thought when thinking about how one may react in a space that you’ve designed. Equally important, it would be useful to use when designing for a client and talking to him/her about a vision for the space. This framework allows us to get so much more than just the literal meaning of a person’s words. I think people often forget that communication is about a lot more than just spoken language, and this article highlights the other ways that we can use nonverbal cues to not only learn more, but more importantly, empathize.

Until the activity we did last class, I have never considered stakeholders to have any meaning outside the realm of business. In the many business courses I’ve taken, we have always viewed stakeholders as a key player in the ecosystem of commerce, but learning about them in a design concept gave me a whole different view on their role within the realm of architecture and designing and thinking, and especially as we approach project 2 with the Jefferson school. 

In the chapter on design thinking, I enjoyed reading about the brief, as “the classic starting point for any project.” I enjoyed how they described a brief as a set of mental constraints that set a framework and benchmarks for projects and how these briefs allow for as they said, serendipity and unpredictability. Especially coming off of project one, I found myself obsessed with making all of the requirements from the Birdly requirements. Moving into project 2, I am excited to view the project outlines as more abstract frameworks for fostering creativity and exciting ideas, instead of boxes that need to be ticked. 

The Design Thinking: Brown, Change by Design reading made it very clear that Design Thinking isn’t something that is easy to follow and our process won’t always be the best method.  Design Thinking, from what I’ve learned and read, is about building on what we have laid out as a foundation and reworking our idea through multiple processes into something that is visually cohesive.  It won’t always be clear and to do this we must be open-minded.  An interesting part of the reading was the idea of boundaries.  “Without constraints design cannot happen” and while this seemed like a contrast to what I would have thought, I find that constraints can be useful sometimes if they help us narrow down our audience.  It’s about creating a framework for our idea.  This reading reminded me of the video we watched in class a few weeks ago about design thinking and how empathy is a big part of how we use DT.  Empathy drives the necessity to create or to propose a solution.  

I think this is an awesome reading as we go into our final project. The design team was inspired by real emotions from real people. Instead of just assuming the problem & solution, they used empathy to understand the real goal of the project. This approach is essentially what means to do “design thinking”.  

I also think it is important that the reading talked about how there is no “easy-to-follow-recipe” to ensure design success. I think sometimes I want to get things “right” in my projects but in this case, we are working with real people on a real-world project. So there is no “right”way, we just need to be able to understand what exactly the client wants/needs and be able to bring it to life through our designs. 

Another thing I though was interesting is the contrast between “group thinking” and work that takes place in groups. I have taken multiple psychology classes that discuss the phenomenon of “group think” and how it is counterintuitive and stifles creativity. I’m excited to work with my DRT to come up with the key elements of the project but even more excited to see all the different directions we take them in. I think it is going to be a really good example of how we are working in a group and encouraging collaboration but also avoiding “groupthink” by having the freedom to do our own thing. Lastly, I am super excited to work with typography and manipulating fonts as well as coming up with a color scheme because those are the two things I have grown to really enjoy throughout this class. 

I think that human-centered exploration is the best way to approach design projects, especially Project 2 working with the Jefferson School. The activity we did in class was very helpful. Deciding who the stakeholders are in this project is key. Nothing can be made better without the people/stakeholders in mind. The three I’s also stood out to me: inspiration, ideation, and implementation. This nonlinear nature of a journey emphasizes the exploratory process of design thinking. The nonlinear path is also helpful in my everyday life because it is a pet peeve of mine when people around me think so linearly. You can’t follow a linear step by step recipe of life and be happy. The reading also mentioned how using real space helps the process. This is something I wish I had taken advantage of in the last project. I was planning on using the woodshop at school after spring break… but you know corona happened. Unfortunately, I was not able to make my bird house with material from home, and my mother wouldn’t let me leave the house. Sometimes keeping things in you head or on paper hinders you in some way. Using real space, creating prototypes, storyboards etc. helps us visualize patterns more readily. It also encourages further creativity.

When reading the Design Thinking: Brown, Change my Design, there were several quotes that stuck with me. “this approach should be seen as a system reset but a meaningful upgrade”, which really stuck with me, because sometimes I think that starting over in the iterative process is like giving up and not going anywhere. However, in reality, I did learn from my last time and it helped me improve to get to the “upgrade” I’m at. Also, the other quote from this section that resonated the same sentiments that I liked was “fail early to succeed sooner”. In addition, the shifting the thinking to the project was interesting, because I never thought of a project as the vehicle that carries an idea to concept to reality. I agree with the author that using real space helps thinking, because sometimes it’s way easier to put things on paper and just use that physical space rather than thinking or talking but to be able to use a physical room and objects is helpful. 

When we were given the topics for our first project, I was suprised and a bit nervous. Because from our previous assignments, we were given instructions to complete and design something that was completely 2D rather for the birdhouse we needed to think in a 3D perspective. Another major difference that made me feel anxious was the fact that for this project, we were required to take a more realistic approach compared to our Day in our Life graphics and the collages. 

For me, the hardest part of Project 1 was coming up with birdhouse designs. Since I did not have a design or architecture background, I felt that I was stuck in a bubble of just thinking of our traditional birdhouses that look like bird sized human homes. But with that traditional concept, I ended up combining it with my love for gardening and growing plants. I designed a home for these birds and a home for plants. When coexisting together, the two species are beneficial for both parties. 

Having finally turned in Project 1, I can honestly say I am pretty proud of myself! I remember starting this class on the first day and just looking at Julia and thinking “What did we sign up for?!!!” I felt so out of my element because I am usually drawn to much more logic/straightforward classes and I haven’t really pushed myself creatively in a while! But I am so happy I stuck with it and kept going because I have really developed my skills and pushed myself in a way that had really made me grow. Specifically, I am proud that I challenged myself with using the Rhino software and making a 3D model for this project. Big shoutout to Zach for helping me out with that, that program is pretty hard to get used to. But I think the model turned out okay and gives a better view of my vision. Now, I will say, my board isn’t perfect. There were definitely things that could've been clarified farther or made cleaner, but if I have learned one thing in this class, it's that if you are truly thinking as a designer, nothing will ever be 100% perfect. There will always be something you can tweak a little bit. However, I do like how this project came out and I have to say I think everyone really pushed themselves this time and it paid off!

Throughout project one I was definitely feeling a little bit unsure about my relationship with design and the new structure of the class that’s going online. I realized how much inspiration I draw from the people around me and from being in the architecture school and now that that was not an option, I would need to rely on different sources of inspiration. I really struggled at the beginning of the birdhouse project because I felt so uninspired, but one day I was helping my mom paint an old piece of furniture and I realize how exciting, cheap, durable, and readily available paint cans are and what a promising material this could make for a birdhouse especially because empty ones usually just go to waste. Through each project exercise that we complete, it always blows my mind how creative and different everyone’s processes and results are. With the somewhat strict Birdly guidelines and project outlines, I assumed that everyone’s projects might look more similar but of course I was wrong. My group and I worked closely to discuss and share ideas and we have enjoyed getting to know each other- it’s funny how being apart has made us closer and more connected.

With project 1 over I’m pretty happy with the progression of my birdhouse design, specifically the process diagram section of my board. Process diagrams have been probably my weakest area so far in this class but I can feel myself becoming much more comfortable with illustrator and I think that showed in the clarity of my birdhouse diagram.  Moving forward I want to continue to put that same amount of time and effort to improve into the following projects, as I think it payed off. I also really enjoyed being able to incorporate skills i have learned in other classes, such as digitally modeling in rhino. 

Turning in Project 1 and seeing everyone else work so far has been amazing. It was interesting for me to see how Birdly’s perimeters created some similarities between our projects as a class. With deforestation on the mind I noticed that a number of people including myself chose wood as their material but at the same time not a single project I have seen yet was overly similar. Despite getting the same assignment, all of us who chose to use wood as our material went down extremely different paths based off of a number of details. So far this project has been the one I definitely enjoyed the most. In past exercise we created one piece that might be incorporating numerous images within in but were still only turning in one 11 by 17 sheet. With A2 boards, I loved the aspect of assembling your project and works on the board to create a detailed plan for your bird house. During Project 1 I experienced something that had only popped up minimally in the past. Each exercise we did, we were building off the skills we had learned from the past whether that be knowing how clip an image into a shape or learning to draw on adobe using both their shape tools or the actual brush tool. Project 1 was especially different for me because it required me to use all of the skills I have learned so far and not only build off of them but also to learn new ones.

Looking back on all of my projects so far, I have definitely noticed a pattern. I wouldn't say I am particularly good at sketching/drawing on paper. So I “draw” out my ideas in my head and just think things through as I am digitally creating them — in other words, I make A LOT of drafts. I had a clear vision for exercise 2 and I did it in one shot, but all the other projects so far have been a series of drafts that I eventually dislike and start over until I get the idea I am thinking of down perfectly.

I decided to put some of my drafts together on one page and I was pretty amazed at how many times I have started over or made changes (keeping in mind these are only the ones I saved, there were probably 10-20 more per project).  It was fun to look back on everything so far and see how I work though my ideation process.  (I will attach a screenshot of it to this post)

I also learned something different in each one that wasn't necessarily a direct part of the project brief. The first one taught me to be a little more abstract in my presentation of my ideas, the third one made me aware of typography (since the overall concept was simple, I wanted to mess around with making the text interesting-looking but not to not distract from the overall simplicity), and this most recent one was fun to play with color (I started off not thinking about it at all and by the end I had developed a pretty strict color scheme of like 4 colors and various of hues of them - green, blue, brown, black). Seeing all my steps and what I have learned from different assignments has really shown me a lot about  how the design process is so individualized and personal.  

In regards to the readings, I found the Berger reading to be pretty on par with what I was saying above. The question of “why step back” supports the way I go about my ideation process. Instead of working in one file and constantly deleting and editing within it, I save my progress so I can go back and see what was working initially & add it to the later versions while discarding what didn’t. The exercise of counting the squares is similar to what I was noticing when looking at my own work. “Designing” and “creative thinking” are so highly individualized but the words have come to be so standardized. However, the way I counted the squares would be different from the way the next person does, even if we got the same number (16 or 30).  Although that may not fit the conventional definition of “creative thinking” I see it as one of the most awesome parts of creativity and the mind. There's no one way to accomplish something like that (and there's not a wrong one either) just like there is a single method to design.

Looking back at my projects from this semester, I definitely think I like my collage the most.  I also enjoyed doing that project the most because it was something that I could identify with more so than a recipe for something I have never made.  Although I may have enjoyed creating that one the most, it is not the project I think I learned the most from. I would say the Birdly Bird House project taught me the most about designing, but also the most about myself. Through this project I learned new softwares like Rhino and Indesign, but I also learned how much of a perfectionist I am when it comes to doing something the first time.  I expect everything I create to be perfect the first time I put it on my board, but through this process I learned how difficult that can make things. I kept getting frustrated when things did not look how I wanted them to and refused to show my work until it was up to somewhat my standards.  Overall, I learned that modifying and changing ideas is a good thing. I definitely think I grew throughout the process of Project 1. 

The Noguchi podcast was really interesting to listen to.  While looking at his work and especially the coffee table, it reminded me of when I went to the MoMA this past summer and saw their exhibit on “The Value of Good Design.” The exhibit was filled with furniture and other household objects like brooms. One of the quotes that stood out to me was that Noguchi’s Play Mountain “represented this idea that Noguchi had -- that children didn’t need instructions to play.”  Children are so vulnerable and impressionable when they are young, and it is important to foster creativity at a young age.  I can only imagine who this mindset will be important going into Project 2. I also liked how the podcast talked about how Noguchi challenged himself with every sculpture. I feel as though I try to do that in this class with our projects.