Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Final Presentation

It is time for us all to start firming up our plans for the final projects. We have the choice of doing invididual or group projects. 

Professor Anna Marshall-Baker says to consider this question in our projects. What can you imagine or know about natural conditions that you can bring into the design world based on biomimicry? The challenge is to respond with some solutions - think out of the box - even if your ideas are not realistic.
 
Please post your ideas about the final project by this Friday, March 29th. Say if you are doing it individual or if you are suggesting something to do as a group. One possibility would be to do the project at Susan's cabin in Independence, Virginia on April 12th through 14th. In your post say your opinion about working at the cabin. Here is a picture of the cabin.


Thanks,
Claudia-

4 comments:

  1. I would also offer up the idea of having a design charrette during our regular class period in which we would each bring in a colleague from another area of study (biology, geology, meteorology, chemistry, etc.) to aid in our discussion of this question. Throughout this course we have discussed the importance of engaging in discussion with members of other fields as a means of enhancing our understanding of “how things work” so we as designers can continue to make steps toward developing a self sustaining built environment. Having a design charrette with members from supporting fields would be a great way to demonstrate this “round table” movement of thought. It would also be a perfect way of showing the world outside that UNCG is serious about making a difference, not only through our words, but also through our actions as we actively seek out others to talk to about how we can better make a difference.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I like Kelly's plan of including friends from other disciplines. Having varied points of view and information should help with the inspiration for a charrette. I also like Claudia's idea about using stars as a starting point since we will be less bothered by the light pollution we live with on a daily basis when we get to Independence. But when I look at the photograph of the lake I also get inspired by the water and would like to see where we could take that idea, too. Maybe the upcoming trip to Falling Water will start ideas flowing (no pun intended). Water can be insulation: it could store heat. I think there is a biophilic reaction when we hear and see moving water. Water attracts life. I wish we were going to be in the mountains just a little later so that you guys could hear the frogs singing at night. Maybe we could go again......

    ReplyDelete
  3. The idea of being in the nature and feeling the natural elements by living for couple of days in a place like Susan’s cabin, can be very helpful to inspire from natural environment itself to find solution for our design. The other suggestion, to have a charrette to design with the corporation of another friend from other fields are interesting, too. But in my opinion all of these options are the process and the most important issue is, we need to come up with a design question. This question can be based on our studio or thesis projects. In this case, by talking with a person from another profession or being in the nature we can find an innovative response for our design question. In another word, first we need a specific design question.
    Besides, I wanted to mention to this point that, biomimicry and inspiration from nature is one of the sustainable solutions for our environment, and as we watched in several videos, it is not just about design solutions, as designer we have other responsibilities, too. For instants, if our clients don’t accept our concepts we can’t implement our design ideas, or because of the cost issues many of the sustainable ideas are not well received by public. Based on these facts, we can come up with the idea of reducing the cost of the current design concepts and make them more profitable. Here, I am trying to explain that, we shouldn’t limit ourselves to biomimicry and it is better to think about other aspects of our field, as well. We need to “think out of the box”.

    ReplyDelete