Group 3: Amari, Liz and me.
For this Bridge project, we had to design a space using a given word: Joy, Freedom, Solidarity or Power. My group got Solidarity so that was our base to design an environment that represented the word. We had to present four deliverables: a mood board, sketches and technical drawings, material research, and a 3D model.
When we brainstorm about ideas for a place related to solidarity we knew we wanted to design a space for the people, but we weren’t sure what to do exactly. After a while, we decided to do a safe space and help center for people in need. We remembered the documentary “Side Walk” and how the homeless people interviewed there explained the main problems of leaving on the streets like for example not having a bathroom.
We decided that this space was going to have a help desk where people could get information about shelters, jobs and any type of information about the center. Also a fully functional gender-inclusive bathroom with showers, a donation center with a small library, a soup kitchen where they can eat a hot meal, dinner tables, and multiple sitting areas.
This space is design not only for homeless people but for anyone who needs assistance or help with any of the things the center offers.
Moodboard
Technical Drawings
3D Model
For my part of the deliverables, I chose to do the 3D model. For this task, I used foam board, a very thin wood plank, and molding clay. I decided to do it only using white and the plain wood color to show the structure of the space and how it would work from an architectural point of view and I didn’t want the colors we chose to be distracting.
We wanted the space to have a lot of natural light so it has big windows on both sides. We chose to make it on a corner building so that it would have a big entrance and it would feel more inviting for people to come in. On a top view, the room on the left would be the bathroom, in the middle would be the kitchen and next to it, the donation center and sitting area. The desk below the bathroom would be the help desk and then the main sitting area and the dinner tables would be in the front of the room.
We chose to make it a 2-floor space that would be used for storage and offices of the volunteers of the center, so that’s where the stairs in the middle of the room lead to.
Materials
Presentation
Reflection
It was super fun doing this project, I had never designed a space before or done a 3D model of a room so I learned a lot from both. We worked great as a team I really liked the groups to be formed based on the abilities of the people in it because it made it a lot easier for everyone to do what they enjoy and are good at.
As a group, the only difficulty that we encountered was that one of our team members left the class so we had more work to do. In the end, Liz did the research on the materials and we all wrote the text for seminar.
I had used foam core before but not for making models like this so I loved learning how to do that. Although I liked building the model it was too much work for only one person. I worked beside Sophia that was doing her model and it took us so long to do it and make it look nice and proportionate. I think it was a bit too much compared to the other tasks of the project but besides that, I was really happy with the final product and think we all did a very good job.
