Bridge 1: The first bridge of the semester was a group project. We worked to gather to create a space built around the word solidarity. My part was t create the mood board. This project was very helpful especially being the first project it helped me to get to know my class mates and being such a big project it turned out very well having four people working on it instead of just one.
Bridge 2: Was a solo project. We studied the demographics of the area and presented information. I focused on the schools in Yorkville. it was around this time that we conducted the interviews and the interviews gave me a lot of information about the area. The interview assignment was probably the most helpful assignment of the semester. First because I got so much good and helpful information from the people that I talked to and second because I became much more comfortable and confident going up to strangers on the street or in a bars or cafes to interview them.
Bridge 3: The bridge was where we began to get really serious about our topic. we explored different “problems” in the are that we wanted to address. I started to focus on the mom and pop shops in the area. this project started going into three dimension more and that was a helpful step towards Bridge 4.
Bridge 4: The big project that proposed a solution to the problem that we had been focusing on for most of the semester. This project was a struggle for me. I really enjoyed the model making and the sketching. I built my skills in both of those aspects. I chose to sketch all my ideas digitally which I had never done before and I thought was very successful. If I were to do it again, I would spent more time on the model and add more details.
This semester I have faced many challenges and many of them were in this class. One thing that I would have done differently is to not select Yorkville as my neighborhood to study for an entire semester. I found some valuable details about the neighborhood but I feel that my projects may have turned out stronger if I had selected a neighborhood that I was more interested and more invested in. That being said, I still feel that I created interesting projects throughout the semester that explored a neighborhood that was seemingly boring. I developed my interviewing skills in this class as well as in seminar. I can now confidently interview complete strangers where before I was not confident and very timid.
One thing that I wish I had done better was time management. I think I could have created a little more meaningful and successful projects if I had planned out my time in a better way.
My 3D modeling and sketching skills have improved. I learned new techniques that I believe will be very beneficial to my future classes and my futures career. Sketching, whether its 3D or 2D is such an important part of the design process. An idea will evolve throughout the process and it needs to be documented and explored to get to the best solution for a product.
My sense of constructed environments expanded. A constructed environment is not just a building or a park but it can also be a system or an app or any number of things. My understanding of the term constructed environments has grown to include more than just buildings.
