One Bedroom Apartment and Common Area

For the final part of the St. Elmo hotel project, I have designed the one bedroom apartment and the common area. The inspiration for my design stems from the song, "The House that Built Me", by Miranda Lambert. In this song she talks about here memories of the house that she grew up in and how she will never forget that house. Using this, I wanted to create a space that will feel like a home and provide you the chance to create your own life long memories. With apartments, it can be difficult to personalize the space due to the wall color or random, outdated features. Using gray walls and a traditional style in the bathroom and kitchen, I wanted to create a space in which an owner could personalize the space and make it into something of their own. The gray walls can match with any color and the traditional feel provides a design aspect that is widely liked. I wanted to create a place that you wont feel "stuck" with. These spaces are designed to allow you to personalize and create something that fits your style and needs. You are sure to create lasting memories in these spaces.

Design Meeting

Over thanksgiving break, I met up with designer Shelli Nelson to review my apartment project with her. This was a great experience and allowed me to learn and improve my skills.  Shelli gave me advice as to how I could improve my previous design. She recommended the vanity with cabinets in the bathroom of the two bedroom apartment and also helped me decide on how to incorporate the built in bench and revise my common area.I loved being able to collaborate and decide on what would be the best ideas to use. It was really helpful to hear a professionals thoughts and ideas about my work, it was a cool experience. In the future I know that I will now search for outside opinions on my projects to improve my work and help give ideas and input. This was a very great experience and I was thrilled with the outcome!

Two Bedroom Bathroom Design

For this apartment bathroom, I was inspired to keep the same aesthetic and design concepts as the kitchen, creating a flow throughout the apartment. I used clean lines and white fixtures with a hint of sea foam green to do so. The bathroom is ADA and has front access to the toilet. Although it is a small space, I think that everything fits quite well with plenty of storage. I had been waiting for my cork floor tile sample to arrive and it has finally come today! This sustainable material will fit perfectly into the bathroom in the form of 12x12 tiles. The wainscoting around the walls add a texture and classic look to the bathroom, making it feel clean and traditional. I found that designing the bathroom was fun for me and I am enjoying the fact that I can start to see this apartment grow into reality. I enjoyed making the kitchen design poster because I have a tough time using online applications such as InDesign and Photoshop (both used for this project). This was a great way to dip my feet back into these applications and give me a little more practice, although I do admit I will need more! Overall, I am happy with the design and the way that the project turned out and I am very proud of myself for finishing my first bathroom design!

Habitat for Humanity

The Habitat for Humanity house and garage door that I painted!

Recently, I visited a home that is being built for a family in need. Throughout the visit, I helped to build and construct the home. Personally, I swept all of the dry wall dust and put down new paper on the floor, patched holes in doors and stairs, and painted the garage door. I am very proud of myself for doing this, I feel like I have really made a difference and helped this family's life. I have always wanted to participate in Habitat for Humanity and I am thrilled that I actually could. In the future, I hope to help more on these types of projects and my goal would be to travel across the country, or world, to help build homes for people in need.

Ride, Don't Walk Exercise. Accessibility.

Trying to fit into the parking garage building entrance... 

Fitting into the accessible bathroom!

In order to have a better understanding of the requirements for ADA, we maneuvered ourselves around Carpenter and Daggy Hall to see how it is to fit into certain spaces and do things while sitting in a wheelchair. This was a very interesting exercise because I have never had to use a wheelchair. It was extremely hard to fit into certain spaces, such as bathrooms that are not ADA accessible, and to reach certain things, like the napkins at the coffee stand. This exercise has enlightened me to the struggles that wheelchair users are faced with on a day to day basis. It has inspired me to think a lot more about Universal Design and fitting certain requirements into all of my designs, so that no one will be left out or feel like they cannot use a space like everyone else can.

Two Bedroom Kitchen Design

Kitchen Design: includes floor plans, elevations, cross section, and perspectives

Materials for Kitchen Design

Volumetric Model for Kitchen Design

My two bedroom apartment kitchen design stems from a specific design concept based off the song "The House that Built Me" by Miranda Lambert:

"This apartment is meant to feel like a home. Its purpose is to have each owner and visitor have a sense of comfort and warmth. A house should be one to create memories that will last a life time and this apartments neutral color scheme allows each and every person to feel welcome and inspired. Any owner can personalize this apartment to make it into their own. Its traditional and modern design adds to the historic building, creating the perfect open atmosphere. This home is sure to stay in your memories for a life time."

This was the first time I have ever done anything like this. All of the standard measurements are new to me and while i struggled a bit to figure the right things out, I am very proud of what I came up with. I am proud of myself for not procrastinating this job and using good time management skills. In the future I think that I need to research all of the measurements and requirements a bit more in order to get everything right. I put so much effort and time into this project and I believe that it shows. I am very proud of my work, even if I can improve some more in some areas, I can work on those in the future.

Showrooms and House of the Immediate Future

Barcelona Chair sketch from Knoll visit

Sketch of bench outside of the House of the Immediate Future

Quick sketch of the House of the Immediate Future

Lighting from 3Form

Rug and table from Knoll showroom visit

During our Sutdy Tour in Seattle, we had the chance to go to various showrooms and places around the area. This includes the Seattle Design Center, DalTile, Pental, 3Form, Knoll, House of the Immediate Future, and EHS Design. Each place was unique in its own way and taught me something different. The Design Center I had been to before with my mom, but this time it was fun to be able to go there for my own purpose and see what the individual showrooms had to offer. It was cool to make these connections and learn about a place that we, as designers, can go and find products for clients. We also went to DalTile. This was exciting because they actually gave us a chance to find specific samples that interested us and have them shipped to school. I am excited to get the samples I picked out! Pental was cool to see more products and I thought it was cool how we could go into the back and look at all the slabs they had in their warehouse. These two places were really informative and taught me a lot in terms of where to find products for jobs. 3Form was one of my favorite places to go. I thought it was fascinating to see how they worked and made their products. The concept of transforming resign into lighting fixtures was amazing and I am so glad we got to experience their environment. Knoll was also a fun place to see office furniture and chairs that we cold put into our designs. We were able to go and see Habitat for Humanities House of the Immediate Future at the Seattle Center. I learned a lot about sustainable design here and I thought it was so interesting how they use the wet core in their design. I am excited to see the finished product that they come up with. Lastly we went to EHS Design and was given a tour of their office. I really enjoyed this experience and am so grateful for all of the companies who took time out of their schedules to give us tours of their work areas. This was an important part of the study tour in that now we know where we can find products for our future assignments and jobs.

Urban Sketchers: Study Tour: Seattle

These are two of the sketches I did on the Sketch Crawl. I am  proud of the effort I put into these sketches.

Last week on our Study Tour in Seattle, we had the chance to sketch in the Olympic Sculpture Park with the Urban Sketchers. This was an awesome chance to enhance my sketching abilities and to learn new techniques in terms of sketching. I had been to this sculpture park before, but never to sketch. This was cool to look and things that I have seen before, and have the chance to more intricately study them. This was a new experience to me and I enjoyed it very much! It was also really cool to see how the more professional urban sketchers drew their scenes. It gave me inspiration to keep working on my techniques and sketching abilities in the future. I want to some day get to their level. I felt really good about the drawings that I did on this sketch crawl and think that by taking my time and really studying the scenes, I was able to show my abilities. I still need to work, but this gave me confidence and drive to keep working on my techniques.

CollinsWoerman Job Shadow: Study Tour

Swedish Hospital in Issaquah, WA. Award wining hospital designed by CollinsWoerman Architectural Firm.

Last week, I had the pleasure of doing a job shadow at Colins Woerman, a Seattle based architectural firm. This was a first for me, and it turned out to be a fantastic experience. Upon arriving to the firm, I was introduced to one of the associates and was given a tour of the floor. It was a very open and interesting layout, and i enjoyed how the space seemed very welcoming and friendly. Once given a tour, we were introduced to two of their Interior Designers. They gave us a basic low down of what their jobs consisted of and one even showed us her design process of a current project she was working on. This was so cool to see how a professional worked on their projects. We also had the pleasure of sitting in on two product presentations, one carpet and one lighting. This allowed us to see how the firm learns about new products and how they go about attaining them. This day allowed me to see what an interior design jobs consists of in the real world. It was an awesome chance to make connections and network myself as a designer. I definitely want to do more job shadows in the future to learn more about the real life business. I loved the day and was so grateful for the people who took time out of their busy schedules to teach me about their business and themselves!

Color in Interiors

This week, I researched a case study and applied it to my topic, color in interiors. This was fun to study because I was allowed to research how color had an effect on different people. After researching I learned just how important color really is and how I can use it to better myself as an interior designer as well as how to make my client happy. I look forward to creating spaces that apply this technique!

Client Brief

After meeting with the client for the palouse hotel, I was able to get a good sense of the project and what was to be done. The St. Elmo hotel, located in Palouse, WA, is a historical building first built in 1887. After years of many uses, the spot is being renovated into a hotel/apartment complex. With eight separate spaces, the project manager, has opted to create a place for both permanent residents and temporary visitors. The overall feel of the hotel is to be somewhat of a “green” place, using environmental friendly and recycled materials. The separate living spaces are hoped to have a modern and balanced feel to them, including the design that will allow each place to seemingly flow naturally, with no effort. The plan is to have this historical, 125 year old building, transform into an inviting, natural place for people to visit and live for many more years to come.

Concept Development

The inspiration for my design stems from the song, "The House that Built Me", by Miranda Lambert. In this song she talks about here memories of the house that she grew up in and how she will never forget that house. Using this, I wanted to create a space that will feel like a home and provide you the chance to create your own life long memories. In my concept model, I used wood sticks and wire. I chose these items because a home is built out of various materials like wood and metal. With a knot in the wire, I wanted to display a memory. More specifically, a memory of your home, something that you will never forget.

Poster Design

This was my poster design for the designer Jonathan Adler. I created a room to think inspired by his work and concepts that i came up with. This poster includes a picture of my 3D concept model, my nature object inspiration, my object studies, concept statement, and all of my concept drawings/sketches. I had a good time creating this poster and I really enjoyed being able to make it into something unique and creative.

Negative Space

We were asked to draw a chair using only negative space. I enjoyed doing this sketch because it was something different and I found it interesting. I would like to do more sketches like this in the future so I can enhance my technique.

Fruit Cross Section

Here we were asked to draw the cross section of two pieces of fruit and a third to make a grouping. I likes doing this sketch because i thought it was cool to draw the cross section of the fruit. Normally you only see the outside, so it was cool to think of what the inside looks like.

Value Study In Line

This assignment was to draw a corner of a room and show how the light can cast shadows. One drawing shows the value of the space using line weight and the second shows the value change in the space using high contrast methods. I found this fun to do and I enjoyed drawing using the two different techniques.

Black Paper

This was a sketch assignment that asked us to sketch an architectural detail on black paper using colored pencils. I drew the molding in my dorm room using colored pencils which i found semi difficult due to the fact that you cant mess up when you are drawing on black paper with these pencils. Usually I find my self erasing a lot so it was hard not to have that option!

Room Corner

This was a sketch assignment to sketch a corner of the room using perspective. I sketched the corner of my dorm room and i found it fairly simple. With more practice and better technique i think i can really get the hang of drawing in perspective.

Keys

This assignment was to sketch our keys. This was our first sketching assignment and I think i did pretty well for my first drawing. I enjoy sketching objects more than people or houses so i enjoyed this one!

Figure Sketch

This assignment was to trace over a picture of a human who was walking, running or doing something active. For this I chose a little girl who was hopping on the beach. The tricky part was that we could only use single lines to create the figure. This was hard for me because i usually find myself drawing over my lines multiple times. I dont think this turned out too bad but I still trying to learn how to!

Logo

I have actually created my first logo! I am very proud to say I have done this and while the process was difficult, I am very happy with my result. I think this logo represents me well and is a creative a unique design. The colors compliment each other nicely and the circle is a good definite outline for the logo. I look forward to editing and adding to this logo in the future!

Textile Design

This was a textile design for my Interior Design 197 class. Using Photoshop and Indesign, I used pictures from an American Vernacular Design book to creativley piece together a textile pattern. This was a difficult project for me because i have trouble with Photoshop but I worked through that and I am proud and happy of my final product!

Chair Views

This sketching assignment allowed me to practice drawing furniture in different views. I had the chance to draw from the side, bottom, top, and front of the chair. These perspectives allowed me to recognize how to draw in each situation and I learned a lot from practicing and completing this sketch.

Mind Map

A mind map is an outline in which the major categories radiate from a central image and lesser categories are portrayed as branches of larger branches. The technique is a form of word association that frees up the more creative, intuitive part of the brain. I enjoyed drawing this mind map because it allowed me to write and draw my thoughts on paper.

Cross Hatching Fruit Sketch

My first sketch this semester in my Interior Design class was to sketch fruit using a cross-hatching technique. Never having used the cross-hatching technique before, I found this fairly hard to draw and ended up shading for most of the effects. Hopefully I can improve and practice my cross-hatching skills in the future!

American Vernacular Design Pattern

This pattern was designed using images from the American Vernacular design period. Using various Vernacular design elements such as this roofing and wooded slats, I played around in Photoshop to create this geometric design. With each element having similar pieces, the analogous color scheme pulled the piece together in a bold way.