Thursday, December 9, 2010

Monday, December 6, 2010

4th Year Critique Vance-Chavis Library

4th year critique December 6, 2010

The project addresses a problem due to community growth, and technology advancement with an effort to engage the community by reconstructing and redesigning the vance-chavis library. The students worked together during the semester collecting data and doing research on better ways to improve the current library. In their discussion, I was inspired by how well they communicate their ideas and the excitement the showed concerning the project. They spoke about their ideas in great detail showing the amount of research and time they put in. Their effort showed a great deal in their work because the plans concerning space issues, age differences, and changes with more technology were addressed thoroughly. They talked to the people in the community who would be using the library to find out what it was they were looking for in the library and what would be most beneficial to them. They used this information to find sustainable ways of creating these designs by incorporating grey water systems and designing the spaces so that they would be most useful. They designed the children's area in a way that would best fit the needs of the children and their parents. The adult section was located right next to the children's so their parents were able to watch them. Ceiling heights were also accommodated to fit the children's preferences.

An extremely important part of their process to me was the data that they took concerning light angles at different times of the day and documented computer use. The data showed them exactly where fixtures or windows would be most useful and they considered trees for shading part of the sun. This work is very important to a design because it will change how community members are able to use the area. Incorporating so much detail and thought into these designs makes them most useful to the community which also allows the building to be economical which is important.

My favorite part of the presentation was their interest in what they were designing. They showed to have great inspiration and care for the designs and wanted to improve them. I think this shows that they have well explored the area and done large amounts of research to improve their ideas and put a lot of work into them. I really like the thought that went into the design. If someone did not think of one thing, another group member would add and with the questions that were asked during the presentation, It was easy to see that they had encountered many problems and worked through many different solutions in their process to come up with their best solution.