Architectural Design Feature: Plus Pool

New York is a crowded city with around 8 million people occupying in only 304.8 square miles of land, the small area of land can’t provide everyone’s demand. However, adding little bits of entertainment, accessibility, and comfortably for these New Yorkers, they can live happily. Well the Plus Pool is a state of the art, first-ever floating water-filtering pool in the Hudson River of New York City. It is a public pool shaped like a plus sign (+) with separate pools and with different features in pool side. There would be a kid’s, lap, sports, and lounge pool, where when it is combined, the two sides would form into an Olympic size swimming pool (164 feet long)! The area of this fancinating pool is 20, 550 square feet, can carry 285 000 gallons of water, and around 481 people! Besides it’s unique shape and size, what it is really known for is the filtration the pool does to the Hudson River’s waters.
Using it’s many walls, like a giant strainer, it can remove bacteria, trap odors, and can make it completely safe for people to swim in. This will be the first after 100 years where New Yorkers can finally swim in clear natural river water. When this pool is operating everyday, it’ll is also beneficial towards the environment since it would clean up half a million gallons river water daily, making water habitats to be more sustainable to live in. They even had mutiple of meetings with NYC Parks & Recreation, Coast Guard + more and have teamed up with groups such as; IDEO, Storefront for Art and Architecture Architizer. So far, they gathered more than $50,000 from supporters, so they can kick start their experimental plus pool to test out how it’ll be like in the river’s waters and make this project come to a reality. When the experimental plus pool turns into a success, then they’ll start building the actual plus pool and have it available out for the public in around summer of 2016!

Rather than being stuck in the city, why not just swim outside and look at the New York skyline? This is very exciting as it helps the city bond together, supports healthy active living, and it can help save the environment bit by bit, since New York rivers have a few of the coldest and dirtiest waters out there in the world. The design itself is very creative, having each side of the plus pool to fit everybody else’s needs. However, what I dislike about the design is that it might not be big enough for everybody, since some people want it to be private and hang with their own friends and not be crowded by a bunch of other wet people. For example, take the sports pool, it’s only one pool for one game, which means it is only available for a certain amount of players, making some other people impatient. It also varies as the sports pool might change into different types of sports such as water polo or underwater football, thus taking more time to set up. I also feel like their pool lacks shelter, as some people just want to hide under the sun to cool off or to not get a tan, but it is all open space and open for the sun to tackle you with its sun rays. It also lacks shelter and safety in a way where natural disasters might occur, especially since the civilians are already in a river, storms like Hurricane Sandy might rush through and pull people off the pool with its waves. Well, these are based on my opinion; however, if you oppose, that is totally your opinion and I respect it. Don’t get me wrong but I still like the idea of having the Plus Pool by getting the city to bond together, supports healthy active living, and help save the environment bit by bit.

Want to learn more and help contribute to the project?
Check out their site here; http://www.pluspool.org/

Condominium Project

One of the first main projects that we had to do for my Technological Design class was to create a 800 square feet condo that includes the typical rooms/fixtures of an ordinary bathroom, such as hot water tank, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, etc. During this project, we’d have to create 3 different designs that are inspired by 8 designs we choose from the internet. We’d have to create 3 thumbnail sketches, 1 rough copy with dimensions, 1 final good copy,and to create one 3D model using Google SketchUp. Along with the design, we’d have to have a list of materials to whatever price of our choosing, and a 250+ word report regarding a certain given topic. With this huge project on the hand, my teacher luckily gives us small lessons and links regarding the Ontario Building Code, NKBA’s Kitchen Guidelines, different typical room layouts, different manufacturing companies/retail stores, etc.

This project was a fun project as I learned how it was like designing a product of my own and discovering it full scale using Google SketchUp. It taught me many things such as having patience, looking in the view of the buyer, and it opened my eyes a little. However, although I enjoyed doing it, it was very stressful as I had some technical difficulties when it came into working with Google SketchUp and the specific measurements for the condo. I just started using Google SketchUp and was introduced for this project, thus wasting lots of time to figure out controls and getting my design on paper to the digital world. As for the measurements, since my condominium was shaped/designed to be like a circle, it made it harder for me to manage since everything had to be under 800 square feet. This caused me to reduced sizing of rooms and causing things to be a bit more cramped than I wanted it to be, but hey I guess that’s how it feels like to live in an apartment I guess.

The ‘Manhattan’ on Google Sketchup

Want to try Google Sketchup yourself? Look in the site below! (pst! it is completely free!)
http://www.sketchup.com/

Bungalow Project

This was one of the projects we had to do in the course, which is to make a 1200 sq ft bungalow with every compartment that a bungalow should have such as; living room, dining room, kitchen, stairs,  roof structures, etc. We have to display the bungalow through our rough drafts, good copy designs, and on AutoCAD showing the floor plan and the elevations. It was very much like the Condominium project we had earlier in the year, but this time we learned about new elements in class such as; creating & building stairs, handling with AutoCAD, how to make elevations, and how to make a roofing structure for our bungalow.

The design of my bungalow however was very plain, as I learned from the Condominium project to not mess around with circular shapes, and I just stuck to a similar-rectangle looking floor plan. My 1024 square ft Bungalow has a double door garage, two bathrooms (master & guest), 1 master-sized bedroom, stairs leading towards the basement, and a double door leading towards the backyard.

Final Product [Floor Plan]

This project I thought was again pretty fun to do and it was a good experience, as I kind of learned how to build my own house to life and do it in a format that architects would do.  It taught me many skills such as time management skills and having responsibility. These type of  projects took a pretty long time as you’d have to measure each wall length with precision, calculate the scale for each component in your house, and have some sort of visual aspect on what it looks on the outside. This of course took a lot of time, and not realizing this, I delayed this project for a long period of time, thus ruining my whole schedule both in class and outside of class trying to fix it. As I said in my other posts, being a designer has to have a lot of time management skills so they can get their finished products to their clients on the final project deadline date. And well for me? I guess this project gave me a lot of experience on how I should manage my time properly.

Architect of the Day: Zaha Hadid

The Abu Dhabi Performing Arts Centre – one of Zaha Hadid’s projects

Zaha Hadid was one of the most or is the most famous female architect out there, for her modernistic and neo futuristic designs with different play of her shapes. Born in 1950 in Baghdad, Iraq she was born to an Iraqi-British family where she went to the American University in Beirut to study mathematics and later moved to study architecture at the Architectural Association. She eventually graduated in 1977 where she had an opportunity to join the Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) and the Architectural Association (AA). She also gained many other titles such as earning the Kenzo Tange Professorship at Harvard School of Design and went to the University of Illinois School of Architecture to earn the Sullivan Chair. She eventually gained international fame when she went to started competing in competitions by displaying her art and design skills, where they are now displayed in multiple of museums. In total Zaha Hadid won a total of 19 awards in her entire lifetime (and many more in the future); such as winning the Gold Medal Architectural Design in 1982, the Erich Schelling Architecture Award in 1994, the Pritzker Prize in 2004, the Thomas Jefferson Medal in Architecture in 2007, and the RIBA European Award in 2010. She is now living in Austria teaching at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.

Floor Plan of the Dubai Opera House

Throughout Zaha Hadid’s lifetime her buildings were known to be very powerful  with her “many sudden curves appearing in her structures” and “the disorientated geometry and the different perspective points to illustrate the disaster in our modern lives”. Some of her works are not even finished, but yet state a very powerful statement. Some of her works include; the Heydar Aliyev Center in Azerbaijan,  the Bridge Pavilion in Spain, the Contemporary Arts Center in Ohio, and the Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Ohio. However what stood out to me was the Dubai Opera House in Dubai. It stood out to me because the design had such sudden curves with the elegant texture that looks like it just blends with the sand. The Dubai Opera House is a 300 000 m squared cultural center for the performing arts and apparently is going to be serving as a hotel also. It’ll have a 5,400 square feet art gallery, with an opera house containing 2,500 seats and an 800 seat playhouse, along with 2 libraries, a ‘6 star’ themed hotel, a marina, and an outdoor theater. This Opera house was originally a design competition, but luckily Zaha Hadid and her partner Patrik Schumacher won the competition. They presented their idea to have their structure to look very gentle and elegant like the sand rising from the ground, making it very unique element in the skyline.

Wow, practically speechless;
if you’re interested more in Zaha Hadid and the latest news about the Dubai Opera House check out this link!;
http://www.zaha-hadid.com/

Post-Secondary Spotlight: OCAD

Determining what post-secondary school to go to in the new future is hard, as you have to determine the program, your marks, the campus, the alumni, etc. One university has caught my eye for a while and yep it was OCAD aka Ontario School of Art and Design University in downtown Toronto. This university is the one and only university in Ontario which ONLY offers art and design programs only such as; graphic design, industrial design, advertising, painting, drawing & sketching, illustration, photography, and many more.

In order to get into OCAD however, you’d have to at least have your High School Diploma, at least a 70% in English 12, and a well thought out portfolio. Like any other design school, it is necessary to have a portfolio which contains your strongest pieces that you have worked throughout your high school year. This portfolio is what OCAD mainly focuses on, since they want  to see if your improvement throughout the years, your basic foundation and your mindset is creative enough to get into their program. Your portfolio can include anything related to art such as; drawings, still-life paintings, digital drawings, installations, photography, etc. Along with the portfolio would be an one-on-one casual interview with a professor of OCAD, asking questions, critiquing your work, and seeing how passionate you are with your work.

Most of these programs in OCAD are 4-year programs, just the right amount of time showing you and teaching you the basic foundation and the depths of your program. On your 4th year, OCAD has an annual graduate show, where they display all the pieces of the graduates in their university,and best of all, it’s free! That way people from companies wanting to hire a designer or get inspiration, can just look through their works and maybe even take a business card or two.

As you can see, going into an art-design based school you can learn a lot if you really have the passion and the willingness to go do art as a full time career, as you need time and patience for your skills to grow. Are you up for it?

For more information on OCAD, check out their site;

http://www.ocadu.ca/

Career Paths: Industrial/Product Design

 

The products you see everywhere, the chairs you’re sitting, the mouse you’re holding, or even the computer monitor that you’re staring at all involve with industrial design. Inventing new products or just innovating other products to improve the use of the product for society to use, using both elements of design and technology.  For example, an invention would be the Google Glass and an innovation would be the different iPhone process systems that get released all year (iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, etc).  They use different technological programs such as; Google Sketchup and AutoCAD (like we did in class) and traditional styles such as drafting and sketching, thus they have to have a strong computer background. Being an industrial designer, there needs to be a lot of both essential skills and work habits to become a good designer, such as;  communication/people skills, creative skills, organization, problem solving skills, and many more. As for the communication/people skills, like most design careers the designers would have to work in a team to get the job finished. This includes working with people such as; engineering, model-makers, and their clients so the design and the final product would be successful. Creative skills involve creating new uses for the product, drafting, the design process, and thinking of materials to in-cooperate it to the product. Creative skills play a big part because with the unique design for the product, it draw the audience towards the product. Problem solving on the other hand is also what industrial designers are there for, to solve problems to make the product better. Products are usually made so a problem could be solved, problems which include the 16 Fundamental Digital Technology concepts such as; aesthetics, control, ergonomics, material, structure, etc.  Problem solving, besides thinking of the idea also includes solving the problems that happen in the process of creating your product.

An industrial designer’s salary works the same way a Graphic Designer would be like, which is that they’d usually depend on what the client thinks of the final product and they get paid by their level of experience. Those who have barely any experience would have a range of around $30,000 – $40, 000 per year, those with fair amount of experience would boost up to around $50, 000 – $60 ,000 a year, and senior graphic designers would receive around $80,000 – $90,000 a year. Industrial Designers usually work 5 days a week; Monday to Friday, and would usually work overtime to meet project deadlines.

 

In order to become an industrial designer you would have to get a bachelor’s degree in the arts, and there are programs specified in this area in both colleges and universities. Colleges who have this program in Ontario include; Conestoga College, George Brown College, Humber College, Seneca College, and  Sheridan College. Universities who have this program in Ontario include; Carleton University, OCAD (Ontario School of Art and Design University), and York University.

Being an industrial designer is another career choice for me, as it fascinates me when you can see things work and get created, so I wondered, why can’t i just do this as a job? I would always get interested with building contraptions and devices, especially using Lego Blocks when I was younger. However, like my other career choices, I remain unsure if I should go into this career due to the fact that you would need a really need a physics mindset and these programs are usually very competitive to get into.  Hopefully I can get a mindset with what I want to do in the future next year~

Product Design Feature: Google Glass

Up Close

New ideas and innovations are created everyday, are discovered everyday, and technology grows a huge role in this. One of the purposes of technology is to make things easier, more simple and more accessible for the audience. You can see that through other products such as; smartphones, which is like a portable hand=held computer which contain data like the weather, social networking, calling, photos, email, music, and many many more. Now, there is a new type of innovation going into hand which is (and already is) changing our world as we know it. The product that I’m talking about is, yes the one on the title; Google Glass. Google Glass is a type of wearable technology that is like the smartphone, but hands-free, where you would say commands through your natural voice or through the small touch pad on the right-side of the glasses. The Google Glass also added new applications compared to the smart phone; such as having new apps, facial expressions, voice translations, exercise, and photo manipulations. They also included of course Google applications such as; Google +, Google Maps, and Gmail. This lovely product was already out for the public on April 15, 2014; not too long ago, and it costs around $1,500 – $2,000 in depending on the model and style. It holds 16 GB, it is only 50 grams in weight, and is available for people with prescriptions.

Design Process

When this product came out, word spread fast as many people wanted to test this new product. Although there are some criticism such as regarding healthcare, privacy, and safety concerns, this product was (and still is) spreading like wild fire. This product also received many awards regarding the criticism such as; Time Magazine’s “Best Inventions of the Year 2012” and T3’s “Innovation of the Year 2013”.

Wanna test a whole new world? Check out their site to learn more;

http://www.google.com/glass/start/

Check out a preview of the glass!

 

The Ever-Changing World: Learning in an Technological Environment

Technology is progressing everyday, as it begins to become an essential to our world today, which includes schools as well. It has become an essential in a way where we depend on these technological devices to discover new things, such as using; projectors, computers, laptops, smartphones, etc. Most of these technological devices may seem only for entertainment purposes however, they can be used as learning devices also. How? you may ask. For example, searching up different bungalow layouts for the bungalow project we had, sharing links and information using Moodle, watching documentaries through a projector screen. All of these examples were used in the Technological Design course that I have been taking in my school right now, and it is a good experience as the course teaches you through using different programs and just exploring more than you would in an English class for example. As you can see we depend on technology a lot, since it is a huge part of our learning as it is easily accessible, opens up our (students’) minds, and it just makes learning just very interesting!

Career Paths: Graphic Design

Graphic design portrays one of the huge influences in media for today’s society through design and technology. They show and display the aesthetic features in photos, magazines, books, and more. Graphic design is a big influence to decide what people want to do, what they buy, etc as it is focused more on the aesthetic feature. How it works, is that if the product is successful, then society will approve it. Being a graphic designer, you have to really work well with different types of colour, shape, sound, film, photographs, text, and technology to combine them all together into a grand picture that is visually appealing towards the audience. Graphic designers display their work through websites, advertisements, books, ticket designs, packaging, exhibitions, and even video games. They use different types of mediums from multimedia programs such as Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, and just simple traditional works like drafting. The skills a graphic designer would need would be such as technical skills, people/communication skills, creative skills, and technology skills. People/communication skills come into play when you’re working in a huge team, which is what graphic designers do. They have to work with a variety of people in different areas such as; photographers, copywriters, and sales staff. A graphic designer would need those skills to communicate with their team and client members to know what the client wants, and including being humble when accepting feedback. Being a designer, it also includes having talent, skills, and interest for graphic design, having creative skills, especially in colour, style, contrast, communication, and typography. A graphic designer would also have to have a strong computer background to work out with software programs especially when it comes to solving problems.

Typography

The salary range usually based off of the what the client thinks of the final product. Graphic Designers also get paid by their level of experience; those who have barely any experience would have a range of around $20,000 – $30,000 per year, those with fair amount of experience would boost up to around $40,000 – $50,000 a year, and senior graphic designers would receive around $60,000 – $70,000 a year. Graphic designers work Mondays to Fridays at around 37 hours a week, and they mostly work overtime due to meeting project deadlines. Usually many graphic designers are free lance, as depending on their comfort, they mostly work either at home or at a studio.

As for post-secondary education to get your Bachelor’s Degree are available in both universities and colleges. Colleges who offer a graphic design program in Ontario: Sheridan College, Algonquin College, Centennial College, Humber College Institute of Technology & Advanced Learning, Seneca College of Applied Arts and Technology (Toronto, Ontario), and many more. On the other hand, universities who offer a graphic design program in Ontario include; Ontario College of Art Design/OCAD, Ryerson University, Wilfred Laurier University, and York University.

Graphic Design is one of the career paths I have decided to choose from. My other career choices would consist of Industrial Design or Urban Design, somewhere in the design field. The reason why I remain unsure for the Graphic Design field is because this field is highly competitive, but with a low pay compared to the other career choices I’ve decided on embarking on. However, I do have a similar passion to the other career choices I have chosen also. Hopefully I’ll have an answer by the end of high school~

Architect of the Day: Richard Rogers

Richard Rogers, another famous architect who has a style of modernism and functionalism in his projects that wow`d the world. This British architect was born in Italy in 1933, where at at a young age he was diagnosed with dyslexia which he learned how to read at the late age of 11 years old. However, that didn’t stop him from pursuing his dreams as he went to Architectural Association School in London at the age of 20 after being in the army for 2 years. He decided to do architecture from the influence of artistic parents and mainly from his cousin, Ernesto Rogers a famous architect during the Second World War. He later graduated the school in 1959 with the Diploma of Architecture and married another architect named Su Brumwell the following year. He then flew off to the states to gain his Master`s degree in the Yale University School of Architecture where he completed it in 1962. In 1970, He later teamed up with Renzo Piano, an Italian Pritzker Prize-winning architect. After displaying a successful projects with Renzo Piano, which was the B & B Italia factory in Italy (1971-1973) and the Centre National d’Art et Culture Georges Pompidou in Paris (1971-1977), they gained worldwide praise and achievements through the high tech appearance for both of the buildings. Technology also had a main influence on Rogers’ style since he wanted technology to satisfy all levels of society. He eventually ended the partnership with Renzo Piano and started his own partnership called Richard Rogers Partnership all on the same year; 1978. In total he won 6 awards such as; The Royal Gold Medal for Architecture in 1985, the American Academy & Insitute of the Arts in 1989, in 1991 he was Knighted as the Lord Rogers of Riverside, Life Baron of the United Kingdom in 1996, Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in 2006, and the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2007.

Interior of Lloyd’s Building in London, Britain

Richard Rogers had done many successful projects mainly in England such as; the Millennium Dome in England, the One Hyde Park in London, London Heathrow Terminal 5, and 88 Wood Street in England. He’s even working on future projects such as creating the 3 World Trade Center in Manhattan, New York. One of his works that grabbed me was called Lloyd’s Building (or called the “Inside-Out” Building) in London, England that was finished building at 1986. Used for commercial use, it is a 312 ft tall building with 14 floors in total. Lloyd’s of London Banking company had an architectural design competition for their future banking building, which included designs from Foster Associates and even I.M. Pei!! Eventually of course, Richard Rogers’ designs had won.
The building design itself was very modern and high-tech with contraptions such as having England’s first ever glass elevators and having the technical stuff built on the outside of the building such as; staircases, lifts, electrical wires, pipes, etc. Having these contraptions outside the building creates a feeling of having more interior space in the inside, thus giving the name of “the Inside-Out” building. The building mainly consists of 3 components; concrete, steel cladding, and glass. The glass and the steel frame mainly covered the outside buildings, which is a common factor used in today’s modern buildings.

Close up view