Blog 7: Independent Component 1 Approval

1. Describe in detail what you plan to do for your 30 hours.

• In addition to my hours with the Design and Construction Committee with the organization Habitat for Humanity, I will be also contributed my hours from my mentorship onto my independent component hours. So for my mentorship hours at ACE, we will this year be compiling an end of the year project in which we as a group will design a required design for a movie theater. In our meetings over the course of a few months we will be establishing floor plans, learning how to use the scale system, creating a to scale 3-D model, using how to use drafting programs to graphically design the building's layout, and presenting our model to other ACE teams as well as a corresponding audience.

2. Discuss how or what you will do to meet the expectation of showing 30 hours of evidence.

• In order to prove I have completed my thirty hours I will continuously take photos to keep up dated on my progress. I will also take notes during each meeting, of important notations that apply to ACE end of the year project or any details associated with my essential question. In addition, I would also like to use art work as evidence to show progress in my design theory and also create designs of my own by using the designs I am exposed to during our mentor meetings.

3. And explain how what you will be doing will help you explore your topic in more depth.

• Once the our ACE team gets more in depth with the architectural design of the movie theater, we can implicated more nature and eco-friendly design. This usually comes after the floor planes and the structural planes of the building, and then I can suggest more integrative design methods that would promote a more natural earthy tone of nature that is as well eco-friendly. Since I am thinking that one possible answer into incorporating nature into a design can be through the use of eco-friendly design plans, which I will be pushing/persuading my team members into seeing the benefits of the designing in and around nature.  

January Extra Blog

Over the course of January my meetings at my mentorship at ACE Program have consisted of finalizing a floor plan design. In our last two meetings there were two groups that worked on the end of the year design (project is to design a movie theater.) One group worked on the internal design of the theaters while the group I was in constructed the exterior structure of the building as well as the layout of the floor plan or how the rooms flowed.

 

 

In the above design we had to first think out the design logically and practical to how a realistic movie theater would flow. For example you don't want the projector room for a theater to be connected with the bathroom you want the projector room to be directly on top of each theater. Although this sounds like common sense it really took some analytical thinking. Another example was that in our ACE project requirements we were only allowed two bathrooms so we as a group thought it would be in our best interest if we placed the bathroom an equal distance away from each theater for the guests to easily access it.

 

This photo above was our finalized first draft, much of what we learned in calculating the square-footage we had to apply to our floor plan design to get the correct number of required square-footage.

 

This picture above illustrates our finalized second draft of our floor plan. In our ACE project requirements we had to establish a restaurant; originally we thought it would be a great feature if we put the restaurant on the second floor, but we ran into a few design problems. The practicality of the restaurant was inadequate, due to the fact that how can users/guests get to the restaurant without having to pay for a movie ticket. We as a group agreed that we would have exterior stairs that would lead up to the restaurant and an elevator for the handicapped. Yet in reality an I-MAX theater screen is at least 60 feet tall and walking sixty flights of stairs is a bit of an exaggeration for practical use. For the end we had to put the restaurant on the group for but decided to face it towards the main street to attract more guest. One of the feature I liked was the patio seating/dining area that faces the main street for an outside city atmosphere for restaurant guests.  

 

What I've learned most from this month was the fact that a practical design is more highly thought of and important than an aesthetic appeal in design.



 

Blog 13: Lesson Reflection

1. Positive Statement:

• I am proud of having met all the P requirements, since Ortega said we had all met the requirements; and am proud of this since I know I could have done better on my presentation research wise and by meeting all the requirements makes me a little more at ease.

2. Questions to Consider:

     a. What would assessment would you give yourself on your Lesson 2 Presentation?
        
         P

     b. Explain why you deserve that grade using evidence from the Lesson 2 Contract.
        
         I deserve that grade P since I turned my lesson plans in on time, had materials including EQ poster ready on time, my introduction did address my EQ, and I provided specific answers to my EQ, had an activity that required facts in my lesson to do, had met requirements for 20 mins minimum of lesson and 10 mins of research, and I cleaned up after my presentation.

3. What worked for you during lesson 2?

• What worked for me was setting up and cleaning up quick since both setting my materials up and cleaning them up did not require much time; because I only had a few papers and already knew how to use the projector.

4. What would've you done differently?

• I would have found a better way to engaged my audience in participating in my activity as well as my hook. I would follow through with this by starting with my enthusiasm with my topic.
• I would have also done a more in depth research on my answer so that I can fully explain "how" can an architect incorporate nature into a design. Focus my research on how can an architect preserve the pre-existing site?

5. What do you think your answer 2 is going to be?

• By observing nature and implementing natural designs into the structure of buildings.

Blog 12: Third Interview Questions

Open Ended Questions:

1. What is the best way for an architect to incorporate natural surroundings into a building design?

2. What types of natural elements can an architect use to create a green design?

3. How can an architect design a project so that  the design preserves the pre-existing environment or site?

4. In what ways can an architect best fit their design according to only one particular site?

5. How exactly can an architect best learn from their environment through observation?

6. What current or previous buildings designs have incorporated natural surroundings into their design?

7. Through the use of observation how can we incorporate or compare the structure of a plant to the structure of a building design?

8. What are the key components that form the basis of an accredited green build?

9. What resources can an architect use to maintain an accredited green building?

10. In what ways can the natural surroundings improve the building design?

11. In what various ways can the building design complement its site or environment?

12. How can architects best learn from pre-established green designs?

13. How extensive can you design a green building, when concerning minute elements such as carpet or wood?

14. Is scaling down a building project the best solution to a green design, by utilizing space.

15. How can incorporating natural surroundings into a building design overall improve the health of clients?

Blog 11: Mentorship 10 Hours

1.   Where are you doing your mentorship?

• I am contributing my time to a mentorship program at a Marshall High School in Pasadena, known as ACE or Architecture, Construction, and Engineering. ACE is a program where high school students interact with professional graduates in the field of Architecture, Construction and Engineering, and get to experience each field at first hand.

2.   Who is your contact?

• My contact is Rachel Adams one of the contributing ACE Mentors on the Pasadena Team.

3.   How many total hours have you done (total hours should be reflected in your mentorship log located on the right hand side of your blog like your WB)?  

• All in all I have completed a total of 21 Hours with in the time frame of 9/19 - 12/12/2013. 

4.   Summarize the 10 hours of service you did.

• After being introduced to all of our mentors and getting a general background description of each career choice, our meets consisted of fieldtrips to either a accredited university, college, or firm. Throughout these field trips our mentors continuously gave us tips on hands on experiences and projects on how to think in terms of an architect, engineer, and contractor. We as the Pasadena Team are encouraged to work in groups and as a team since the whole experience of being an architect, engineer, or contractor is being dependent upon a high level of communication and interaction. Our mentors have also taught the Pasadena Team the ideas of structure, the role of an Architecture, the role of a Structural Engineers, site planning, architectural planning and elevation, site modeling, and scale conversions. Every year the ACE program does an annual project that each high school team in Los Angeles county is required to complete and present at the end of the year seminar. Our project currently that the Pasadena Team needs to develop as a coming of year product is to design and construct a movie theater; where we're consulting with other ACE Teams from other high schools and fit our project design to coincide with their project design. Ultimately being involved in the ACE program has taught me a great deal on a new outlook on Architecture, Engineering, and Construction.  

 

Blog 10: Senior Project, The Holiday

1. What did you do over the break involving your senior project?

• Over the winter break I spent much of my time researching and finding sources to add to my WB. For one of the additional sources I found was a book called 101 things I learned in Architecture School. Another thing I was worked on was calculating the square footage for our new project "building a Movie Theater" and figuring out different floor plans.

2. What was the most important thing you learned from what you did and why?

• The most important thing I learned from doing research on one source was the fact that if you want to be recognized for your designs you have to forget about what you want the building to look like and instead ask yourself what does the building prefer to look like? By considering the concerns and needs of your client, and the nature of your site, you can ultimately achieve a recognition. This is important piece of advice or experience can help you in the long run of your professional career field by achieving good recognition you can in the end expand your cliental through referrals.
• On the other hand by learning how to use the scale system for design plans I was able to uniquely design a structure that is fit to our mentorship project required square footage. This skill is important to learn since it helps you to realistically visualize how big a room needs to be in order to be practical and comfortable for the user.

3. If you were going to do a ten question interview on questions related to answers of your EQ, who would you talk to and why?
I would talk to my mentor Rachel Adams who is a graduate architect from Georgia Tech. Rachel has design experience in a number of recognized projects such as Valley Regional High School for the Los Angeles school institute. Rachel Adams design philosophy is to establish quality architecture that is respectable to the nature as well as environment and is highly concerned with her cliental needs.

December Extra Blog

On this particular meeting we went to the kpff consulting engineers firm. This firm was where some of our structural engineer mentors worked. The interesting fact about this particular building was that it was the part of Pasadena’s chamber of commerce. What I found to be most intriguing was the fact that when the building was being renovated, kpff decided to keep some of the building's history in it by preserving some existing features.

 

 

During the ACE meeting, the Pasadena Team had taken a tour of the building and gotten to see our mentors workspace. After we went over to the kpff conference room there we were introduced to a short diagram.  

The diagram was informal displaying a basic image of what a typical structure is made of various components. First concrete is set as a foundations and steel beams are set in place vertically and perpendicular steel columns are established to support the slab between the secondary beam.

 



Our mentors also explained the various viewpoints in order of importance when constructing a building. For example a structural engineers' order of importance is safety is the number one priority when designing a building then serviceability (being designed in a practical and user friendly manner, and respectable purpose,) build ability (designing a building that is easy to construct and not problematic,) appearance (aesthetics.) An architects main concern is focused on appearance the atmosphere of the building and how the design creates fluidity. For a contractor his focus is on the build ability of the design and how practical it is to build. The owner or client is concerned with the value of their design, being that they want to get the most worth out of their money.

 

 

 The main topic we spoke of during our meeting was scale and the purpose of how its used to create designs in an optimal amount of space. What I learned from this meeting was that since buildings in actual size cannot be drawn onto paper we conserve space by using scale drawings. Based on what scale you chose: 1/8, 1/16, 1/4, 1/2, 1, 3/8, 3/4, 1 1/2, 3 inch. you have to calculate the total area of the square footage of a room and the width and length in order to make the design practical for the user.