Final Banners for Thesis Prep

For thesis prep, I stayed mostly in the theoretical. Rather than focusing in on the design of a whole hotel for travelers with healthcare needs, I decided to direct my attention to one aspect...namely the a spa that would also function as a medical clinic. I have done some preliminary work looking at programming, adjacencies, and layout, but I didn't get into the final design. I have been working creating a design language to guide me in the design. I am basing in on genetic coding, which I consider to be at the forefront of medical innovation.

Final Boards for Advanced Digital & Computational Design

For the final in Advanced Digital & Computational Design, I had to design something with parametric controls. For the spa I'm doing as part of my thesis, I wanted the reception to have a dramatic light wall, which would shift in colors and intensity based on where a person was in the room.

(Please pardon the cut and bleed marks on the boards. These are what I sent to the printer.)

Rendering

Code in Grasshopper

Variations Based on Location in Room

Dimensions

Shifting Light Wall

I am furthering my experiments using Grasshopper as a parametric tool for lighting design. In this instance, I am designing a light feature wall for my spa. The idea is that wall has two sets of lights: gentle pink cans in the background, and purple lights in front whose size and intensity is controlled by an aperture. As a person walks across the floor, pressure sensors detect the position and calculate a point in room. The distance of each light from the new point is determined and the apertures of the purple lights are adjusted. So, as the person crosses the room, the should be constant shifting of the lights.

Presentation Boards for The Jellyfish

This is the midterm presentation board for the Jellyfish lighting fixture design.

Lighting Fixture: The Jellyfish

My final lighting design for my Advanced Digital and Computation Design midterm is the Jellyfish fixture. The Jellyfish is actually one configuration of a client configurable line of lights, which utilizes the parametric design capabilities of Grasshopper.

While a rendering was not required, I really wanted to get a sense of how this would look. This is probably one of my better renderings. After designing the fixture in Grasshopper and "baking" it into Rhino, I moved the fixture over to 3D Studio Max to tweak the design, add materials, and set up lights. I then rendered it and made several adjustments in Photoshop to get the final image.

This is my update for my concept model for a hotel (see original).  I continue to use a color gradient to show proximity of hotel rooms to the clinic/spa (not shown in this iteration), but I am also varying the size of rooms. My thought is that rooms which have capability to provide greater intensity of medical service may need extra space for equipment and accessibility.

Initial Steps: New Lighting Design

I'm still working with Rhino/Grasshopper.  It's actually a lot of fun.  My current assignment is start working on designing a new light fixture.  I had some ideas, though the first iterations all looked like hats.  I am happy with the current direction.

Variations in Venetian Glass

I have continued working on modeling a pendant using Grasshopper in Rhino.  Once I had a reasonable model, I varied some of the parameters to created variations of the design.

Constructing a Pendant Light Using Grasshopper

We're moving on to lighting design in Grasshopper/Rhino.  We were to choose a fixture that we liked and attempt to construct it in Rhino.  I will also create a variation by modifying some of the parameters.  This is preliminary work to designing my own fixture.

A Better Weave

Still working on creating a weave using the Grasshopper parametric add-on for Rhino.  A better result, though with less understanding of the process behind it....

Weave with Rhino & Grasshopper - FAIL

I followed a outline for building a weave in Rhino using Grasshopper.  I still have only the smallest clue what I'm doing in Grasshopper, but I figured I could copy someone else's work.  Clearly not.  There were so many variables that were not visible when viewing the screenshot of the Grasshopper  model.  I can't even say that it is a fortunate mistake, i.e. not what I was going for but beautiful all the same.  Oh well, maybe next time.

Arts & Crafts Living Room featuring a Tiffany Lamp

This was from my History of Decorative Arts Class. After researching about a particular Tiffany Lamp, I was to build a room based on the period from when the lamp was designed. A Tiffany Lamp was equally appropriate in an Arts and Crafts room or a Art Nouveau one....I chose the former. I felt the original felt too much like a rendering....I am attempting to make the revision appear more stylized. 

Original Rendering

Stylized Revision

The Pink Shell Revisited

I received some feedback on my work on The Pink Shell pavilion project.  While the concept was well received, it was suggested that the images could be higher quality....which is true.  Here is another attempt at a better rendering.

The Pink Shell - A Pavilion in Lincoln Park

Clearwater - Proposal for an Urban Dialysis Center

Building from Franklin Street

This is Clearwater, a hemodialysis center implemented in a modern building in a dense urban area. As patients with end stage renal disease typically require hemodialysis three to four hours three times per week, I wanted to implement a unit close to home and/or work. In addition, I felt that patients should have the opportunity to use their treatment time to do activities that they might otherwise be doing, such as relaxation, work, or exercise. Evidence shows that patients have less stress and higher satisfaction if they are given choices regarding their care and are provided with positive distractions. In the design of Clearwater, patients have the option of treatment in more open areas with equipment available for exercise or treatment in semiprivate space set up to allow work on a computer. I took advantage of the open floor plates to flood the space with natural light. All treatment areas have a view of a window. Plants are incorporated throughout the space and water elements are present in the lobby garden. As exercise has been shown to have a significant effect on clinical outcomes in patients on dialysis, I allocated two thirds of the treatment area to have the option of exercise during treatment. I also included mobile nursing units to incorporate best safety practices. This gives the nurse constant access to an electronic medical record and the ability to barcode scan all medications at the point of delivery. Both of these practices have been shown to dramatically reduce medical errors.

Several issues related to healthcare design impacted my ultimate design. Hemodialysis requires the delivery and drainage of significant amounts of water. Including adequate plumbing stacks required that I abandon my original choice of the historic Inland Steel Building. Instead I designed a new building inspired by the footplate of the Inland Steel and found an alternative location within the Chicago Loop. Aligning the treatment spaces along plumbing walls while maximizing views encouraged me to abandon the idea of an area configured to encourage socialization amongst patients. Material choices were largely based on the need for infection control. I chose sheet rubber flooring and film veneers to minimize seams and to permit easy cleaning. In order to have light passing through the entire space, I chose systems furniture for the office area. Patient exam rooms were walled with smart glass to give privacy.

Selected Materials and Colors

Floor Plans

Lobby Atrium  - Franklin Street Elevat

Lobby

Exam Rooms

Quiet Treatment Area

Treatment Area with Exercise Equipment

Inhabiting Public Spaces: The Pink Shell

This project part of a graduate interior design theory class called Design & Society.  We were to create a design for a public space that would affect how people would interact or use the space.  We also had to use the "manifesto" we had developed in a previous theory class or use the manifesto of another designer/architect.

Lincoln Park is a major public space stretching along the lakefront of northern Chicago.  It is a place for Chicagoans to meet, exercise, and play.  There are multiple structures within the park.  Some of them, such as the Chess Pavilion and the Totem Pole, have become iconic landmarks that serve as meeting places for clubs and groups.  However, the northern end of the park does not have such a landmark.  I propose to implement a new pavilion near the north end of the lakefront path.

Noting that many of the popular Lincoln Park pavilions are located near turns, I selected a site near a fork in the path.  The site is near the Bryn Mawr underpass and the Hollywood Beach.  While this is a popular area to meet before running or playing volleyball, this is no distinctive landmark to serve as a meeting place.  I wanted to create a gathering place that is highly visible from the path, inviting for congregation, and easily “namable.”  After exploring a variety of shapes, I chose a shell as an easily recognizable shape that would allude to the beach.  Lake Michigan, as fresh water body, does not contain crustaceans that would produce typical seashells, but it is home to a variety of snails with helical shells.  I selected a pink hue as reference to the Edgewater Beach Apartments, which are prominent in the northern Chicago skyline, as well as the popularity of Hollywood Beach with the gay community during the summer.  I expect that the pavilion will serve not only as a visible meeting place for people before heading off for other activities, but also as a place for locals to “hang out” in the park.

The process of my design was shaped by my Bohemian Manifesto, design informed by Truth, Beauty, Freedom, and Love.  As I essentially served as my own client for this project, I took Beauty and Love to be a design of a pavilion that I found aesthetically pleasing and would be a space that I would thoroughly enjoy using.  Freedom meant that I would not feel bound to the style or aesthetic of the other pavilions and landmarks in the park.  The hardest for me was Truth, maintaining integrity to my original design intent.  I had explored multiple shapes, a few of which I was much more excited about from an aesthetic standpoint.  However, Truth insisted that I remain faithful to the idea that my pavilion should inspire people to say: “Meet me at the….”

Pavilion Explorations for Theory Project

final banners

A big thanks to my classmates Leslie and Manuel who were so generous with their time, giving feedback on multiple iterations of the weekend. I sent the banner to the print shop last night. Yay!

updated banners

explorations - based on ideas of mechanical reproduction

juxtaposition of "real" and "reproduction"

Variations/Multiple Reproduction

Field of Dogs - Update

I continue to explore generating a field from layers of information about the dogs.

This is the product of last week's exploration.

This what I came up with this week. I enclosed the space, representing how the dogs may see the space. Their pathways are represented by a single object, though it is manipulated to be a bit more chaotic.