The First Real Crit

Today was my first real crits, where I had to pinup (after carefully choosing what I wanted to display) my drawings and models for a panel of architects and professors to critique my work over the past week.  Overall people had some very impressive work and even more impressive models.  Unfortunately my model as I said before was slopping and not nearly as neat.

During my crit they let me know that my model was a bit sloppy and needed to be tighter in order to express what the actual building expresses.  They told me my site plan needed more detail, not just the ground floor drawn into the site space, but also the subsequent floors overlaid on top, as well as the programatic boxes woven throughout the site plan and a labeling of the public spaces.  One of the guest architects remarked how Seattle Public was SP, or backwards was PS, public space and that I should have emphasized this.  He also talked about how the boxes allowed on to actually see the building the person was in, simply by looking down or up at the edge of one of the boxes, something I didn't consider.  On a technical level, some of my line-weights were off or could have been better defined.  One of my section cuts had incorrect topography, which honestly I should have seen and that was a pretty egregious mistake.

On a positive note, they did say how eloquent I was in explaining what I was trying to convey, as well as the overall intention of the library project, especially considering my current state of health.  One of my professors said he was impressive by my speed and ability to dive into a project as an impulsive, gut reaction, but I needed to refine my model making abilities in this regard.  Honestly I was rushing because I was sick and wanted to go home to sleep, not because I was impulsive, but maybe he'll learn that later.

I took some better photos of my model.  We have to photograph them for Monday, but the cameras can only be rented on weekdays, so here are my iPhone quality photos to look at.  You can see the lack of detail and the loose form of my model, something that is extremely bad and sloppy.   This model is not well done and hopefully I can show you guys (or ya'll as they say) a real model in a week.

So after crits I got lunch with some people where we de-stressed, then I went home and fell asleep.  We have our next assignment for Monday, which is the following, briefly described:

Create conceptual sketches of at least three ways to construct 5 rooms, where one of the rooms is hidden.  The hidden room must be accessible from the outside and the inside.  The four other rooms must be accessible from at least 2 other rooms.  No moving partitions may give access to the hidden room.  Additionally 5"x5" models for each of the three conceptual designs must be completed for pinups on Monday.  

A design log of the work must be included in InDesign for Monday, as well as a log of the photographs of the model for Monday.  

So tomorrow I'll get to work on that, but no class, which is nice and means I can use the time to work on my homework and hopefully have a somewhat relaxing day.  Meeting a friend from high school for lunch so that should be super fun.

People have said they like looking at my notes, so here are some more recents pages from one of my sketchbooks.  If people really like these I can post more, but they're kinda boring in my opinion, so let me know.  Also if you have any suggestions on how to improve this journal thing I'm doing I'm open to suggestions.  If you want a certain type of content, I can probably address that as well.

Also I have to start carrying my model around everywhere, so here are two pictures of my model in my kitchen and on my bed.

And with that, I'm happy I had the time to make a longer post today.  Hopefully some rest will improve my health and I'll be able to update more completely.  As always thanks for reading.