quick sketching

podium

we are currently learning how to render in podium in my visual communication class here are some images that I did.

Community Video

Recently as a group assignment we created a video about community in downtown Greensboro. i am not very technically savvy so I couldn't figure out how to put the video on my blog but here is a link to my group members blog where you will find the video. Jeff Linn

Gateway Plaza

Recently as a class we visited the Gateway Plaza here are some pictures that I took while I was there.

makeshift shelter

Well I know its a little late but I keep getting so busy and I never have time to update my blog so her are the picture from the makeshift shelter project finally.

my sister's house

On Monday as a class we visited the Urban Studio project “My Sister’s House”. It was a really exciting experience. The design of the house was really good I really liked the layout I feel that it does a good job in fostering community. All of the bedrooms are on one main corridor which is good because if anyone needs help or support all of the girls are right there. Also the kitchen is a great gathering spot for all of the girls to come together to cook and to eat and to discuss about raising a kid and the situation that they are in. Another great area of the design was the exterior there is a playground which will be a great place for all of the girls to gather. The only thing that I would have to say that I thought was not good about the house was the lack of living area and seating in the house. There is no living room and no real seating in the bedrooms besides the bed. I don’t know if this is something that will be added later or not. Over all I feel that the house supports community however there is still potential for improvement.

communities and neighborhood

In looking at the reading assignment I found a lot of interesting information about communities and neighborhoods. I really liked reading about the neighborhood rules and regulations and how they effect the community environment. These rules are very beneficial to a good and safe and aesthetically pleasing living environment. Personally coming from a neighborhood with similar rules I feel like it is definitely a positive thing. It brings pride to the community. A lot of modern day neighborhoods the houses are built all on top of each other and all the trees are cut down. The article was talking about the importance of land and nature. People need to feel like they are in an environment that there is room for their family to spread out and have some privacy.
Another really interesting thing that I read was about how people judge themselves and the quality of their lives based on the others around them. It was talking about how if you are living in a upper class a community and you do not have as much then you are going to feel poorly about yourself but if you are living with people with like social class you will be more satisfied with yourself and your way of life. Overall there were a lot of interesting things to think about in relation to communities however the above mentioned things were interesting to me in particular.

makeshift process

After seeing the disaster in Haiti, our second year studio reacted by doing a makeshift shelter project which was presented on Friday along with a donation booth to raise money to support Haiti. The parameters of the project were that we could only use five materials and two binding agents and all of the materials had to be found. We could not spend any money on the project. After doing some searching around, finding materials and trying a bunch of ideas, we ended up with our five materials being wood, magazines, pvc pipes, plastic bags and twine and our binding agents were glue and nails. We were given an activity to be done in our space that activity being sketching. In thinking about all of these different things we came up with our design, which included a colorful open shelter that is light and airy with lots of inspiration for sketching.
I was extremely pleased with the outcome of the project. Going into this project I was worried that it was going to just look like a whole lot of trash sitting in the lobby. However the final product was clean and looked professional and it served its purpose perfectly. Looking back on this project, I will remember it by the fact that it was very rewarding. In the majority of the projects that we do or have done in the past when we are finished with the project all we have to show for it are drawings and presentation boards. However in this project when we were finished we had a full scale working model of our design. That was a much more rewarding experience than the other final projects.
This project has changed the way that I think about design because I am always saying that I want a job that is more gratifying than design but I realized through this process that design can be very gratifying. The process of going through the steps of this project helped me to find my strengths and weaknesses in the design field. My strengths were in helping to accomplish goals such as completing necessary steps on time, to keep the team on track, and to be realistic of time constraints. My weaknesses were in actual sketch book and journal keeping. I have trouble with keeping all my ideas in a certain space. They are all in my head but I have trouble getting them onto paper. In looking at the process, I found with the writing exercises I was able to overcome these weaknesses and explain some of my ideas. Also being made to sketch my ideas to help show the rest of the team what I wanted to accomplish. I felt like we made some really great design decisions in this project. One of the most important things I learned was to simplify design and to take things away and that if there is something that can be taken away then you are not finished yet. The other thing that we came up with was the paper mache. After Hope suggested using magazines, I put forth the idea of using paper mache to help bring in the magazines throughout the space. I thought that it really helped to bring in color and more elements to sketch into the space.
Over all I felt that I learned a lot from this project. I really enjoyed working in groups and building a full scale model. I was very pleased with the way that it turned out. I would, in the future, like to see more projects where we actually build the designs because it really helps you understand the way things work and you are able to really have a sense of accomplishment when you are through. I am excited to see what the future holds for new projects the rest of this semester.

Darst Webbe

• The Darst building opened in 1956 and the Webbe buildings opened in 1961
• 6 9 story towers and 1 12 and 1 8 story tower
• A completely African American community
• The St Louis Housing Authority is notorious as the city’s biggest slumlord allowing Darst Webbe to go to pot. [St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri) November 29, 2003 Saturday Five Star Late Lift Edition]
• The Darst-Webbe complex originally contained 750 units, but at the time of demolition, only 220 of those units were occupied. Of those displaced, 96 families moved to the Clinton-Peabody housing development, while the rest found shelter at other St. Louis public housing sites[St. Louis Daily Record/St. Louis Countian (St. Louis, MO) August 14, 2003 Thursday]
• Discriminatory effect on the basis of race, familial status and gender, because it provided for so few replacement units that would be available to people that are eligible for public housing for very low-income families[St. Louis Daily Record/St. Louis Countian (St. Louis, MO)August 14, 2003 Thursday]
• African Americans occupied 95.62 percent of the neighborhood, which consisted of 78.65 percent of female-headed households with children under the age of 18 years. [St. Louis Daily Record/St. Louis Countian (St. Louis, MO)August 14, 2003 Thursday]
• Of the 560 occupied housing units, renters occupied 541 units[St. Louis Daily Record/St. Louis Countian (St. Louis, MO)August 14, 2003 Thursday]

Pruitt Igoe

· Completed in 1955

· 57 acres of cleared land

· Two segregated complexes one for black and one for white

· 2,870 apartments

· 33 11 story buildings

· Architecture by Leinweber, Yamasaki, and Hellmuth design firm

· Yamasaki also built the twin towers

· Built in the De-Sotto Carr neighborhood a black ghetto in an effort to revitalize the area

· The design proposals were a mixture of walk-up, high rise, and mid rise structures. (American Architectural History by Keith L. Eggener 2004)

· This proposal was to expensive so they were forced to build 33 identical 11 story elevator buildings. (American Architectural History by Keith L. Eggener 2004)

· Skip top elevators

· Glazed internal galleries to create “individual neighborhoods”

· The anchor floors hosted the garbage chutes, communal rooms, laundry facilities.

· Stairwells and corridors attracted muggers

· Ventilation was poor and nonexistent central air

· Parking and recreation facilities were inadequate

· Deliberately small apartments

· In 1956 Pruitt Igoe was desegregated and became a mainly black community

· The quality of the hardware was so poor that doorknobs and locks were broken on initial use… Windowpanes were blown from inadequate frames by wind pressure. In the kitchens, cabinets were made of the thinnest plywood possible. (American Architectural History by Keith L. Eggener 2004)

· The buildings remained vacant and the whole complex was never more that 60 percent occupied

· By the end of the 1960s Pruitt-Igoe was nearly abandoned and had deteriorated into a decaying, dangerous, crime-infested neighborhood. In 1971, Pruitt-Igoe housed only six hundred people in seventeen buildings; the other sixteen were boarded up.

· Died of social isolation

· Inadequate maintenance and increased poverty of residents

· Writers said the not meeting resident’s needs were typical of modern architecture.