Alysen

Project 01
Wunderkammer Design
Ceramics

For our project this 9 weeks we had to design a wunderkammer (room of wonder). Our Wunderkammers were designed to be workshops for a master craftsman in a specific craft. My craft that I picked was ceramics. Throughout my design I plan out what a master of ceramics workshop would look like, while investigating craeft.

Creaft investigation

Our first project this semester was to define craeft. When investigating what I believe craeft is, I thought it to be taking inspiration from your surroundings and using the resources around you. I used a lot of greenery and architecture from different cultures to show how to take inspiration from materials and people around you. I also incorporated architecture and furniture with a lot of intricate details, because of the time and effort put into making those details,which I believe show great skill for craeft.
I then studied a selected architecture to see how they use craeft. My architects were the Patkau architects. When looking at their projects I learn about how they use the same type of wood and materials in their environment. A lot of their designs have similar features, like shape angles and wood slats. They put a lot of focus into providing shelter, like with their skating shelters, or the one fold design. They have made quite a few design with the purpose of sheltering people especially with their community centers.

Patkau Poster

CONCEPT DESIGN

Ceramics Grid

To understand our crafts we made grids to represent the tools, uses, and processes of our crafts. For my grid I tried to showcase multiple uses of ceramics in both architecture and everyday use. Clay can be used in architecture design to make walls, floors and roofs out of brick or terracotta. Artistic uses of ceramics can be sculpture, tile and pottery. Ceramics also have important everyday use, like ceramic teeth, kitchenware, and making manufacturing equipment with advanced ceramics. In my grid I also included different types of tools used for ceramics and some of the processes in making something with clay.

bubble diagram

floor plan and elevation of concept

For my concept designs I came up with 3 different concepts. My second concept is the one that I decided to work with for my design. In my design I first laid out where the pottery wheel and work tables would be, as those are the most important parts of the design sense that is where the product making is taking place. Next I wanted to put the tools and glaze storage close to the wheels for quick access. In the center I put in a large area for lessons to take place, because I thought at first the workshop would be for more people, I would then later change that to be an inspiration and design planning area. Next to the large lecture area is a large storage area. In ceramics it is important to have a lot of storage for tools, glaze, drying pieces and molds. Lastly I planned out the kiln area. The kiln is in a separate section distanced away. Kiln can get very hot and you would not want anything to explode from being too close. For the outside I wanted to give my design a bit more of an organic shape by drawing vase-like curves for the walls, which was a bit too literal.

Revised Design

When revising my concept design I first wanted to redraw the exterior and focus on making it more abstract. I wanted to keep the range of verticals with tall walls mixed with shorter ones. The tall room on the right is still the pottery area but I put the table against the wall next to it. In a similar place as before is the tools and glaze storage, mainly to keep the easy access to important tools. One big change I made to my design was combining the lecture/inspiration and the storage room. I figured the stuff in storage could be used as inspiration for future projects and designs. With all the natural lighting in the storage room I wanted the other half of the room to be comfy and like a separate home for the craftsman. So I wanted the room to be big enough to put in multiple shelves along with a couch and small table.

revised design

Final Design

Floor Plan

Section Plan

For my final changes to my design I changed a few things. One area I changed was the kiln. I made the shape of the room more similar to the pottery area, so that I match up and to provide a more comfortable walk from one place to the other. Second thing was making the pottery area slightly larger. I did still so that there would be less mess surrounding the walking routes because of the clay from the wheels. One regret I do have about the design was not keeping the walls separating the kiln from the rest of the workshop. Separating the kiln is important because of the heat but also to be able to put something in the kiln and not think about it for a while. Something can take hours to fire in a kiln so being away from the making process is something I think is important.

Drawing

For my first design project I knew I wanted to illustrate the outside of the design. In my floor plan you can’t really see how the height changes throughout the design so I wanted to make that clear. So I skated out a paraline drawing of my design. Surrounding the drawing I collaged mostly ceramic sculptures and tiles, because those are the type of ceramics focused on in this workshop. I then collaged my floor plan and section plan on top of the ceramics collage to add layers to the drawing. Last thing I put in was a grid on the wall of the paraline drawing. The grid is supposed to represent the tiles made in the workshop, because I wanted the whole design to be a showroom rather than having a single room to showcase ceramics.

Wunderkammer Model

The last design project of my Wunderkammer was to make a model representation of my design. When coming up with ideas for how to represent my design, I wanted to showcase the storage and designing room. In my drawing this room is not visible in the section plan, so that's where my decision came from. I also wanted to show ceramic creations everywhere to illustrate my idea of making the whole workshop the showroom, instead of a designated room for finished projects.
There are many design elements I incorporated in my model. One element was my use of air dry clay to make flowers and butterflies. I wanted to include the use of ceramics in my design to show how the entire workshop is a display of the works of the craftsmen. Another element was to make cardboard tiles on the side of the model, because my workshop mostly focuses on tile making and sculpture. The last few design elements are the curtains and the couch. I handmade the couch that I envisioned in the room and made some curtains that would separate the storage room from the rest of the workshop. These were added to show off the comfy feel of the inspiration part of the room

Wunderkammer Model

Project 02
Faculty housing

For my project this semester we got to choose between student housing or faculty housing. I chose to do faculty housing for the ceramics teachers. Through the project we focus on designing livable spaces and sustainable design.

Parti designs

24 Parti studies

My first design study was to come up with 24 parti designs, then choose five that have the most potential and bring it down to three designs. When starting out my designs were very stacked together and close. Later I tried to separate the shape and add more sharp shapes than organic. Out of the five outlined I chose, Casting ceramics, Thrown clay, and Before the kiln. For the first one I envisioned each shape as a house for each faculty member. My second parti was the first one I came up with. Each organic shape would be an apartment and the geometric shape in the middle would be a parking lot. For my last parti, the one that I ended up choosing, I thought of the separated shapes as houses and the lines on the sides as a road connecting the houses to the main road.

Parti 1- Thrown Clay

Parti 2- Casting Ceramics

Parti 3- Before the Kiln

Concept design

For my first draft of my third concept I imagined each house would have a teacher of a different ceramic craft such as, a tile maker, potter, sculptor and a furniture maker. House one at the bottom would be the sculpture, house two second from the bottom would be the potter, house three second from the top is the sculptor, and the last one at the top is the tile maker. Each house I was in accommodated a different living situation, with some residents living with family and some by themselves.

Concept design

Concept study model

All of our design went through a second round of feedback to decide which concept we will choose. This time I spent more time on the design of each house and craft. House one, the sculptor which I changed to a 3d modeler, has a stone cover on the roof with columns attached to the roof. The roof also has a design on the top that represents the shape of the road. For the road I took inspiration from my third concept in the last project we did. House two I changed positions and now it is the potter’s house. The first level has panels that stick out, the second level is made of wood slats, and has a garden on the roof of the first level. House three the sculptor’s place is covered with organic shaped panels that reveal the house underneath, like a veil over a sculpture. The house also has glass domes on the sides for some rooms of the house, like a greenhouse or dinning room. house four did not go through much change, and is still the tilemakers house. The house is covered in tile and mosaic art, as well as a garden that surrounds the front of the house.

Concept bubble diagram

Revised concept

Schematic designs

When drawing all my schematic designs I started thinking about the materials for the houses. The 3D modeler’s house did not go through much change, but for materials my original idea for the house was for the walls to be a wood material and the roof to be stone. I then changed the walls to be glass and the roof stayed the same. House two went through a few changes like, getting rid of the panels on the first level, changing the vertical wood slats to horizontal bamboo. The bamboo is to make the second level look like a coil pot on a pottery wheel which would be the bottom level. The materials used for the third house would be stone and glass. The panels would be stone and walls and domes are glass. The only changes to the fourth house are adding a slanted roof to better match the other roofs of the houses.

Schematic models

Schematic Models

Site plan

My site plan was also part of my schematic sketches. In my site each house fits on the plot well with about 20-30 ft in between each house. In the spaces in between the house are four gardens for agriculture and sitting areas. Connecting each house is a road that goes back to the main faculty road. Also connecting each house to each other is a pathway with mosaic art on them that connect the gardens and nearby houses.

Sketchup mass models

Final designs

updated parti

The final iterations of my designs were done on revit. House one changed from all glass walls to mostly glass, and 3D printed concrete walls for the middle walls. For house two I redesigned the second floor to better fit the roof shape and to place the spiral staircase in a different area of the first floor. All the other houses stayed consistent. Houses one and three are designed for family living for 3-4 people. House one is a loft with one guest room with one person living there. House four is designed for two people, one teacher on the second floor and a elderly relative on the first floor. One final change made to the overall design was adding a grass circle to the road connecting houses, two and three to break up all the concrete.