Gael Guardado: Architectural Design II
Personal Apartment
This projects goal was to create an apartment fitting for the needs and wants of the architect. The architect would model an apartment, studio or 1 Bedroom and a two bedroom, fitting for the career they would like to pursue straight out of college and consider the individual values they would like to include into they're building. Some things each designer would have to consider is the cost, purpose of spaces, and the compactness of the apartment. This would give the architect the experience of creating a space to serve a specific purpose fitting of a clients needs.
Vision Board
This is a vision board created by the architect and visualizes the future they wish to have straight out of college. There are columns and structural pieces throughout the piece to visualize the wanting of stability for the future, but more notable are the paintings found around the center of the composition showing the importance of creativity and the art the architect wants in the future. Nature elements can be seen in the background representing the want to not be confined to a specific space or idea, to be able to explore the world and create own perusal ideals with the help of others. There is a room created by the arrangement of elements visualizing the way of how the architect visualizes they're own personal apartment. Living in they're own passion, waking up day to day constantly doing what they love is what the architect strives for.
Apartment Design
The apartment was designed for the tenant to live in they're passion, an aspect reflected in the vision board. The room(s) was designed to have constant, clear sight of the production space encouraging them to be productive. The Architect also tried to minimize the space used to make it more sustainable , more units, and to be constantly surrounded with they're passion, for the architect its painting. There is open spaces and a balconies, not only to make it less confined with the size of area, but to also create a connection with the outside world, reflective of the vision board. Because there is so little square footage there are storage built into floors and walls to minimize clutter.
Early concepts, sketches, and revisions.
Apartments for the Foster Youth
This projects goal was to create apartments for the youth exiting foster care. The architect would have to figure out ways so solve the issues these children face by designing apartments fitting for their needs. This makes use of what the first project teaches the architect.
Research
The Research for this project was very extensive. The architect first started with the most relevant information needed for the building, like homeless rates for exiting foster care youth, but as the more information gained the more come up. The information contained in the infographic is homelessness, Mental health issues, lack of education, Substance abuse, pregnancy, and sexual abuse. the information gained from researching gives the architect a perspective of the environment they want to create for these people, solving issues by having guidance councilors in the building, social areas, and general opportunities to learn for day to day life, along side working with the possible situations. the purpose is to help these people get on they're feet.
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Concept Design
Room Concept
Rough concepts of the rooms that will be in the apartments.
It was left simply as early sketches in the sketchbook to focus more of my time to the complex. The thought process was to work inside out, focusing on the day to day life of the foster youth and make a complex out of those daily aspects. In each of the rooms there's spaces for the youth to socialize and create friends with people inside the complex and out, it was designed as a more private social area because the other social areas are very open. The rooms give the tenants a sense of privacy, very common in the adult world, and it can be unfamiliar to the foster youth. They are constantly being surrounded by people, familiar or unfamiliar, in the foster homes they come out of leave very little privacy, so the design gave them the pillage of they're own room, the rooms also took in mind the situations these youth might be in like taking care of children. I created a studio and a 2 bedroom apartments.
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Concept 01
The design of this building was to create individual units for each tenant to live in, and to also have the opportunity to socialize with others through areas in the buildings. There are inclusions of staff rooms, and lecture halls to give guidance to the youth. Starting off with developing this idea the architect worked in an open space with little trees on the site and built the complex with the sole purpose of function, working with geometric shapes the architect could maximize the use of space in the building. Around the site there is a road, a park and a small parking lot. Since the tenants are coming straight out of foster care they can barely if at all afford housing, it would be natural that not a lot of the tenants would own cars, so a smaller parking lot.
Concept 02
Developing on the first concept the architect wanted to create more of an encouragement to explore the area around the site. The first concept being made of geometric shapes makes it very counseled and protected building. With the main goal to help the youth get on they're feet, a building like that could make them rely too much which make them struggle to explore and grow. Taking this in mind the architect incorporated a lot more outside elements in the form of a courtyard and large openings to the complex, giving more encouragement to socialize with people outside the foster care system and expose them to new ideas.
Concept 03
Lastly developing on the fist and second concepts, the third building truly makes use of the site, using angles and rectangles to make building fit between trees. The architect felt that second building's idea of integrating the elements could be done better, as the courtyard offers a view into another persons apartment, and removes the feeling of privacy that is wanted in the complex. Instead in this the architect makes use of the views of the site and the surrounding area. This also creates a better result than having a courtyard.
Early concepts, analysis of area, and expansions of ideas.
Final Design
The main idea for the building was the concept of movement. The building shifts and extrudes out giving a sense of life, reflecting the constant rotation of people that come in and out the apartment and represent a step in they're life. Giving them the opportunity to learn and explore, the building serves as a place of learning and socializing with classrooms throughout the building and constant staff, building on skills that they will need when they live on they're own. The social areas also reflect a sense of movement. Starting from the first level there is a large open area where people can meet each other in a more public area, then on the rest of the floors there are smaller more private areas, still open to everyone, but where people can get to know each other more. Lastly there is the apartment rooms reflecting they're own house where they would invite to something more personal marking a new friend. All of this gives experience for the foster youth, developing skills for them to use in they're daily life in the future.