Jinah Choe: Architectural Design II
Project 01: My Dream Apartment
Project one begins with designing an ideal apartment for ourselves as a young professional. Thinking of ourselves as our own client, this project was an exercise to accommodate certain lifestyles, desires, and needs with architecture. We first created a vision board consisting of our ideal lifestyles then physically and digitally created our individual apartments. After creating a one bed apartment for ourselves, we added a roommate and created a two bedroom apartment.
Research: Vision Board
My vision board consists of my life goals, dreams, career, and ideal lifestyle. I mainly focused on my career and lifestyle when creating the vision board in order to easily connect it back to architecture. In the future I plan on becoming a lawyer and envision myself living in a city environment, so I picked images that would best describe my ideas for my future.
By creating this vision board I was able to come up with apartment designs that best represented my dreams and aspirations. The vision board represents a lifestyle that is both calm and chaotic. I wanted to create a balance between the different lifestyles in order to clearly represent the lawyer and city life. I purposefully arranged the images on my vision board in a certain way to best represent future. The pictures of New York City and Dallas, Texas are placed in a sporadic way, embodying the idea of a chaotic lifestyle and living environment. While the pictures that surround the city images are placed in a organized way, reflecting the peaceful lawyer lifestyle.
By creating this vision board I was able to come up with apartment designs that best represented my dreams and aspirations. The vision board represents a lifestyle that is both calm and chaotic. I wanted to create a balance between the different lifestyles in order to clearly represent the lawyer and city life. I purposefully arranged the images on my vision board in a certain way to best represent future. The pictures of New York City and Dallas, Texas are placed in a sporadic way, embodying the idea of a chaotic lifestyle and living environment. While the pictures that surround the city images are placed in a organized way, reflecting the peaceful lawyer lifestyle.
Apartment Design
In order to come up with apartment designs I used my vision board to help guide me through this process. I decided to form my concept designs around my career, environment, and lifestyle. In the future I would like to live in a city and eventually become a lawyer, so I matched that idea with my apartment. Thinking about the needs of a lawyer, I would need an office or a quiet space to work, however because I would be living in a loud and busy area, I had to accommodate living spaces by re-arranges rooms. I pushed quiet working spaces away from the windows and kept my more busier spaces by them. My apartment has a limited amount of space due to living in a city, so I decided to not design a sleeping area and utilized the walls by creating a pull out bed. I also purposely didn't create a decided dining space, in order to save up more space within the apartment. I designed my apartment to have an office, library, closet, bathroom, living room, and kitchen. Within the kitchen I designed an open wall with a counter, and that’s where I placed my eating area.
Project 02: Aging Out of Foster Care
Every year thousands of kids in Foster Care homes are sent to take care of themselves, as they have aged out of the system. Project 2 Is about creating the ideal apartment complex for these kids who have aged out of the Foster Care system. For this project we began by researching facts, statistics, and numbers about aging out of Foster Care, in order to better understand our clients. By doing so I had gathered needed information on an infographic. Upon researching about the problem of aging out of Foster Care homes, I found that the kids are left with an immense amount of trauma due to coming from an unstable background, experiencing abandonment, neglect, and mistreatment. From this research I have learned that these kids need stability, community, and guidance. The next part of research was more focused on the site we had chosen to create our apartments on. From this research we compiled three different concept ideas.
Research
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Gathering information on the infographic helped me to better understand our clients and their needs in order to accommodate it with architecture. From this research I had learned that our clients seek stability, community, and counseling. This part of the research helped me to know when designing concepts, I should incorporate those needs in my apartments. The second part of my research was more focused on the site, gathering information on what surrounds it. I had discovered that our site is surrounded by a balance of quiet and loud areas and that our surroundings make up of mainly residential homes.
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Concept Designs
Concept 1
Concept one focuses on incorporating a lot of outside spaces intended for community/public gatherings. When creating concept 1 I wanted to target the emotional need of community for our clients. The interior rooms consists of sleeping areas, common areas, a library, an indoor garden, gym/rec centers, and therapy offices. According to the research I have gathered, our clients never experienced a stable family or one at all, so by emphasizing the importance on having a community with this concept, I can target the needs of our residents.
Concept 02
Concept 2 focuses more on the landscape architecture and the placement of buildings. This is intended to bring a sense of community and form spaces outside the building naturally. With this concept I wanted to emphasize the outside of the building rather than the inside of it. I created two parking lots where one in the back is residential only and one in the front entrance is open for the public/administration.
Concept 03
Concept 3 goes along with concept 1, however this one is more spread out with space. This concept focuses on the split of privacy and public areas. I wanted to distinctively separate private and public spaces to balance the needs of the residents. Our clients have experienced abandonment and a loss in everything including their right of privacy and individuality, so giving them that opportunity by designing the placement of rooms can give them what they have been needing. Since I wanted to emphasize the importance of community, I designed a dining hall where the residents could meet and have open conversations.
Building Design
In order to move forward with a final design concept, I reflected upon my three individual concepts, and combined all the ideas together. I decided to keep the idea from concept one of creating a lot of individual activity like spaces for the residents, as well as the overall structure of the building. I kept the ideas of making a lot of outdoor spaces for community activities from concept two, and also creating a distinctive split between private and public areas from concept three. Taking into consideration of the types of rooms to place in a building, structure of the building, as well as the ideas of incorporating a lot of outdoor spaces, I began to focused on more of what I envision my building to look like, creating my site plan for my facility, and thinking about the placement of the individual buildings. I first sketched a few ideas I had in mind throughout this process, drawing ideas of the flow/path I wanted my building to have. I then created my site plans, floor plans, elevations plans, and section plans, bringing the ideas I had in mind onto paper.
Final Design
Throughout the process of finalizing my ideas for this project, I used computer softwares like SketchUp, AutoCad, and Revit to help me communicate my architectural ideas digitally. I first began by creating my floor plan, elevation plans, section plans, and renderings for my finalization of this project. I then moved on to create physical models to interpret my ideas of my site and buildings format clearly. With this project I wanted to emphasize the important of community and family, as the residents that would be living in this facility lacked that when growing up. My goal for my design concept was to accommodate our clients need with architecture in all aspects. Within the project brief it was said that our clients are in need of emotional, educational, and mental guidance, so the set up of my building/landscape, as well as interior rooms, helps to meet the project briefs expectations. For my design concept I purposefully split rooms into a total of four different buildings, in order to categorize them by functionality. The individual buildings also divided privacy and public spaces, as well as the the two embedded floors. This not only helps to make sense of the building usage and walkways, but also balance the idea of support from administration and the resident's privacy. I wanted to incorporate a lot of outdoor spaces for our residents in order to expand the usage of the site and give a different kind of environment for the same purposes used indoors. When coming up with my design concept I decided to keep majority of the trees on the site in order to save money, the environment, time, and give a sense of privacy around the facility (but not completely closed off). The placement of the buildings naturally created outdoor spaces perfect for community based activities within the facility, such as a garden. I attempted to base my design concept from the inspiration of a college life, because of how our clients never got the opportunity to experience the independence, responsibility, and just the idea of it. The idea I had in mind for my concept was to maximize privacy but not completely isolate them, as that's what they have experienced being transferred to foster care or aging out of foster care. I created rooms designated for different needs as well such as, entertainment, counseling, health, which all invokes a sense of community.
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