[Pair]ing Down

Shadow is created through light. Whether it is natural or artificial, when light shines on any 3-D object, a shadow is cast. Designers are given great opportunities to allow light/shadow to become a part of their designs and it can be very effective when it is done well. "Today's designer is trained in controlling natural light within a living space to contribute to the occupant's comfort and aesthetic sense." (Allen, 98) As with our design of the grad spaces, one of our main objectives is to create natural light through out the space. I have decided to incorporate light within my design by making hanging panels that are half transparent and half translucent. In drawing, although we are working in 2-D, we are challenged to even create light and shadow in our final composite drawings. "The essence of intelligence is skill in extracting meaning from everyday experience.." (thinkexist.com) When designing whether it is something individual or an actual space, sometimes it is worth or effective to be literal and sometimes it is important to extract the literal. Designing the office spaces is for me a good example of how we are taking inspiration and elements from our last project, but we are not JUST re-creating the window effect in the models. Being literal in this sense would take away from my design, but extracting the different elements is what I will build my project from. "The concept that guides our pencil and that later will guide our eye in equipment, furniture and fabric selection is itself guided by such practical considerations as the functions to be met, the space to be used...." (Abercrombie, 163) One of the strongly enforced concepts in our grad space design is centered around meditation and celebration. I feel that the whole space is generated around meditation because it is a place where there is a sense of escape. In separating the space, however, the meditative area is the private oasis in which the space is smaller and more personal. The sectioned off spaces will serve as meditative areas or even resting areas. The communal area is designed to be a celebration of space and freedom. It will also be celebrating things like materials. In transposing the current offices into grad spaces I am arranging the space to be separate but mutual. "Today's designer has received as an inheritance of open planning a new freedom from the rigid repetition of separate, closed discrete rooms. Spaces can now be subdivided by an inexhaustible vocabulary..." (Abercrombie, 37) The juxtaposition of the vertical elements in my space are used as a unifying component for the whole space. "Dialogue should simply be a sound among other sounds, just something that comes out of the mouths of people whose eyes tell the story in visual terms." (thinkexist.com, Hitchcock) The communications between monologue and dialogue are elements that I am trying to convey. The private elevated area that is smaller and darker is the monologue or personal area in which students are presented with a more closed in and concealed experience. The public lowered area is meant to be more of a dialogued space between more than just one person. It is an area that can be used for small gatherings or just somewhere to get away and relax and do work if wanted. The space as a whole is a dialogue in itself of public and private. In my composite drawing, the dialogue create within the composition as a whole is between linear and curves, and it is also about different innovations of the explorations unit, while the monologue is created with each individual side and each individual building.


Abercrombie, Stanley. A Philosophy of Interior Design. 1990. Harper and Row Publishers Inc. New York, NY.
Allen, Phyllis S. Beginnings of Interior Environment. 1990. Macmillian Publising. New York, NY.
www.thinkexist.com/quotes/with/keyword/dialogue