DESA1002 'Nine Quarter City' - <Jaime Hogan>

Abstract

This semester has brought challenge in that inspiration did not immediately sprout for me in this design project. However I found that working through each activity and through continuing with background research and idea development eventually I came to find a project which I was happy to develop and play with. I think that this alone has shown me a new side of the design process that I think is important; as a designer and architect we may not always be given a brief or project which we can relate to directly or have a particular passion for, however I can see that this is a vital skill to be able to develop as a designer, and I feel that as a result I have learnt a great deal about my own character, style, and method of designing which I will continue to develop. In putting this portfolio together, I realised how much my ideas changed from week to week, and think that this is interesting as well, not only in the multitude of different ideas I created and dismissed, but also in knowing when to stop designing and start drawing. By being given particular tasks each week, these tasks all seem to develop in more detail each particular idea at that week, which meant that at the end, not all of the exercises have a smooth continuity between them, but more of a fragmented view of an overall related theme. This is also interesting as I feel that although I did not find every exercise particularly helpful at the time, I can see that each one forced me to think about different ways of putting a building together, as well as different aspects of the design program, but also I realised that particular exercises may have leant themselves to particular ideas better than others. For example I think that the cut and paste exercise may have been more useful before I had developed and resolved a floor plan myself, as I found it hard to use preset layouts to try to achieve the ideas which were in my head at the time. However when I forgot these ideas, and just followed the exercise, I found it much more successful. This I think is interesting as well as it taught me a new way of designing – letting go of what I want to create, creating something new and then merging the two together to further develop my ideas. Overall I have found this semester very challenging and have learnt a lot about exploring other methods of designing, and although I did at times find certain exercises laborious I have in the end appreciated the weekly tasks as they did force me to engage and think about the project, and to just give it a go and learn from each task. In the end, I think I have found the process more interesting than the end result, and so in creating my portfolio I have chosen to reflect this by presenting the portfolio itself as an ongoing piece of work, as well as the journal being a crucial part of the design development process. As such the exercises are spread between the two mediums, and the portfolio itself has a handmade quality which suggests ongoing learning throughout and beyond the semester and is not presented as one polished end package. I will continue to experiment with the design process and ways of communicating and presenting in years to come, and can appreciate this past semester for what I have learnt.