My Forty Hour Project

Well my loves, did you miss me? I'm still in finals but I just finished the biggest assignment of the term, so I'm hoping the rest will be quicker and easier. I'm so excited to share this project with all of your today!

We were asked to design a loft. We were given the basic dimensions and a couple specifics, but we got to invent out client and decide if we wanted a mezzanine or not, where to put it, where to put washrooms, kitchen, living room, etc. Not only did we have to do a floor plan and two sectional elevations, we were also required to create a sample board and make a to scale 3D model of the space! Let me walk you through it:

Here you can see my hand drawings of the views of the lower and upper levels of the loft. The main living area (tv area, lounge and kitchen) are all open concept with double height ceilings. You can see that the foyer, office and powder room are located underneath the mezzanine. The mezzanine level contains the bedroom and 3 piece bath. From the bedroom you can look over into the rest of the living space. The wall on the right is a full window wall with a door out to the balcony.
Also, you can see that I stacked the washrooms and kept them horizontal to the kitchen. This is the most efficient plan for plumbing.

Here is a sectional elevation giving you a better idea of the space. I located the television under the stairs to keep it somewhat out of sight and also to protect it from the glare of the massive window wall.

This is my favourite elevation that I've done so far. This wall of the loft has the original exposed brick. A large sliding glass door leads into the office.

Now a bit about my client and inspiration. My client is a young, single man in his early 30s who has a successful career in advertising. He is a guy's guy, who loves having the his friends over to watch the game and play poker. While he loves and fully embraces the downtown sophistocated lifestyle, he also loves the outdoors. I wanted to bring these contrasting but equally traditionally masculine aesthetics together in the space. Thus, menswear became my inspiration:

Specifically these dueling looks of Ryan Gosling... I mean, does it get any better?
(Parti is the essential idea or concept of a space).

Here are the products that I used to bring this idea to life:

Mid century modern pieces, industrial touches, a grey palette with warm teak and orange toned woods, suiting fabrics, etc. I also think the ceramic deer head is the perfect blend of rustic and urban!

Finally here is the piece de resistance, my model, where my drawings and concept are brought to life:

I'm so glad to be done, but it was a very fun project! 

If this is how term one wraps up...I'm a little bit scared for term two!

xox

My First Floor Plan

So, this assignment was a doozy.
It was for my Fundamentals of Space Planning class. We were required to draft a living room/ dining room combo, transferring a given room outline from a 1/4" scale to a 1/2" scale.
Then we had to provide a living room area with seating for 8 (Realistically speaking...whose living room readily seats 8 at all times?) and a dining table for six.
The fun part was inventing our clients (and budget woo).

The hard part? We have not yet learned how to do floor plans in my drafting class yet. We are still on lettering...
Awkward for all of us.
I spent all of last week figuring out my way through this drafting process with no knowledge!
I'm sure there are technical errors, but my prof is aware of our lack of experience with floor plans and hopefully will go easy on us. And I really like what I did. Any space with a cowhide rug, a sputnik chandelier and an  Eames Lounge Chair is pretty sweet in my books!

Right after we submitted this one, we got assigned another one! A kitchen this time.
We also need to do elevations (which we also have not learned yet eeek).
Wish me luck guys! This program is more intense than I expected.
xo

Intro to Drafting - First Assignment

On Friday I began tackling my first drafting assignment.
From the pictures, it looks pretty easy...Don't let the pictures fool you.
As a first timer, it was tricky to get a handle on all the different drafting tools (parallel bar, t-square, triangle squares, architects scales, etc). And it was VERY time consuming!

The assignment was to draw the six specifically patterned squares to the proper scale, making sure all lines and points met up completely precisely.
If you're measurements were even the slightest bit off, the diagonal lines would not pass perfectly through each corner. Super frustrating!

First we did a rough copy on a newspaper pad, and then traced it onto this blocked vellum paper.
The rough copy is still underneath in these pictures, which is why you see some faded lines beneath.

We used a 1" = 1' scale. Using this scale, each square had to be 3'x3', and be spaced 1' apart. Furthermore, they had to start 1'-6" away from the vellum's border on the side and 2'-6" down from the border on the top.

You can't really tell from the pictures, but we had to use different leads for certain lines as well.

 

 Next drafting class we complete the other half of this project, which is the lettering.

On another note, the bf came to visit this weekend! We went to a Toronto Marlie's game (since the NHL is locked out). It was a lot of fun and the Marlie's won 5-0!

How was your weekend?

Some School Stuff & Kelly Wearstler

Hi guys, I promise that next Friday I'll try to get back to the usual Fave Furniture series, I've just been settling in to school and such.
Speaking of which...Today I have my first drafting assignment! I'm so excited but a little bit nervous.
It's basically aimed at getting us used to the different drafting tools, as well as to learn the universal lettering style of the industry.

For next week I also have to "choose and interestingly designed object or project, such as an interior space, building, art work, piece of furniture, etc." to perform an architectural analysis on.
This means exploring issues such as shape, form, line, vertical and horizontal elements, etc.

While most of the suggestions given to us were of older historical artists and projects, I'd really like to discuss the lobby of The Tides South Beach Hotel, designed by Kelly Wearstler (who else could I choose!? She really packs so much drama and interest into a space).

I mean...gorge. Am I right?
I hope that the prof approves this one!
For more goodness check out the dining space of this hotel (also designed by Wearstler):

Woah, woah, woah. I'm going to have to work a picture of this into my presentation. I'm thinking to demonstrate the lines of that cool white and gold folding-screen-looking wall treatment, which is also used in the foyer (see the first image).

And those mounted tortoise shells seem totally relevant this week, what with Nate Burkus's Target line launching this week and all...The white shell is my fave thing in the collection I think!

Wish me luck y'all!
What designed object or project would you choose if you had this assignment?
xo