Design Principles | Project 2 - Sense of Place

on

12/10/2021 - 26/10/2021 / Week 8 - 10
Shofwa Alyadiena / 0350019
Project 2 - Sense of Place
Design Principles / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media

 LECTURES 

 Week 8 


This week's lecture shed light one two things; observation and sense of place. Being observant requires being attentive to our surroundings. Observations are important as it is the source of ideas and inspiration. Many things are created by taking note of the details from something else. Some examples Ms. Jinchi showed was designs inspired by nature, in architecture, art, and fashion. Other examples I take from a video in youtube, embedded below.

Fig. 1.1 Youtube Video (10 Nature Inspired Architecture)

Fig. 1.2 Lotus Temple in India (Photograph by Diego Madrigal)


Fig. 1.3 MMAA Building in Qatar (Photograph by Madison Inouye)

The examples taken for figure 1.2 and 1.3 are inspired by lotus flower and cacti. By observing the characteristics of these plants, the idea for these unique and eye catching buildings appears. 

From observing our surroundings, we can understand how to develop a sense of place using the sense of smell, touch, hearing, taste, and vision. By understanding and observing how the surrounding areas are perceived from these senses, a good sense of place will be the result.


 INSTRUCTIONS 



 Project 2 : Sense of Place 

 Visual Research 

Fig. 2.1 Sense of Place Example 1 (Photograph by Eva Elijas)

Fig. 2.2 Sense of Place Example 2 (Photograph by Pixabay)

I searched first for a general example of sense of place. The warm colors in figure 2.1 emphasizes the closeness of people and the stalls, pointing out that the place the picture is taken from is tight and small, but lively. I continue to search for references of what I wanted to make, one of which is a forest. The small ray of light makes me imagine that I'm in a cool area with decent lighting- not too hot, not too cold.


 Exploration 

A memorable place for me is the hillside I used to visit after school in my old house. I wrote down in a mind map what I remember the place feeling like as I lay down on the grass.

Fig. 3.1 Mind Map (17/10/2021)

I've jotted down all that I remembered at the time. Most notably the bag I carried with me on the way home and the children yelling in the school at the foot of the hill. At these times I felt most at peace.

Fig. 3.2 City View (18/10/2021)

First sketch was based around the view of the city below. As I was sketching I just remembered that a higher mountain is in the distance, with three tall trees. I never understood why they didn't plant more taller trees and left just three up there. The biggest buildings I remembered were the school and the mosque in the distance.

Fig. 3.3 Road View (18/10/2021)

The second sketch focuses more on how I felt being there. The leaves falling as the wind blew them away, and the mostly empty road right above everything. 

Fig. 3.4 Sky View (18/10/2021)

The last sketch I did for this project is aiming to focus at the sky. I included a little bit of the city and the far away mountains as well, but they are smaller to emphasize the breeze to form clouds up in the sky. The sun was always bright when I laid down on the grass.

Fig. 3.5 Progress (26/10/2021)

I decided to work on the third sketch. After receiving feedback again, I added a softer but larger ray of sunlight, and worked on cleaning up the design. 


 Sense of Place Final Design 

 A. JPEG 

Fig. 4.1 Final Sense of Place JPG (28/10/2021)

 B. PDF 

Fig. 4.2 Final Sense of Place PDF (28/10/2021)


 Feedbacks 

General Feedback

While all our work were being reviewed, I took several notes of her comments. First that stuck with me is that simplicity doesn't automatically mean the design itself is bad. Second, is to remember that sense of place doesn't need to explicitly show a place. Pieces and bits of how we feel in an area is included as a sense of place. 


Specific Feedback

The feedback I received for my design specifically is that I have no need to use warm colors for the sky to show that the place is warm. Instead, I could add rays to the sun. Another thing is that extending the tree further into the middle would help show that "I" am under the shade.


 Reflections 

As generic as it must seem, I enjoyed this task a lot. I wasn't and still am not great at drawing places and backgrounds or perspectives, so being able to practice and show it off was great exercise. My favorite part of this, for once, is sketching different versions of it. I was able to remember older days where I was most comfortable, as I live in a less lush housing complex now.

I saw my classmates present their work with a lot of elements and sometimes coming from dreams, and I was inspired by how much detail everyone was able to produce. Furthermore, the colors everyone chose for their designs weren't eye straining, which reminded me to use a pre-made palette in case I ever get stuck with coloring.

I learned from doing this task that smaller details for backgrounds don't need to be perfect to be seen as what I want it to look. Other than that, I was able to figure out a new way of expressing cool weather without having the shade be just a darker color than the base of the tree, but also by using cold colors. 

Comments

Post a Comment