Dissertation Day

On Wednesday morning we had a nice little change from lectures and instead all the design studies students arrived in mono – Dundee Universities student night club. The morning after one of the biggest student nights out in Dundee I was expecting a pretty unpleasant smell and some empty glasses to be sitting about, but I was pleasantly surprised when I arrived to see a table full of cakes and tea and coffee instead! Alas, we were not there to party it up at 9am – instead it was a dissertation workshop day.

some of our group enjoying the sweet treats (jbaldwin twit pic/yfrog photo)

Over the past few weeks many of us have been thinking about and discussing our dissertation topics. On Tuesday our design studies group met up to discuss our latest ideas and topics. We each helped each other create and develop a mind map to prepare us for the dissertation work shop.

Yesterday was an opportunity to further develop our ideas and make the topic into a more specific question for investigation. We had to work together in our groups to investigate our research topic and broaden our thinking a bit. It was really good to be able to bounce ideas off each other and to be able to come up with some more specific questions that we may want to research and investigate. We had to think about what information we will need, sources we should start exploring and any experiments we may wish to undertake to get research.

At the minute the topic I am thinking of researching and developing into my dissertation is Exhibition Design. After yesterday I am currently thinking of looking into the impact Exhibitions have on the community and the culture of a place. With the V&A Exhibition Centre coming to Dundee I am particularly interested in this. I also attended a lecture to hear Dr Kylie Message talk about the way in which “new museums can shape public culture, reflect global economics and local politics, and play an increasingly important role in urban regeneration schemes.” I found this really interesting as to how museums and exhibitions have such a role in bringing the public and community together and making them and others more interested in their culture. Something that really struck me in her lecture was how she described exhibition centres and museums as being cult your all – culture for all.

My plan for the next few weeks and months is to try and see more and more exhibitons, museums and cultural places and see the impact these are having on the community to try and further my thinking into my topic. Watch this space for some of my thoughts, lots of photos and hopefully some conclusions.

http://vandaatdundee.com/your-future/your-say/

http://yfrog.com/mu46gij

http://www.thecourier.co.uk/News/Dundee/article/6338/dr-kylie-message-s-dundee-waterfront-v-and-a-project-advice.html

http://rsh.anu.edu.au/people/profile_system/public.php?id=53

GIDE project

GIDE project.

We are entering into a group project and competition along with 7 partner schools in Belgium, Germany, Italy, Slovenia, Switzerland, Scotland and England. For this project we have been asked to design an exhibition based on one of four topics:

interiors & products & interaction

occupation

fabrication

domestectopias

We have been investigating the idea of exhibiton, installation and set design – looking into the differences between these, how the react with the public, impact the viewers, the age groups impacted.

We had to chose one of the four topics in which our group has chosen to look into Domestechtopias – something we weren’t very familiar with but have been letting the creative juices flow and they haven’t really stopped flowing. This idea of having a domestic utopia, perfection – what is this? The domestic home – where is home? How do we define a home? How do we make home a home? How or why or where do we feel at home? Is this a home or is it another place or space? These are just some of the questions we have been asking ourselves and others.

Many mind maps have been drawn in this process – some are shown below:

the beginning of the mind mapping....

mind mapping two different ideas...

the process helped to make us realise that the topic we had more inspiration and excitement for was...

Domestechtopias

At the minute we are looking into other exhibitions and installations for inspiration. One of my favourite so far is The Falling Garden shown below. I love this idea of the perfect, tranquil and in my opinion, euphoric space that one can interact with. The garden being a place of somebodies ideal space to spend time in.

the falling garden - gerda steiner & jorg lenzlinger

http://www.steinerlenzlinger.ch/eye_giardino.html

RSA project

This semester we have been given the brief for a design competition for the RSA. We are entering the Student Design Awards in which the purpose is;

“The RSA Student Design Awards scheme challenges professional designers-in-training to apply their skills to difficult social issues.

Since its birth as an industrial bursaries scheme in the 1920s, these awards have closely mirrored the evolution of professional design from single-discipline craftsmanship and narrowly-defined design for industry to more diffuse forms of service innovation and socially-inclusive professional practice.”

Our brief is “Modern age - How can the design of living spaces make growing old seem more attractive and inviting?”

After looking into the brief and investigating elderly living spaces I have decided to redesign the idea of a granny flat. These housing ideas seem to have disappeared or become less common over the past years and so I would like to reinvent them, make them more popular and appealing to both the family and the elderly person. The idea of being able to live close by the family, but remain independent is something I feel is very important to an elderly person. I have redesigned them to be something that the person can personalise to suit their wants and needs. The idea will start with a their needs or basic living space with the required eating, living, washing and sleeping spaces with the option to add on extra components for their wants for example a garden space, a sewing room, a baking room, a games room or extra bedrooms to have friends/grandchildren to stay.

The project is still in development stages but this is where I am so far:

v&a exhibition

I eventually got to the V&A exhibition last week. I decided to get a group of friends together from a few other courses as I was interested to hear their opinions and views on the different designs especially as they dont study any design related subjects but medicine and psychology. I reckon that because the V&A is being designed for the public it is very important that people other than designers are interested in it and have their vote.

I really loved getting to see all the different designs. I had viewed the images on the website but was interested in seeing full plans, presentations and models etc. I was curious as to whether my choice would change after seeing the full presentations. I found myself being very critical in the different presentations and chatting with the other girls about the designs made me realise how we each didn't really have massively different ideas on what was the most important part was - we all thought the external look was one of the most important aspects as we were all going to have to look at it. Secondly we all thought that the space that the public could interact with, hang out in/on and spend time with people in/at was an important aspect. Some of the architects obviously noticed this in their research for the project as they had external and internal seating spaces, restaurants and coffee shops.

I also realised that the designs had a lot more public and exhibition space that what I had thought. I suppose maybe i wasnt fully aware of what they purpose of the V&A was exactly for, but each architect has also interpreted this differently; some having theatres, restaurants, exhibitions, others focusing a lot more of the public space idea.

Needless to say, I still voted for the original image and design that I had chosen before seeing the whole exhibiton. The external image they created for the presentation really sold the idea and the full presentation only sold it even more in my opinion - 4 out of the 5 other girls also agreed!

I found this really interesting and wondering if my excitement for it made them change their ideas in anyway or if it was their own personal choice. I am excited to see if the rest of the public thought the same as me - from chatting to others who have went to view the exhibition a lot of others thought the same as me. I am excited to see the results!

and heres who I voted for -

rex design for the v&a dundee

http://vandaatdundee.com/your-future/shortlist/rex/

design studies wiki assignment

Our first assignment for design studies this year was to create a wikipedia entry based on a chosen topic. We were put into groups with students from other design disciplines in DOJ. We then had to meet up to discuss the topics and chose one from a list that we were given. We each had to chose a different topic. After this initial meeting we went off to research our topics individually, we then met up again to further discuss our topics and help each other. Our group met up and created a big mind map. It was really good to meet with other students from other design fields and to get their views and opinions each others topics. I found it really good to open up your mind to thinking of my topic from a different perspective. The topic I chose was resource depletion and design. I have a keen interest in our environment, our resources and our use of these and how our designs can be effected by this in both a positive and negative way.

Our first assignment for design studies this year was to create a wikipedia entry based on a chosen topic. We were put into groups with students from other design disciplines in DOJ. We then had to meet up to discuss the topics and chose one from a list that we were given. We each had to chose a different topic. After this initial meeting we went off to research our topics individually, we then met up again to further discuss our topics and help each other. Our group met up and created a big mind map. It was really good to meet with other students from other design fields and to get their views and opinions each others topics. I found it really good to open up your mind to thinking of my topic from a different perspective. The topic I chose was resource depletion and design. I have a keen interest in our environment, our resources and our use of these and how our designs can be effected by this in both a positive and negative way.