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Day 8: Last Day

Wow! How was today already my last day?! It feels like just yesterday that I began DICE-ing in the real world! In the morning, I finished up my greenhouse mini-project, having created three variations in shape. The purpose of the greenhouse on the residential property was to serve as a more sculptural accent on the trail loop. Both the office/gym and the main house are very open with many windows, so the greenhouse was supposed to be visually intriguing since it is visible from both these locations on the property. I played around with various designs, but I think my favorite is the box with the various inverted glass panels. It is hard to tell from the images, but the innermost panels are actually mirrors to add a unique rhythm to the glass. The straight edges also align with the very crisp, straight geometry of the residential and office structures. This project was very hands-on, which allowed me to really gain some experience with using Google SketchUp and getting into the design-thinking mindset. Thanks to my week at LCA, I am more interested in architecture than I was before! I will be looking to continue my learning in this field and with the various software used in modeling. Thank you to Dr. Mac and Mrs. Welch for placing me at LCA this week, and thank you to the LCA team for hosting me!

-Cara

Day 7: Visit and Variations

It’s hard to believe that today was my second to last day at LCA! I have been having such an unforgettable and educational experience, having gained so much exposure to a potential area of college study and life-long profession. Shoutout to Ms. Eason for paying me a visit today; it was nice to see a familiar face in the office. I made some great progress on my greenhouse today. I completed the frame of my initial design, which made my next step of testing out glass paneling easier. By having a fundamental frame, I could copy and paste that same frame, only changing the glass for each variation. The traditional greenhouse has sectioned glass that usually follows a rectangular shape. I tested out several options regarding the sizes of the glass panels—big or small rectangles, horizontal, and vertical. There is no correct way to go about designing this greenhouse; it is important to test out the many different designs that can be created so the best one can be chosen. I am excited for my last day tomorrow but also a little nervous! The designers and I are having a group critique with the various projects we have all been working on. In the critique, I will be able to experience a true ‘design-thinking’ environment. Wish me luck!

Day 6: Proportions and (More) Problem Solving

During another busy day at Louis Cherry Architecture, I started off the day with shadowing a meeting between one of the architects at LCA, Mr. Cherry, and a mechanic regarding a huge custom residential project. Carrying on from yesterday, I again noticed the frequency and the importance of problem solving as the entirety of the meeting consisted of brainstorming where to run the ducts for the heating and cooling system. They also laid out various system options such as boilers and cooling towers and geothermal heating and cooling. In addition to that meeting, I continued my greenhouse project by further testing my Sketchup skills and creating a frame for the greenhouse. The biggest challenge in doing this was that the frame had to be to scale as my first model was not. To keep the shape of my model from yesterday, I essentially shrank the whole thing but had to do so in direct proportion between my first model and my scale model. Next, I will be testing out shapes of the greenhouse, as it is more of a sculptural statement rather than a traditional vault. I am also going to play around with various glass panel sizes and structural beam sizes. Below are images of my math (yikes!) and my greenhouse frame.

Day 5: Grease and The Greenhouse

Today was the beginning of a new adventure, marking the start of my week at Louis Cherry Architecture in downtown Raleigh. I was so excited to get out into the community and immerse myself in the life of an architect! Louis Cherry Architecture is run by Louis Cherry, along with 5 other architects/designers. My two highlights from the day were visiting a site and shadowing a meeting with a mechanical engineer and drafting a greenhouse for one of LCA’s (Louis Cherry Architecture’s) current projects. At the meeting, I was able to check out the site of a future restaurant, where I also experienced the importance of problem solving. In this scenario, the restaurant to be was a very small space, and in order for it to pass certain regulations, there must be a ‘grease trap’ to prevent kitchen and food grease from getting into the sewage systems. The challenge with this is the grease trap is roughly 4x2x2 feet, so with such limited space (yep, the space in the pictures is all they have!), where would this grease trap go? A lot of times, what takes the most time in an architecture project is the problem solving to make it a reality; design is not the only thing required for a successful project. When I was researching greenhouse precedents, I was mostly looking for how to bring a modern aspect into the structure, as greenhouses often learn towards the traditional side. The project that this greenhouse corresponded with, “The Pool House”, is an ongoing residential project with a very modern and clean feel. For the second half of the day, I practiced using SketchUp and began to draft a model of the greenhouse I designed. Below are photographs of the restaurant site (located on Person St. next to Crawford and Sons), my workspace, and my work-in-progress a.k.a. the greenhouse.

Day 4: Understanding Fashion Production

As a continuation of my Parsons x Teen Vogue online class, I began another course today. Titled ‘Understanding Fashion Production’, this course focused on the production cycle. The production cycle begins with thinking of an idea and design and ends with the consumer purchasing and, hopefully, loving the final product. More specifically, the course introduced the five main steps to this overarching production cycle: formulating the business plan, sample creating, factory preparation, working with the factory, and making the sale. Like yesterday’s course, each example included a series of videos and text, as well as a related piece of industry advice. The videos featured Angela Gao, an independent fashion designer and a faculty member at Parsons, and Brandon Maxwell, a fashion designer whose brand has recently been on the rise. At the bottom of my post are some snip-its of the videos I was watching. I found the lessons from today very interesting because many of them introduced things that I had never heard of before. For example, when submitting your sizing to a factory for production, each measurement is allowed to have a certain standard deviation. Because these items are being produced in a factory, mistakes are bound to happen, so the standard deviation allows these types of trivial mistakes to reduce both fabric waste and lost time. Another reason why I found this course so interesting was because it focused on the wide-scale, mass production of garments, an area that I had not known much about before today. Though I plan to continue and complete this course over the summer, next week, I am headed to Louis Cherry Architecture in downtown Raleigh. I cannot wait to see what I’ll learn there!

Day 3: Unlocking Visual Style

The majority of today’s activities included working on an online Fashion Industry Essentials class by Parsons and Teen Vogue. I completed a course on ‘Unlocking Visual Style’, which focused on bringing individual voice, choice, and look together to tell a story. The course introduced five examples of fashion stories—the white dress, sportswear, red carpet, wear-to-work, and French stripes—and discussed the designers that introduced them. Each example included a series of videos and text, as well as a related piece of industry advice. As a part of the course, I completed two assignments. For the first assignment, I was tasked with creating a cohesive mood board with at least ten images. The second assignment was focused on possessions that tell a story; I took ten photographs of different objects from my room, including a pair of shoes, a poster, and a necklace. Tomorrow, I am looking forward to completing another course or two through this online program. Below are the two mood boards I created today.

Day 2: Practice Makes Perfect

Today was filled with experimentation. The major challenge I tackled today was the addition of a zipper to my garment. In my ADV Art class, I was creating a top made of recycled plastic bags. This idea stemmed from the act of littering and how wasteful humans have become. To add a component of contrast, I wanted to add a zipper to my piece. I also aligned the zipper to an asymmetric direction to interrupt the flowing rhythm of the top. The reason this was a challenge was because the plastic is so delicate, so I had to hand sew the zipper. Not only was it challenging to implement a clean stitch, but it was also extremely time consuming. I am very close to finishing the zipper, so stay tuned for images of the finished garment!

Work Experience Day 1: CA Design Challenge

To start off my work experience, I spent the day with Ms. Clarkson at Cary Academy. We visited the three most recent renovations in the Upper School: the collabalounge, US office, and U105. These three places are often overlooked and taken for granted, but Ms. Clarkson and I were able to discuss the intricate design plans that took months, perhaps years, to fabricate. The main task that I tackled today was a CA-Themed design challenge. All of the US classrooms have gotten new furniture by now, except for U126. U126 is located in the far corner of sophomore hall and serves as a history classroom. Because of all the new furniture that will need to be purchased for the new STEM building, no new furniture can be purchased for U126. However, there are several leftover tables from the original ‘pilot’ furniture that can be used. With 4 Fusion tables and 6 ThumbPrint tables, I was tasked with brainstorming various layouts in which the room could be arranged. In addition, I researched the effects of different paint colors on mood (i.e. stimulating, soothing, etc.), and I began to research their effects on brain function. Below, are images of some of the layouts I created and a snip-it of my research on color.