I received feedback from my tutor. As always, I found feedback helpful in understanding what I am doing right as well as challenging me to consider doing some things differently.
Hallway and lodgers room survey and drawings: It was good choice to draw in people to demonstrate the scale as well as using different colours for measurements – this aids understanding of the drawing. Next time – if drawing only plan, I should note the ceiling height on the plan. It is handy to draw elevations as well as plan drawings, as elevations show many aspects that plans don’t, such as ceiling, door, skirting board heights. Perhaps also light fittings, pendants etc, how low they drop could indicate and conflict (I’ve seen some homes where doors interfered with pendant lampshades)
My tutor noted that it ‘would be more helpful to see move development work’. I must admit this is the hard bit. Often there isn’t a lot to show. Mainly because I come up with an idea in my head and just do it. So, what I put on the learning log, is all there is to show. I suppose it makes tutors work harder, trying to understand my process, that’s mainly in my head. My tutor recommends making more sketch models, which I find the hardest to do.
For my manifesto my tutor suggested some challenging ideas, such as remove the ‘I’s (want, will etc) and also make ‘yes’ and ‘no’ statements in different fonts to make them contrast with each other. I tried it and I like my manifesto more now. The statements are stronger now, the manifesto looks punchier. As I reflect and look back now, I realise that one of the design inspirations for my manifesto was a poster with message in different fonts. I can’t remember by whom or where I saw it… My tutor also challenged me to think about how / where my manifesto could be presented – I think this particular one would look good in print – poster or a t-shirt but could also be placed on a website. I don’t think Billboard would be good – they use a lot of material to display the message (therefore not sustainable, contradicting my manifesto), also the layout of a page would have to be changed (which of course is possible, just needs changing).
My tutor recommended that in future research task / study presentations I should research, analyse, and include images of technical drawings for the researched projects. This will allow me to discover more in depth what made the design work, as well as enhance the already in-depth research. I can see how it would have helped me if I looked up Barbican original plan drawings or Holmes Road Studios Design Development Documents.
My Es Devlin’s manifesto research had a good level of personal response (as opposed to Roberto Venturis analysis). I should try and include my personal responses all the time. I could have dived deeper in the analysis of manifesto’s and compared the ones I analysed with each other. Doing so would have helped me form opinions and improve my critical thinking and analysis skills.
Including more of my own drawings is also suggested by my tutor. I should show more development work, perhaps redevelop ideas I already put to paper, tweak them a bit (as I did in this reflection with my manifesto), test and retest the ideas. This will help me refine the ideas as well as give my tutor an insight into my processes.
Looking back, I should have researched the idea of sustainability before creating my mind map, to enrich it.
It will be beneficial to me if I include such ‘looking back’ in my future reflections – think of what I could have done better or just differently and how this could have benefitted my progress or even research results.
Aggie's interior design journey 