Residence Design

Now that I have learned about kitchen and bathroom design and reviewed my designs for two apartments and a common space with my peers and professional interior designers, I created a final summary of my designs and their process. I created four posters describing my design. 

The first poster summarizes the development of my concept with my concept statement, inspiration quote, 2-D parti, 3-D concept model. It also includes some of my early process work.

The second poster shows a floor plan at 1/8"-1'0" of the one bedroom apartment and the common space with a few elevations of the apartment.

The third poster includes more elevations, a 1/4"=1'0 floor plan of both apartments and the common space as well as a few furniture pieces for the living room and perspective drawings.

The fourth and final poster shows appliances and furniture for the bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen, and a perspective drawing of the kitchen.

Using my concept and knowledge about kitchen and bathroom design, I developed a floor plan for the space. I chose materials and then drew elevations and perspectives of how I designed the apartments and common space. The biggest improvement I noticed in this project was my ability to visualize and draw a space through elevations or perspectives. I think my project has a lot of strengths, and I put a lot of thought into my design. However, there are many weaknesses as well. After presenting my final design to practicing designers, I realized that I should have focused a lot more on natural lighting. I also struggled to arrange all the images on my four posters.

Here is my volumetric model of the one bedroom apartment.

These are a few of the materials I chose to install in the apartment.

Residence Design

Now that I have learned about kitchen and bathroom design and reviewed my designs for two apartments and a common space with my peers and professional interior designers, I created a final summary of my designs and their process. I created four posters describing my design. 

The first poster summarizes the development of my concept.

The second poster shows a floor plan at 1/8"-1'0" of the one bedroom apartment and the common space with a few elevations of the apartment.

The third poster includes more elevations, a 1/4"=1'0 floor plan of both apartments and the common space as well as a few furniture pieces for the living room and perspective drawings.

The fourth and final poster shows appliances and furniture for the bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen, and a perspective drawing of the kitchen.

Using my concept and knowledge about kitchen and bathroom design, I developed a floor plan for the space. I chose materials and then drew elevations and perspectives of how I designed the apartments and common space. The biggest improvement I noticed in this project was my ability to visualize and draw a space through elevations or perspectives. I think my project has a lot of strengths, and I put a lot of thought into my design. However, there are many weaknesses as well. After presenting my final design to practicing designers, I realized that I should have focused a lot more on natural lighting. I also struggled to arrange all the images on my four posters.

Meeting with Designers

Over Thanksgiving break, I met with a few designers from The Tin Roof in Spokane to discuss my apartment design project so far. Now that I have designed a bathroom and a kitchen for a two bedroom apartment, I am working on finishing the design for that apartment. I'm also designing a one bedroom apartment and a common space between the two apartments. I brought my current floor plan ideas and a materials board to The Tin Roof and three designers gave me feedback on my ideas. 

The meeting went very well-- the designers were able to give me helpful, constructive ideas while also praising my hard work and pointing out the strengths in my designs. One of the most helpful suggestions they gave me was to consider what type of person would move into the space. Since the apartments I am designing are located in a historic building, people who would want to move into this space likely want a unique, quirky, loft-like apartment with an open plan. My current floor plans have a lot of walls and relatively closed-off spaces, so now I plan to remove some walls and make the space more unique. The designers also helped me consider light in the apartment and how to incorporate colors that reflect my concept. I wanted to use a deep red paint color for my living room walls, but the designers pointed out that I should use a lighter color for the walls and use the deep color for something that won't detract from the room's light, like an area rug. The designers from The Tin Roof also gave me general ideas for improving my floor plan in order to make good use of the square footage.

Another idea the designers had was to add a fireplace to the common space. I chose to incorporate that idea into my design because it makes the common space more welcoming as well as adding an adventurous element to the common space, which fits with my concept.

The meeting helped me realize the strengths and weaknesses of my design so far. I think, overall, I put a good amount of thought into my floor plans and materials. The designers liked my material choices and great ideas for improving my floor plans. It was very helpful to get practical, logical ideas for my floor plans in order to improve them for their real purpose. I learned that when designing plans, I should consider who would realistically want to move into the space and what they would like in addition to what the building owner wants.

Thanks to Heather, Molly, and Nancy of The Tin Roof for your time and help!

Bathroom Design

I designed a bathroom based on my earlier concept of home. The bathroom is meant to be visitable, so the sink and toilet are wheelchair accessible. Once I decided on a design, I drafted different drawings of it, then traced them and scanned them to put them on a digital poster.

Designing the bathroom was a lot of fun. I chose more fixtures than in the kitchen, like the bathtub, shower doors, toilet, sink, mirror, and task lighting. I like my design and I think the details regarding accessibility and and relation to my concept are well done. There are a few things I would change, however. If I were to re-do the poster, I would darken the background so it matched the paint color better. I would also hand draft my titles using marker lettering and draw them bigger than the typed titles. Another issue with my poster is the darkness on the edges of some of the scanned images, which I would fix with Photoshop.

3-D bathroom model

Kitchen Design

I designed a kitchen for a two bedroom apartment designed for two people. The kitchen is designed around the concept of "home" that I developed last month (can be viewed here).

Throughout the kitchen design process, I learned that there are a lot of small but extremely important details involved in designing a kitchen. Every dimension, fixture, appliance, color, and surface affects the overall function and appearance of the space. I am proud of the outcome of my project, but there are a few details I did not include, such as an elevation bug on my plan relating to the elevation and section drawings. Some of the strengths of my project include the lettering and organization.

Kitchen design poster with 2-D parti, 1/2" kitchen floor plan, materials, appliances, concept statement, two 1/4" elevations, one 1/4" section, and four rendered perspective drawings

Floor Plan at 1/8" = 1'0"

3-D model of apartment with detail in kitchen

3-D model of apartment with detail in kitchen

Concept Development

I began devising my concept by choosing a quote that describes the meaning of "home."

"Home is behind, the world ahead,
and there are many paths to tread
Through shadows to the edge of night,
Until the stars are all alight.
Then world behind and home ahead,
We'll wander back to home and bed."
-- JRR Tolkien

I decided to emphasize the comfort of home and how although we may venture away, we always return home.

In my two-dimensional concepts, I used various shapes to represent home with other, more daring shapes and lines representing adventure. Here are a few of my 2-D concepts.

Then I began to make some three-dimensional study models to represent my 2-D concepts.

For my final 3-D concept model, I chose to use soft, round, blue clay to represent the comfort of home and jagged wires to show journeys away from home and returning back. The wires jet straight out to show the first half of an adventure, and the curved lines show the relaxing return home. 

I am pleased with the outcome of my final concept. I wish the final model were bigger (the clay only has about a 1-2 inch diameter), but I think the model does a good job of conveying my parti.