Year in Review

Well, this year was interesting. This was my first semester back in teh US from Finalnd, and being apartof a studio who has had a passion to get things done. I have had my struggles this semester, it being the last full semester I will have, trying to get work done for 2 studios, study for LEED, getting ready for Thesis, and finding an internship. I will have to say that this has been one of my toughest, outside of 2nd year. The only difference for this semester was almost everthing has had equal importance. At the beginning of this semester, i came back with a different outlook on studio, but a lost feeling too over and I couldn't seem to get back. They call this Reverse Culture Shock. I felt like my deisgns weren't as good as the others. I guess this came from studying with students in finland who were basically coming into this enviornment with the same reasons and starting new. We were all on the same page, no expectations from anyone. IARC felt different though, all the feelings and expections came back to me and my feelings towards students were the same but they all seemed to have changed while i was away. So this crippled me in a way that i didnt know how to fix. But finally towards the middle of the semester I started to find myself again and designed with my passion I had before I left but with the experience of studying abroad. I took my strengths and ran with them. I feel like because of this the High School project and the Studio project were very sucessful, not souly because of me but because our studio worked together to get them done. We all worked, not just certain people but the class worked and finished what we started. "Leave a place better than you found it" - Patrick Lucas, and i feel we have achieved this.

We are done with the Studio redesign. I am very proud of what we have accomplished with this new design; community, identity, sharing, fun fun fun, and many other things. We have gotten quite a few of compliments about our space. They tell me that they wish that they could do this to their space, they love how open it is, and they come in just to feel the space. I am hoping that in the future they will do this for all the studios, where they will be able to have openess and community again, like it used to be back in first year.

Open space

Our studio is not that useful for us. For our last project we are Redesigning our studio to make the space for more collaboration within the studios. Taking down the walls will also create more light in the space opening it up. With the combination of the 2 (collaboration and light in the space) will significantly, i believe, raise the productivity within the studio class.

We are getting everything set up, putting up the walls. This is the screen that we are using to seperate our space with the walkway. (Hands up everyone)

We are all trying to get all this complete before Tuesday.

Studio

This is before we started on our space. We are redesigning it to make it a useful space.

Tour of Studio

Northern Guilford High School students came to tour our studio space and the campus. Our class had 3 groups that we split into. Shannon, Doug, Rachel W., Jovana, and Myself were in a group together working on pictures that we hung up in our studio space. We started with a word for them to draw from.

We have been working diligently to get this studio together and in working order. and it is getting there.