The environmental group decided to subdivide itself further into groups of three, each of which would be responsible for a part of the project. We had an individual responsible for coordinating all the subgroups. We also had one group of 3 responsible for preparing the slide show that would present our research findings to the rest of the class. Everybody else was assigned to a subgroup responsible for researching a specific part of the environment, such as lighting, seasonal changes, and fixed elements. I am in the fixed elements group.
The fixed elements group met and can up with a research plan of action. The first step in that plan was getting a hold of a site plan. This was received in the form of a big print out and an AutoCad file from one of our instructors (pictured below).
We noticed right away that this site plan was missing some elements that could be key areas for our project, such as walkways, bedding and parking lot mediums. Then, with the help of out TA, we measured distances on the plan using AutoCad. Unfortunately, the dimensions the program gave us didn't make any sense. We were left with no choice but to go out to our site and measure everything by hand. To do this, myself and another group member used a 100 ft. tape measure owned by the interior architecture department.
Then I took a number of photos to document the relationship of key elements to each other. For example, the pictures below are designed to help me determine how the building and its windows are aligned with the parking lot mediums.
Based on my measurements and my photos, I was able to construct a more complete site plan. I used a combination of adobe illustrator, photoshop, and microsoft paint to isolate and complete the area of the site plan that our project is interested in.
Then I made another version of this project specific site plan with key measurements actually written in onto the plan. I thought that this might be useful both for conceptualizing the space, brainstorming, and specific design planing.
The next step was to add the existing elements, my subgroup's research focus, to this newly created site plan. The group member in charge of this step, preferred to work by hand. Thus, together we came up with a printed image that would be big enough to allow her to do so. This meant reducing our area of interest further, then printing on over sized sheets of paper and taping them together. All that work seemed worth it though, when she came back to me with beautiful drawings to use for our slide show. The first showed all the existing man made elements, such as lighting poles and trash bins.
The next showed all the natural elements, such as trees and vegetation.
The last one showed both the man made and natural elements.
In order to create digital images to use for our slide show, I took each of these large drawings and scanned them in portions, then merged the portions back into a single image. Then I began working on our power point slides. Once I created the text for the slides, I began looking for supplemental images. Goggle earth gave me a great 3D image of our site, even if it wasn't entirely accurate.
Google images also provided me with picture of exotic elements such as a female Ginko tree,
to the seemingly more mundane pine straw.
I also used a variety of computer programs to add some much needed labels to our drawings.
My 9 slides are now in the hands of our presentation group, who will make sure that they are formated similarly to the other subgroups slides. I will be presenting my subgroups slides, and the drawings on them, to the entire class.
No comments:
Post a Comment