The Design phase of the project involved creating a plethora of block diagrams and parti diagrams in order to narrow down the spacial organization of my program. I considered my design goals and how to achieve them through design elements and a strong concept. This stage involved moving pieces around in Revit and referencing my research to support my decisions.
Considering my programmatic spaces in terms of block diagrams allowed me to quickly adjust spacial adjacencies.
Through developing block diagrams, I decided I needed to break up the spaces into different learning styles. I used the same learning style types as one of my case studies.
I continued to develop block diagrams with the framework that the learning studios would be based on what they were learning, instead of by age/grade. I. knew I had to switch up my design plan.
These sketches show an attempt to place all the students in a large learning studio where they would rotate to different sections throughout the day. It proved to be far too rigid in shape and was not as flexible as I wanted.
As I looked for inspiration in nature, I found the Voronoi pattern. This pattern is present in leaves, giraffes, and the earth, and displays the optimal route of travel for energy. This seemed like the perfect way to mix up my design and create a solid concept.
I used the Voronoi pattern to trace over my floor plan in order to design truly organic elements. This photo shows how I developed the ceiling in the maker space.
In between creating floor plan drafts, I created 3 different user journey maps for the different types of people occupying the space. This allowed me to consider the space as an active environment and forced me to consider touchpoints along the journey.
