“Don’t set up rules for yourself that your design is required to follow. Allow for freedom and multifunctionality, and let it be nimble about what it does”. More or less (mostly less) of a direct quote from Pastre. But that’s essentially what the theme was yesterday. We have pushed our review that was supposed to be Wednesday to Friday mainly because we are still exploring our design.
At the start of class, Pastre came in with some new ideas. We had nearly “finalized” the design over the weekend, but these new ideas seemed compelling enough to implement and test out. Things like how the columns react to the dynamic roof and the fences intersects the pavilion. By now we had expected to be in production mode for the review this week, but these things are too crucial to ignore. The problem is we can’t really move forward until this design is hammered out.
In order to not be completely bottlenecked by the unfinished design. some of us decided to figure out just how big of a structure we are proposing while others worked on the 3D model. We taped off the dimensions on the floor in studio, marking where the columns would be, and suspended rope to get an idea of how tall the roof would be. I was surprised how large it was, but it’s hard to imagine a full pavilion inside a space like the Cigar Factory. But this helped us to understand the proportions of the interior and reevaluate our column placement.
Imposing strict design parameters can make a design feel incoherent and forced. The design is limited and confined by expectation and rules we set for ourselves. Loosening those confines can create a more unified and compelling design. While it can be frustrating when something is holding up the rest of the project, it’s also necessary to look at an issue or design from a different perspective.