Coming Full Circle

Community

Design is very important when it comes to community. The Disney Concert Hall is a great example of this. The building was very innovative being made out of titanium, yet they did not think of the community. The reflection off of the building created a heat island effect on the adjacent condominiums and caused the temperature to rise 15 degrees in some cases. Disney having the money and resources made the titanium more abrasive and dull. Since the incident, the concert hall has received much praise and made the city, “A major attractant and a cultural magnet for downtown Los Angeles” (Roth 600). The community has benefited from the concert hall and shows how one building can change many things.

Innovation

Frank Gehry was very innovative when it came to designing the Guggenheim Museum. The government of Basque wanted a building that would “bring tourists and cultural venues to the heart of the city” (Roth 600). Gehry and his team usual used copper sheets, but due to health concerns had to come up with a new similar material. The result was the highly expensive but rare and durable titanium. The skin was applied to the building that “they fluttered and shimmered in the wind, contributing a special luster to the museum.” (Roth 600). The titanium although costly was very innovative in the design sense allowing for a new direction in design. The look received much popular acclaim and soon everyone wanted their own titanium covered Guggenheim.

Stewardship

A steward is someone who is actively concerned with the direction of the affairs of an organization . That to me can not only be someone but an element that is THE direction of the affairs of organization. In our studio project, we had to make a meditative/celebrative space for 9 graduate assistants. That room had to have organization and purpose. In all of the first years designs there was an element that brought organization and purpose to the room. In mine it rice paper removable panels that brought everything together. The panels gave direction into what was public and what was private. They gave light direction as well. During the day the panels would shine onto the floor and move the light into the private space, making the graduate student more curious to see what was over there. Design is all about organization of ideas, and one element can be the steward of design.

Authenticity

This word resounds with me deeply. All throughout my life, I have wanted to be authentic, as soon as something became popular or well known, suddenly it did not have much meaning to me as before. I never wanted my ideas to be like someone else’s. That is something that I feel has sat with me as being a first year designer, we were to look at precedents for all our work. The final product, the viewer would not even know was supposed to be the precedent. I never wanted my project to resemble anything anyone else had done before. I wanted all my ideas to be original and me; even if it received criticism at least it was mine and no one else’s. The deconstructvisim movement in design is very authentic. They moved away from previous thinking “suggesting that fundamentally a building exists as an isolated abstract phenomenon.” (Roth 600) The movement was “Described by one reviewer “They’ve tossed out every orderly precept of architecture since the Greeks and have prompted the most basic questions, starting with which end is up” (Roth quoting Cathleen McGuigan). The designs were new and they showed the structure as it was. Sometimes, it came down to that they were unable to make the building due to the computer aided designs. Either way, every designer has to come up with a design that is authentic and makes them different from everyone out there. Otherwise, we will all be stuck with the crap in the suburbs the plain, repetitive, unoriginal designs.

Coming Full Circle

Throughout this year we have gone all the way from the beginning of design into history until precent day. We have gone back to the past to create new things for the future, and we have discarded the past in order to design for the future. These phenomenons have happened over and over again, and will probably continue until the end of time. As designers we have to know what makes us innovative and authentic enough to be a good designer. We are all stewards working in a specific community to make it a better designed world.