Over the past semester, the gasworks design issue, which started with just a location and assigned target group, has slowly grown into a complete design underpinned by a strong concept.
After the first five weeks, in which I formed my sketch design, I looked back at the period, with the intention of setting learning goals for the future. Due to a slow start I should have picked up the thread quickly later and I was behind schedule. Although it worked out in the end, I formulated four learning objectives to make the further course of the project run more smoothly.
A list of sources of inspiration, which ensures that the threshold to start working on the project becomes smaller when I have no inspiration.
Organizing and visualizing the priorities of assignments and parts, by means of a list.
Attention to time management.
Feedback from fellow students.
The list of sources of inspiration has helped me immensely. I collected websites and platforms in the field of design, architecture and art and combined this with architecture books I have at home. This often gave me a little more motivation to get back to work.
The Notion website, an online workspace, provided me with a place to structure the organizational portion of the design brief. I am visually oriented and by having everything sorted out, I gained a better understanding of the priority of different parts.
While this helped with planning, time management throughout the project remained something I struggled with.
As soon as I got going I had a good idea which way I wanted to go, but especially here the lack of awareness of time played a role. I have a lot of ideas in my head and I know exactly how I want to work it out, but the time that I need is not always realistic. That's something I definitely need to work on in the future. I hope to be able to finish the work often, also because I like to do good work, but that is not always easy. So I chose not to
to participate in the product test, in order to achieve a result at a later time that I support myself (but still need a little more time for). That's tricky of course, because I'll lose my resit, but I hope the hard work is worth it.
What was nice is that I was present during the assessment of the product test, despite my decision not to participate at that time. It was of course nice to look at the work of others, but certainly also an important moment for reflection. For myself, but also for my fellow students.
During the semester I gave feedback to my fellow students and asked for feedback more often myself, which also made me very involved in the projects of others and they in mine. For example, I helped Masja outside of school with her skill in perspective drawing and I was very involved in Sander and his project in terms of feedback. I noticed that they both really appreciated this, and I thought it was nice to add a collaboration element to the assignment in this way as well. And despite the fact that I sometimes found it difficult to receive feedback and show my work, it did lead to new insights, which have been very important for the project.
For example, Sander gave me the tip to get involved with Sketchup, something I had only worked on a few times before. By experimenting with the program I got a better idea of the spatiality and it provided a nice addition to the 'real life' model.
Finally, it was also very nice to bring theory and practice together with this assignment. This was something I missed a lot in my previous education, but I really liked this year. My interest in research came into its own in the marketing and human experience components and I was able to connect the knowledge gained during the tests with the practical components of the project. And with the enthusiasm this aroused, I was able to create a design that I support.