The Makeshift Shelter project was given to us the first day of class and was in relation to the recent earthquake in Haiti. Snacking was our shelters activity that had to take place in our shelter.
During class we gathered as many materials as possible from the free materials bin in studio. Inspiration images of shelters from online started ideas flowing. I started in my sketchbook listing all the materials we had so far, ideas of what the materials could become in the shelter, real food we could put in the shelter, drawings of what the shelter might look like in shape, and words for other ideas. The words included: gingerbread house, garden, windows, circles, tables, bowls, plants, and plastic bottles. These informed the design by figuring out how some of these ideas could be tied together in the shelter.
I imagined the shelter with water bottles on two sides and cardboard as the roof. Benches were a must inside the shelter, as people would want to sit as they snacked. Counter space and a way to store food where it would be secure and not blow away was something that was thought upon. I wanted there to be real food you could pick off of a real plant and eat. As in every design process, things change and so did our ideas. An enclosed shelter with water bottles on the sides shaped like a pyramid was my second shelter idea. In one corner there would be two shelves of foam board and the opposite side would have cardboard shelves that were both indoor and outdoor. I wanted the space to look clean and make you feel refreshed after leaving the space.
My narrative that was written described my second idea. I read my team members’ narratives and realized how different they were from mine. Drawing their ideas together was a fun activity and it helped me visualize their shelters. It gave the group new ideas with having pods in the shelter to hold the food.
There were so many ideas now that I then knew we had to come up with a more refined single idea. It was harder than I thought since we all had several ideas we wanted to incorporate. After receiving palettes, that’s when the idea of having palette walls to stand it all up came in. Stephanie gave us the idea of having an open shelter where people will be less timid to come in. All four of us were on the same track at this point and all made the model together with materials we already had in studio. We then decided to start building since we had a model that we were set on. One of my weaknesses was getting my ideas out to my group members. I feel like none of my ideas in the beginning came out in the end and they just got shot down somewhere in between. I never imagined the walls being made of the palettes and I feel like that idea was forced within the group. One of my strengths was working well with others and being patient in the group when there was controversy.
We hammered the palettes together to form the walls. I had gathered water bottles that I figured out how to link together in an effective way with slits on the sides and holes on the bottoms to link to the top layer of bottles to the bottom layer. Fabric was used to create the pods on the walls to hold the food. It worked very well and I was happy about that.
Our whole group was rushed to get things done. We wanted the walls and roof on the shelter by Thursday night. Construction drawings, nailing the walls together and figuring out the roof situation was split up among our group members. One group member was determined to paint the top of the roof, but some of us said to him it was a bad decision because it would be another material and the paint wouldn’t dry in time and it would weigh the roof down more. Instead we went with the plastic wrapping to go on top of the cardboard roof.
On Friday it seemed like each of us were doing a different task just so we could finish the project on time. I was helping with stapling the fabric together and making the roof more stable so it wouldn’t slide off. Once I realized that the bottle idea for a clerestory window was not going to work, I began to find other places to put the water bottles. I slid them between the bars that held the palettes together and it worked great. As we only had an hour left, our banner was still unfinished so I went upstairs and got things moving for that with some of my group members. I laid out all the pictures on the banner and decided where each drawing and materials should go and pasted them all down. I helped clean up the in the lobby where we left unused materials and we brought down the process banner. I wish we had started it earlier than we did so that it could be more detailed and filled with more drawings from each of our sketchbooks. I was glad when everything was in place and done.
I was happy that the project was over with, but at the same time I wish we could have changed a few things. I feel like our project was put together with several different ideas that came from each of us, but the ideas were not put together and did not work with each other as well as they could have. We had the pocket idea, the water bottle, the palette idea, the cardboard roof with plastic covering idea and the found chairs idea. It seemed like we as a group could have done a better job at being more collaborative with each other instead of making our own decisions at times.
I feel that my water bottle idea that came from inspiration was a strong idea, but it was not as strong in the end in the final product. I learned that working in a group is hard, but all our ideas did get out, just not in a unified way. I have learned that ideas and decisions need to be made early in the project so that there is enough time to execute and time to fix any errors that come up. Our shelter was successful in the way that the space was being used, as there was seating, a bar counter, a window, openness to lure people in, and great pathway/traffic flow.
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