Article Question and Answers

1. How would you feel after reading the article as an occupant in the San Francisco Hall?

I think that I would really like the new renovated hall because they still kept old materials and cleaned them. I like the feel of old buildings that feel clean and new on the inside. I would love to see the hall for myself one day because Anthony Irons says that after it was renovated, the philosophy was to create "a continuous visual experience." I want my city hall to have that same feeling everywhere you turn and look. I love the skylight idea and how the building only has to keep one type of light bulb since all the lighting is different but at the same time is uniform.

2. What types of lighting were discussed and how can it help the Chatham County City Hall project?

There were lots of types of lighting discussed including natural sunlight, direct light, indirect light, uplighting, downlighting, tungsten-halogen lamps, accent lights, LED, ambient, task and downlighting. I would really like to research Peerless lighting more because they do lighting a different way. They design an indirect fixture to add direct lighting that is projected beneath the fixture. They have uplight that is balanced with the addition of controlled downlight. I like the idea of this so that there is not a bunch of hard light of direct lighting everywhere. Its softens the room without having a lot of glares and harsh shadows.

3. What seemed to be the largest dissatisfaction with the office types and how would that affect the City Hall?

The largest dissatisfaction with the office types is that with the open office, most employes complained about the noise level. Having a high noise level while working makes it hard to focus and causes distractions. There is little privacy and I think that every employee wants to have some sense of privacy no matter where they work. I will definitely keep in mind about how to lay out my offices when designing the city hall.

4. Is the courthouse appropriate for a dominant daylight system? Explain.

I think the courthouse is appropriate for dominant daylighting, but I do think there will be areas that will not have window/natural lighting access just because of what has to be crammed into the small building. The windows in the courthouse are definitely large enough to cover a large amount of space, but for the interior rooms with no windows I will have to use some kind of artificial lighting.

5. What are the benefits of daylighting?

The benefits of daylighting are that it helps to keep everyones mood up and there is also health benefits to having daylight throughout your day. It also helps you to see better with your eyes. It doesn't strain your eyes as much unless you are facing the sun.

6. Do codes matter for lighting design?

Yes, codes do matter for lighting design but they are not strict.

7. Is lighting objective or subjective? Explain

I think lighting is both objective and subjective because I believe an experience has to be both. In a well designed space, the lighting has to look like it was meant to be in the space and also make light that makes you feel good for that type of space. If the light made you feel good, but the light fixture itself looked horrible then I don't think you could feel good about the light in that space in general only because it looks bad even if it makes you feel good.

8. How does the information in the articles apply to my programming for the City Hall?

Everything that I have learned from reading the articles will help me in my designs for the city hall. I can now add a lighting section to my programming document since I now know about how lighting affects the different office types.

9. Does Cooper lighting make indirect lighting?

Yes the do! They make direct and indirect lighting.

Pittsboro City Hall Precedents/Concept Board

I chose the Newcastle City Hall as one of my precedents because I was really interested in how the floor layouts connected with the building. I was surprised at how the performance and gallery area is on the third floor and that it has natural acoustics. I will definitely be looking into that when I start designing the Pittsboro City Hall. For the Norfolk City Hall, I was interested in all the materials and how they brought in the arches from the exterior into the interiors. I like the idea of having a skylight open to all floor levels because that keeps the space lit and open, which is what I'm going for in the Pittsboro City Hall.

My concept is the Game of Jenga and how it relates to the old Courthose of Pittsboro. The action of burning and building back up connects the building to the concept. I want strict clean lines and a space that is always balanced and flexible. Jenga is always changing so having a flexible space will will be challenging for sustaining proportion and balance within the City Hall.

Final Boards for CRH and Parrish Street Projects

Our final project of the semester was to design a mixed-used space at 106 Parrish st. in downtown Durham, NC. The first floor had to be a wine retail space and the upper two floors had to be apartments. Brittany and I decided to have 4 apartments to make better use of the space and to make them less expensive for the local buyers. Half of the first floor and half of the second floor are used for the wine bar retail space where there is a bar, a small kitchen, an event area for wine tastings and couches for comfortable seating arrangements. Our concept was a Bazaar and all of our design decisions were based on that.

Here is my final board for The Central Regional Hospital for the three pcu's. We presented them at the hospital to executives who work there and we got really good feedback. They loved our ideas. For mine, they really loved the furniture and the feel of nature coming indoors.

Seth Riskin Lecture

Last week I had the opportunity to hear Seth Riskin speak in our auditorium at UNCG. He has studied something that all of us don't stop to really think about, light. Seth was a past gymnast and has used his ability in his recent works of art. He uses the light through lasers, cameras, holograms, reflections, rainbow transmissions, and much more to portray his work. He dresses up in a special black costume that has lights on it and he dances as the lights move in different ways to create things that have never been seen before. It's hard to imagine viewing light in a different way than we know it. Seth has also experimented with sky dancing where he is up in the air as light is projected from him.

His studies consist of the history of light itself. He talked about the anthropology of light and how a light-body is the identification between light and life. Light has been talked about in the Bible and how God says he is light. Light is used through fire during certain kinds of worship. Fire dancing can be seen in Hindu, India, which is where Seth got his idea for light dancing.

Seth linked how design and light are connected. As designers, we need to think about how natural light and artificial light can work together for the spaces we design to help best define the space that it is being used for. Light is not something that you just add to a room, but it is something that helps define the room by the mood and feelings you get from their luminosity. Seth showed us a quote by Louis Kahn that said, "A great building must begin with the immeasurable, must go through measurable means of design and in the end must be immeasurable." I will think of this quote every time I start a new design project.

To see more on Seth Riskin, go to his website at www.sethriskin.com .

Design Development 2 [Central Regional Hospital]

Design Development 1 [Central Regional Hospital]

On Monday, we each presented our ideas we had for the three wards at the Central Regional Hospital in Butner, NC. Here are shots from my presentation. I have decided that I want to go with a different concept and have light transparency be more of a focus instead of metamorphosis of a butterfly. My hallways need more development as well as my bedrooms. Some strong ideas that I will keep are the carpet walls in the bedrooms and group rooms and making two different areas in the activity rooms. These are just ideas and they are all subject to change.

Peer Response

Kalani Gonzalez has started his design off by his concept of an ecosphere. He wants to focus on the three layers of our ecosystem, water, land and sky. I think this is a great way to help distinguish between each ward because it will help with wayfinding throughout the hospital. I love how he even related the characteristics of an animal that lives on each water, land, and sky to the characteristics of the male adolescents, female adolescents, and children. The only thing that I want to know more about is the materials and fabrics because the light fixture for the male adolescent ward would probably not work since it is hanging and that would cause a problem with trying to reach it. Also the fabrics in the female adolescent ward are complex and I feel they might cause a bit of anxiety because of how much detail they have. I would recommend something more simplistic that would put the patients at more of an ease. I love the aquarium idea for the children's ward. It will be cool to see how it all comes together.

Tracey Wright's concept is all about creating a sense of place. She wants her spaces to be flexible so that transformation can take place. She focuses on making personalized places to hang the artwork of patients in the hallways throughout the wards. This will make the patients feel more comfortable with their surroundings and feel like they have a special place in the ward itself. I like how she makes each door entrance to a bedroom personal with the use of color. The bench connected to the bed in the patient bedrooms is a great idea because it makes the room feel more home-like. I would explore color more by the hues of blue and yellow. In the sketches they are very bright. Something that has a darker hue might work better.