An exterior view
A view of the ceiling
Saturday, 30 March 2013
The Peace of Noise
There is a strange comfort in living in a city, surrounded by the sounds of the traffic and people. I always find a kind of peaceful rhythm in the bustling city around me and I miss that living in the suburb now. Its this natural movement of life that has always surrounded me as I grew up in a big busy city, Karachi. Though never the one to actually interact with those sounds or to have the desire to become a part of it, I have always loved the ebb and flow of life around me. Perhaps this is one of the reasons I miss living away from the sea, its always in motion and full of surprises, its always in deep conversation with the life it contains and with your thoughts as you sit at the shore and understand every word it says to you.
The city carries on around you just like the sea and all that is happening in it provide you with the energy you need, without asking you for anything in return. It is perfectly happy to let you just watch and wander, and it welcomes you when you feel like joining it for a while and then lets you return to your seat, no questions asked. Its amazing how we human beings transfer so much of ourselves to everything that we touch. The pavements, buildings, the fences, doors and windows, planters, street lamps, they all take on the different qualities of people so humbly and offer so much companionship that you really don't feel the need to go anywhere to see signs of life, its all right there.
If you are one of those strange people who find it quite comfortable to be with themselves like me, its very rare to find someone who accepts and understands that. I cherish such people when I do come across them. Most of the time people expect others to play a particular part, to satisfy their needs for us to be what they want. One has to be the entertainer, the scholar, the listener, the teacher, the friend, the counsellor, the politician (not a very good one though), all of these roles and scores more on a daily basis. It can get pretty exhausting to create all that energy, and every time I make a trip to the busy heart of Toronto I feel refreshed and energized, especially the University areas where the noise level is just right, it hums around you gently rising and falling. A musical composition is the creation of a single mind, and it has a particular aim, but the sound of a city is composed and created by so many people, this unpredictable rhythm has so much concordance that I am constantly amazed.
The city carries on around you just like the sea and all that is happening in it provide you with the energy you need, without asking you for anything in return. It is perfectly happy to let you just watch and wander, and it welcomes you when you feel like joining it for a while and then lets you return to your seat, no questions asked. Its amazing how we human beings transfer so much of ourselves to everything that we touch. The pavements, buildings, the fences, doors and windows, planters, street lamps, they all take on the different qualities of people so humbly and offer so much companionship that you really don't feel the need to go anywhere to see signs of life, its all right there.
If you are one of those strange people who find it quite comfortable to be with themselves like me, its very rare to find someone who accepts and understands that. I cherish such people when I do come across them. Most of the time people expect others to play a particular part, to satisfy their needs for us to be what they want. One has to be the entertainer, the scholar, the listener, the teacher, the friend, the counsellor, the politician (not a very good one though), all of these roles and scores more on a daily basis. It can get pretty exhausting to create all that energy, and every time I make a trip to the busy heart of Toronto I feel refreshed and energized, especially the University areas where the noise level is just right, it hums around you gently rising and falling. A musical composition is the creation of a single mind, and it has a particular aim, but the sound of a city is composed and created by so many people, this unpredictable rhythm has so much concordance that I am constantly amazed.
Friday, 29 March 2013
Clive Wilkinson & Macquarie
First it was the gorgeous red ribbon staircase that completely floored me,
and this time its this really cool office space designed by Clive Wilkinson Architects. Both of these offices are for Australian financial services group Macquarie.
Now that looks so interesting, the smaller spaces within the larger ones...
So much variety of forms and colours,
I think I'm in love...
Pictures from Architizer here and read about the architects on their website here
and this time its this really cool office space designed by Clive Wilkinson Architects. Both of these offices are for Australian financial services group Macquarie.
Now that looks so interesting, the smaller spaces within the larger ones...
So much variety of forms and colours,
I think I'm in love...
Pictures from Architizer here and read about the architects on their website here
Designing a career
Being in the internship-search mode brings a lot of complicated decisions and choices that draw upon our basic personality and character. Most of us want to stay in our place of comfort and keep doing what we know best and what we are used to working with as opposed to what is possible. To a lot of people it becomes a question of prestige and telling their friends where they are working.
It becomes harder to decide what direction to take as the semester draws to a close and your feelings go from anxiety to panic if you don't have a placement for a co-op lined up. So many people keep wondering if they should apply to places where they don't want their career to go, just for the sake of completing the required co-op hours. For many it becomes more about being able to afford an unpaid co-op.
To a lot of people a career is a goal like 'working in one of the best retail design firm' or 'want to become a residential designer' or a lot of people say 'my own design firm'. What I've realized is that a career doesn't have to be a place where you reach and feel: I'm there. A career can also be a journey of discovery, you constantly come into contact with various areas of design and learn something from all of them. Each area of design has its own value (there's that word again) and what we learn from all the bits and pieces of information we come across will eventually add up to a rich database of knowledge. A designer who understands many areas and aspects of design will have a unique approach and will have a vision that will keep growing and expanding.
One of the wonderful characteristics of design is its adaptability to time and conditions. It won't be a very good relationship between design and a designer who is afraid of change.
Sunday, 24 March 2013
Door No. 2
There we were again, Golnar and I, coming up with a new idea for another door. It was piano keys this time and we used chalkboard paint so the door is not just looking interesting but also has another use for it :)
Doors no. 3 and 4 coming soon...
How to photograph Interiors
Found a great article that shows how to photograph interiors
http://freshome.com/2013/03/21/how-to-photograph-interiors-like-a-professional/?goback=%2Egde_100689_member_225539967
http://freshome.com/2013/03/21/how-to-photograph-interiors-like-a-professional/?goback=%2Egde_100689_member_225539967
Saturday, 23 March 2013
Door no. 1
Habitat for Humanity has a Restore location in Etobicoke and they have a project to redesign old doors. They have involved artists and students to give new life to them. 25 doors will be selected and taken on a tour around Canada and then will be auctioned off.
Three of us from Humber (Golnar, Raya, Masooma) have been volunteering for this project and for our first door we have a Piet Mondrian inspired design that we have been working on. This is his work that we used for our inspiration:
(http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/mondrian/ryb.jpg)
We picked a simple plain door for our design and an acrylic sheet we found in the store and used whatever paints they had and a permanent marker for the black lines (yes, a marker). The idea was to paint the design on the acrylic sheet and turn it around and glue it/attach it on the door so the design is viewed through the acrylic giving it a bit of a dimension. Also combining inspiration from Oki Sato's lecture at the IDS, we decided to keep the design a bit off the centre and the visual weight also off balance. Here's a bit of our process below:
Here's hoping it turns out to be as we are planning it!
Three of us from Humber (Golnar, Raya, Masooma) have been volunteering for this project and for our first door we have a Piet Mondrian inspired design that we have been working on. This is his work that we used for our inspiration:
(http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/mondrian/ryb.jpg)
We picked a simple plain door for our design and an acrylic sheet we found in the store and used whatever paints they had and a permanent marker for the black lines (yes, a marker). The idea was to paint the design on the acrylic sheet and turn it around and glue it/attach it on the door so the design is viewed through the acrylic giving it a bit of a dimension. Also combining inspiration from Oki Sato's lecture at the IDS, we decided to keep the design a bit off the centre and the visual weight also off balance. Here's a bit of our process below:
Here's hoping it turns out to be as we are planning it!
Friday, 22 March 2013
"New Strategies in Design"
Humber College organized a discussion on the future of design and it was a very stimulating debate. The participants were Lisa Prosper (Director of the Centre for Cultural Landscape and faculty associate at Willowbank), Jeremy Aranoff (graduate of Rural Studio), Mathew Lella (Principal at Diamond and Schmitt Architects), and Eric Turcotte (Urban Designer, a Planner and an Architect).
The discussion was moderated by two of the best professors of the Interior Design department Zaiba Mian and Marcin Kedzior (http://www.humber.ca/appliedtechnology/faculty/10).
It was a healthy mix of design professionals from different disciplines who brought their unique perspectives and sought for a better understanding of each other's area of expertise and how it could relate to their own. The discussion involved students as well and it was an opportunity to ask questions and express our own thoughts.
The discussion started with the speakers talking about what their own unique take was on design and architecture. I was very intrigued with the idea presented by Mathew Lella when he said that 'none of our design is our own' and he explained that we design with ideas that "sit on the shoulders of giants" quoting Newton. It made sense to me as inspiration is always caused by something we saw or did, and I have often wondered about the relationship between creativity and originality.
But then he said that the main purpose of architecture is to make things look good as opposed to any other rationale (efficiency, economy, function etc.) offered by a designer, and that aesthetics is a function. That statement didn't take into account the difference between art and design, neither did it offer an explanation why badly planned spaces that look awesome are failures.
Talking about Toronto's unique identity I liked how Lisa Prosper described Toronto's multicultural perspective to spaces and their design. Mathew Lella talked about how he felt in Toronto as compared to other North American cities, he was talking about how lively the city is and how its vibrancy and the variety of cultures is defining design in the city and I was thinking: there you have it, that's Toronto's unique identity. His expression of what makes Toronto different curiously seemed to me to be in contrast with his earlier statement that architecture is what looks better.
So now I'm asking: Is Canadian design being defined by the users and the function, or an architectural aesthetic? I don't think we should worry about that too much and let the evolving design sensibilities show us how Canadian identity is changing with time rather than trying to force it to go in a particular direction. I keep thinking about the 'impatience of capital' as put by Rahul Mehrotra, in his recent lecture at the University of Toronto, and how we may be making major mistakes by putting up structures that don't make any sense and I would compare such design with the demolition of the Pennsylvania Station of New York.
They also talked about another important topic of the role of technology in design. Design seems to have become 'a slave to technology' as one of the speakers put it. Lisa touched lightly on the subject and said that the value that we're trying to preserve is what the design becomes a result of, and I wish she had talked a bit more about that.
Eric Turcotte had some very good points on how technology may be limiting our knowledge of design, he stressed the importance of being able to sketch and design by hand rather than using design software for everything. Research shows that reading and writing are better for brain development than watching a movie and typing on a keyboard, so from that perspective I can understand what he means by being able to design by hand to improve our knowledge and depth of understanding. Although the ability to translate the design into a three dimensional presentation using the latest software has its own value as pointed out by Jeremy Aranoff. I agree with Mathew Lella when he said that the art of presenting your design is crucial to the acceptance of your ideas, and technology can certainly do that and save time and effort of correcting mistakes and changing your design.
We should be conscious of how far technology and trends influence our design and not lose sight of what is actually required to happen in a space. Rahul Mehrotra's lecture at University of Toronto showed how architecture should work i.e. you start with what you want to achieve and then get technology to do that for you. As Professor George Baird commented, there are very few architects who are doing that and truly looking to design in a way that works in a synergy with the occupants and the environment.
The questions that were posed to students were about the studio and how it can be improved. These kind of issues can be better taken up by people who have been out of the school studio long enough to be able to understand the differences between the educational environment and the practical environment.
But nevertheless, when I see designers and architects designing in areas other than their primary training it does make me think if design education should be common for the first two years of an undergraduate degree before we choose an area of specialization. The curriculum of the Environmental Design degree at University of Manitoba is one such program that has an undergraduate degree that educates and trains designers within multiple disciplines and at the graduate level they choose to specialize in Architecture, or Interior Design, or Industrial Design, or any other discipline. I found myself disagreeing with Mr. Lella when he said that architects should practice only architecture. Architecture is a part of what design is, and a designer is able to understand and is able to move with ease and with varying perspectives between disciplines. As Eric Turcotte mentioned that their firm actually prefers to work with people who have a variety of educational and professional backgrounds, as that enriches and informs the design in a more wholesome manner.
As students we are faced with choices in the studio and we are free to decide to either support what design currently is or argue against that and propose what design should be. These discussions and lectures leave so many questions open to us to think about and it is a great move by Humber College to organize and arrange such events, and I would strongly recommend all design students to participate in the future and think about their own work and philosophies and it will help us define our selves as what kind of designers we would want to be in the future.
The discussion was moderated by two of the best professors of the Interior Design department Zaiba Mian and Marcin Kedzior (http://www.humber.ca/appliedtechnology/faculty/10).
It was a healthy mix of design professionals from different disciplines who brought their unique perspectives and sought for a better understanding of each other's area of expertise and how it could relate to their own. The discussion involved students as well and it was an opportunity to ask questions and express our own thoughts.
The discussion started with the speakers talking about what their own unique take was on design and architecture. I was very intrigued with the idea presented by Mathew Lella when he said that 'none of our design is our own' and he explained that we design with ideas that "sit on the shoulders of giants" quoting Newton. It made sense to me as inspiration is always caused by something we saw or did, and I have often wondered about the relationship between creativity and originality.
But then he said that the main purpose of architecture is to make things look good as opposed to any other rationale (efficiency, economy, function etc.) offered by a designer, and that aesthetics is a function. That statement didn't take into account the difference between art and design, neither did it offer an explanation why badly planned spaces that look awesome are failures.
Talking about Toronto's unique identity I liked how Lisa Prosper described Toronto's multicultural perspective to spaces and their design. Mathew Lella talked about how he felt in Toronto as compared to other North American cities, he was talking about how lively the city is and how its vibrancy and the variety of cultures is defining design in the city and I was thinking: there you have it, that's Toronto's unique identity. His expression of what makes Toronto different curiously seemed to me to be in contrast with his earlier statement that architecture is what looks better.
So now I'm asking: Is Canadian design being defined by the users and the function, or an architectural aesthetic? I don't think we should worry about that too much and let the evolving design sensibilities show us how Canadian identity is changing with time rather than trying to force it to go in a particular direction. I keep thinking about the 'impatience of capital' as put by Rahul Mehrotra, in his recent lecture at the University of Toronto, and how we may be making major mistakes by putting up structures that don't make any sense and I would compare such design with the demolition of the Pennsylvania Station of New York.
They also talked about another important topic of the role of technology in design. Design seems to have become 'a slave to technology' as one of the speakers put it. Lisa touched lightly on the subject and said that the value that we're trying to preserve is what the design becomes a result of, and I wish she had talked a bit more about that.
Eric Turcotte had some very good points on how technology may be limiting our knowledge of design, he stressed the importance of being able to sketch and design by hand rather than using design software for everything. Research shows that reading and writing are better for brain development than watching a movie and typing on a keyboard, so from that perspective I can understand what he means by being able to design by hand to improve our knowledge and depth of understanding. Although the ability to translate the design into a three dimensional presentation using the latest software has its own value as pointed out by Jeremy Aranoff. I agree with Mathew Lella when he said that the art of presenting your design is crucial to the acceptance of your ideas, and technology can certainly do that and save time and effort of correcting mistakes and changing your design.
We should be conscious of how far technology and trends influence our design and not lose sight of what is actually required to happen in a space. Rahul Mehrotra's lecture at University of Toronto showed how architecture should work i.e. you start with what you want to achieve and then get technology to do that for you. As Professor George Baird commented, there are very few architects who are doing that and truly looking to design in a way that works in a synergy with the occupants and the environment.
The questions that were posed to students were about the studio and how it can be improved. These kind of issues can be better taken up by people who have been out of the school studio long enough to be able to understand the differences between the educational environment and the practical environment.
But nevertheless, when I see designers and architects designing in areas other than their primary training it does make me think if design education should be common for the first two years of an undergraduate degree before we choose an area of specialization. The curriculum of the Environmental Design degree at University of Manitoba is one such program that has an undergraduate degree that educates and trains designers within multiple disciplines and at the graduate level they choose to specialize in Architecture, or Interior Design, or Industrial Design, or any other discipline. I found myself disagreeing with Mr. Lella when he said that architects should practice only architecture. Architecture is a part of what design is, and a designer is able to understand and is able to move with ease and with varying perspectives between disciplines. As Eric Turcotte mentioned that their firm actually prefers to work with people who have a variety of educational and professional backgrounds, as that enriches and informs the design in a more wholesome manner.
As students we are faced with choices in the studio and we are free to decide to either support what design currently is or argue against that and propose what design should be. These discussions and lectures leave so many questions open to us to think about and it is a great move by Humber College to organize and arrange such events, and I would strongly recommend all design students to participate in the future and think about their own work and philosophies and it will help us define our selves as what kind of designers we would want to be in the future.
Saturday, 16 March 2013
Pleated wedding chapel
I found this wedding chapel so perfect in its geometrical design that I just had to put it here. As opposed to the current trend of organic shapes and designs, this chapel has a geometric appearance that's deceivingly simple. It seems that it has been carefully composed to achieve that look of a pleated fabric, any over enthusiasm would have turned the lines and angles into something too harsh.
Read more about Pleats click here
Read more about Pleats click here
Friday, 8 March 2013
My favourite work spaces...
I took some snippets from Giselle Muller's page and am going to add to my collection. I just loved some of them.
http://webdesignledger.com/inspiration/beautiful-and-inspiring-workspaces
Responsive Design
The term 'Responsive Design' is usually associated with web design, as Wikipedia describes it: "...is a web design approach aimed at crafting sites to provide an optimal viewing experience--easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling--across a wide range of devices (from desktop computer monitors to mobile phones)."
I'm wondering if it can be used to design Interiors as well. I think the idea of a responsive design could translate to a space that is intuitive in its layout and functions. In the book 'Together', Richard Sennett describes co-operation as a necessary skill that people need to learn to work well with each other and a co-operative behaviour that encourages communication and interaction. Couldn't these ideas be used to design an interior that does exactly that?
I don't know but I'm developing an aversion to the open concept spaces. No doubt these work spaces and learning spaces look very spacious, bright, and 'open' but the biggest problem is that they do not encourage meaningful communication. People feel stressed and strained when trying to discuss thoughts and ideas in a noisy environment that comes with an open concept design. There is always a need to correct the acoustic problems with surface applications that tend to spoil the aesthetics. There are usually very few opportunities to escape to a quiet spot to think or to just spend some time with yourself.
We need a to develop a new design genre to address these current issues.
I'm wondering if it can be used to design Interiors as well. I think the idea of a responsive design could translate to a space that is intuitive in its layout and functions. In the book 'Together', Richard Sennett describes co-operation as a necessary skill that people need to learn to work well with each other and a co-operative behaviour that encourages communication and interaction. Couldn't these ideas be used to design an interior that does exactly that?
I don't know but I'm developing an aversion to the open concept spaces. No doubt these work spaces and learning spaces look very spacious, bright, and 'open' but the biggest problem is that they do not encourage meaningful communication. People feel stressed and strained when trying to discuss thoughts and ideas in a noisy environment that comes with an open concept design. There is always a need to correct the acoustic problems with surface applications that tend to spoil the aesthetics. There are usually very few opportunities to escape to a quiet spot to think or to just spend some time with yourself.
We need a to develop a new design genre to address these current issues.
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