Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Lonny Magazine
It's more than anyone bargained for.
It's super inspiring every time I look at it.
It's ecologically sound, as prints are only made to order (for $34.95 a pop) and are on FSC paper.
It's free online.

Go see the holiday issue - so good!
And also the website has extra goodies!

Yay!

Friday, December 17, 2010

Feeling out Fonts


the idea came to me the other day: what if i used a font that totally didn't match the thought associated with it; that could be kind of funny right?
So off I went to dafont
And I had a little fun...


















I was surprised a little by the impact made by the font! I tried to think of something SO opposite of what that font was, but then I'd type it in, and sometimes, it really didn't look all that off! Y'think?

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

The last 3 days I've done ab-sa-loot-ley nothing! Its wonderful! Well, actually I did read a Shopoholic confessions thingy book. I don't normally like them, I think I tried reading one before, but this time I just soaked it up - hehe but I find myself wanting things now. Its not a real good thing. But, let me tell you, I'm not just wanting measly fancy clothes and shoes, I mean things that are like crazy awesome too . . .
Par example . . . (I think I just threw in a little French there!)

This pantry. Now, don't ya'll be phoning me at once complaining that I brought on the jealousies with you too! Its tough this wantin' businness!
from this blog, house of smiths

Tomorrow I shall organize my life - school stuff, papers, bills, clothes, printers (there are 2 sitting on my bedroom floor right now not in operable condition!), cupboards, purses .... so there!

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Arbutus House: Centre for Eating Disorders and Depression




The final product. . . and then we had enough time to sigh with relief and do a little happy dance for about 4.8 seconds. . .

On the plus side - only one big submission and 2 exams left!

Monday, November 22, 2010

Healthcare Facilities Research!

Today marks the start of a new project.
An international student competition sort of project. And this year's differs from others because it has pretty well no parametres other than being a healthcare facility. we have this week to research and find out what our community needs, where a good location would be, and how we plan to implement our solution. They are giving us such a broad topic to make us think about helping others and the need for doing pro-bono work at times and what that might entail. So I definitely have a lot of research to do (yay for living with a nurse!) to find out what our healthcare system is lacking at the moment and how we can offer something different in the form of a facility.
We will be judged on :
- Quality of Research & Sources
- Support of goals and design concepts in the executed design
- expression of the clients needs expressed in project
- space planning: functionality/flexibility/accessibility
- aesthetics: imagination/creativity
- life safety, health and welafre issues successfully addressed
- sustainable decision making
- presentation & craftsmanship
All sections are worth 10% (with a grand total of 80% - ok so math isn't our strong suite?!)

And you thought interior design was all vases and cushions :)

now to finish up all the assignments we kindly got extensions on ... : P

If you can, please pass along any info you may have or contacts that I could talk to about what other healthcare services/facilities we need in the lower mainland!

Friday, November 19, 2010

"Aint got no...." (time)

A very good reminder for me! Even though I aint got no time....

Happy weekend!

Sunday, November 14, 2010

2 DOWN!





Thursday, November 11, 2010

3D Rendering - Art Gallery

Here is a project I just completed. Literally JUST. So I'm celebrating a little by blogging. :)






Just 3 views of an art gallery we were given the plans for. All I designed is the finishes and lighting; and I picked the lovely artwork :) I have become infatuated with sketchy portraits. Its a new love. Anyways, I hope you like it! I seemed to have troubles with every step along the way in this drawing, but the end result looks a lot better than I thought it would. Still annoyed about the colour of the big chandelier though, I wanted it to be deep mossy green but no matter how dark I made it, it kept looking yellow when I added the lights...
Oh boy are my shoulders sore from doing autocad autocad autocad... and 2 more projects to go for Monday....
Thats all for now!

PS - I just noticed the last banister floating off the ground! Haha - woops!

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Tomorrow....

 I am going to a talk by Demetrios Eames. He is the grandson of none other than Charles and Ray Eames. So yes, a tad bit excited I am.

And for those of you who haven't heard of the husband and wife design duo, maybe these mid-century modern iconic beauties will spark your memory...





Uh, yes.

I predict we will get to hear a bit about the Eame's design process and philosphy, indoor spaces, design and .... design!

I will take notes.

Oh and, yes I have been really busy and not blogging. I assure you, the busy-ness has been far less glamorous than what I have on tomorrow. Tomorrow will look like the following:
6am - wake up
6:45 - get to the gym at school, work out...
7:45 - shower and get ready
8:15 - have a pancake breakfast in the construction shop for United Way (mmmmm...)
8:30 - 3D rendering class
12:00 - head to BCIT's downtown campus for Eames seminar (did I mention it is just my class he is speaking to?!)
3:30 - head to HOK's Vancouver Office on Homer St. for another interesting talk
4:30 - go home and finish a biiiiig AutoCAD assignment for Friday morning!

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am having my turkey tomorrow - today is for homework! It really doesn't feel like thanksgiving yet, but it is finally feeling like Fall, and I am really enjoying it. I was treated to a trip to Chase, where we watched the Salmon run at Adams River with the boy's family. It was a much-needed break and so good to spend time with my (other) family! we stayed at a resort that was gorgeous, the weather was perfect and fall-ish, and everyone had so much fun. The Salmon were interesting... I will show you some pictures, don't mind the dead fish .... haha! Here's what its all about, for those who don't know (like me before I went!):

"After fighting strong currents and rapids, the salmon are bruised and battered and their skin has changed to a deep red colour and their heads turn green. The salmon return to the same place where they began their life to spawn. The females lay around 40,000 eggs, the males develop humped backs and hooked snouts. They both guard the nest until their death and the cycle begins again. "

The resort where we stayed one luxurious night
(4 pillows for 1 person, white bedding and down duvet = my kind of sleeping arrangement!)

The traffic director at the entrance to the park - I thought it was cute!

All of the water just looked like this...

Some fish eggs nestled in the rocks


 
Fish accross the bank.


 
This guy was huge!

Uncles and nephews a-plenty!

Grandsons can never get enough of Grandpa!

He'd point and say "He's done" ... haha funny how easily kids get it sometimes


Me and the boy's feet...
This cutie again - cuter and cuter these days!

So I am super glad I got a little break this weekend! I got my projects done for Thursday, I've posted my telephone bench here for you to see, and lots of other stuff stressed me out, I was getting sick, but now I'm feeling better already since I've had a couple days of rest! Perfect! K, back to the homework now!









Saturday, October 2, 2010

I thought I would give a little recap of the week ...

 ... it seems like the weeks go by soooo fast, I know this whole year is just going to be a total blur and I want to be able to remember some little details!
(sorry this is long ... there I warned you)

Monday
Design Theory: we handed in our concept boards for the auction item. Little did anyone know, we also presented them (it seems like we present everything we hand in these days). My concept was good, but my board was not. Printer issues with the colour printer at school, then no time to make it prettier in black and white .... so I am re-doing it before the actual auction where this will be on display. Everyone else had beautiful concept boards and ideas and I can not wait to see the final products!

History - we had another lecture. This year we started on modern design history, which started around 1910 and continues today. So far, past weeks the lectures have taught us Art Nouveau, Art Deco, and a few other small movements. Today we learned about the beginning of the Bauhaus. So much of the furniture designed there is still available to buy today and still looks super modern; I can't imagine seeing it in those days. Pretty cool minds.Also, seeing pictures of modern homes sitting next to the tradition "of the time" ones, was just crazy. Love it.

Tuesday
Space Planning - this is an 8:30-3:30 class! A little long for my  liking. But we got from 8:30-1:00 to finish our space planning project we got last week. It was not meant to be 'pretty', but to be a preliminary plan that works as far as adjacencies, traffic, sound, fitting people, getting people sunlight, everythings wheelchair accessible (which, most of us forgot about doing that for the front door so making the rest of it accesible was pretty pointless! haha!), and such .... but even though it was a 1-week project (with two 4-hour labs) it was worth 20% so the pressure was on pretty bad. And we were working in a 1/8 scale instead of the 1/4 that we are used to so it was kind of hard. But the plan was so big we didn't want to enlarge it. I had mine readyt to just make a final copy of, but I needed to straighten lines and re-measure furniture and such. It ended up taking the whole time because I totally re-did my open office space. Anyways, after 1 o clock we presented our finished project, just free-hand in pen. Then we put them all up on the walls and Michelle and Manon (instructors) went around and discussed the good and bad of each one. This took for-eeeeeever. And we stood from 1 until 3:30 without a break. I don't know why, but I guess it was enjoyable for the instuctors. Mine was second to last so by that point nobody cared and the teacher had seen too many super good ones - haha - and as it turns out, the scale of my furniture in the entire open office area was totally off and wouldn't have fit if I had drawn it properly. I swear I measured 1/8, i don't know how that hapenned! Some other people did it too, but.... bah I hate stupid mistakes.


Wednesday
AutoCad - In AutoCAD we basically had a lab because the instructor was going to teach us stuff but she kept talking about super elementary stuff we all know so I just kept working on my project. Our project in this class is an office space plan where we have to do a big reno with construction walls, demo walls, existing walls, and the same for the plumbing, equipment, and furniture. There are requirements for each room, etc. Boring.

Comm - awe. I love Communications (business; writing) this year. Our instructor, Deanna, reminds me of Julia Child. The way she talks with big fluctuation in her voice, and so sweetly, but she'll also surprise you with some things you wouldn't expect to hear from her mouth! Making fun of people and such. Anyways in this class we are writing a formal proposal to BCIT or our department, on a topic of our choice. Its actually really good to see how one writes a proposal and its amazing that by doing what the guidelines tell you, it actually does make it convincing! So we got lab time for that and I got mine almost finished. Its a proposal to get all ergonomic equipment for the computer labs in the school. I just need Deanna to read it over again, then I can fix and I'm done. But we got a one-week extension because everyone was complaining we have too much due next week! Haha - well, works for me!

Thursday
3D Cad - We got time to work on our projects again - this one is a little corner of an office with desk, chair, shelf, accessories, etc. 3D autocad was super hard at first.Now I'm getting the hang of it. And in future we will be able to import "blocks" of furniture from websites and suppliers of furniture, which makes it sooo much easier to not to have to actually build the furniture line by line. Anyways, it was good we got lab time for this too, except everyone's was sooooo nice compared to mine! So I want to work on it and really step it up this week, its due on Thursday.

Materials - Hmmmm materials we got "lab time" to work on our auction item. most people just went home! Including me, who had a headache and needed a nap cause I skipped going to the gym this morning.

Friday
Graphic Presentation - We handed in sketches of a proposal we started last week on the broadcast building on campus. Last week we went over and traced it through transparencies, interior and exterior views, then you can go back with trace paper and make your wavy lines that you drew while holding a transparency in mid-air into lines that make sense, and then you develop it into a sketch that the client will have no idea we actually didn't have to figure out the perspecitve of on our own! (thats one sentence!) I dont know how to explain it better without showing you and I don't have pictures! So I went to make photocopies of my sketches to hand in in the morning, and of course the 2 copiers are both down. one no toner, the other now paper. I was mad. Which was worsenned by looking at everyone else's work which was amazing! Ugh. I hate handing things in that I am not proud of in the least! Anyways, in class we learned about making graphic bubbles. That sounds ridiculous.... but designers use bubble diagrams to figure out adjacencies on a floorplan and show relationships before it gets developed into blocky rooms or walls. So she taught us how to make them look representable and something we could show a client, with a legend, colour-categorized (public space, support space, accounting department, etc.) and showing the most important adjacencies with arrows of different types, graphics showing the views on each side of the building, and we also used colours to show the path of traffic through the building - primary and secondary circulation. So we had an hour to do ours and hand it in. The name of the game was to not get too caught up in the actual space plan of the bubbles, and work on the graphics, font, clarity....because thats what she would mark. Lots of people were disgusted to have to hand in such a "mess" - haha - but I think its supposed to be kinda messy anyways. My kind of work! Then she showed us what we will be working on next. Because at the end of all this there will be a graduate show where we all have our portfolios, businness cards, resumes and work to show a bunch of people from the industry and such (who we have to make invitations for). We are starting with businness cards next week so she brought in some interesting ones for us to look at. We quickly concluded that anything too small or "tag-like" looking, we would have thrown out. There is something valuable about the standard size and shape of a businness card, there is no question what it is. So I have a few ideas I need to work on, and I am pretty excited! Next week we will learn about resume graphics (I'm so curious what that means exactly) and eventually we'll have a whole package that says "ME!". Fun stuff. Oh and also, in this class we had made a poster for our charity auction upcycled item, and my group won! Ok, well they only told us the top 3, but ours totally rocked so we probably won fully. I should find a jpg of that to show off to you!

Lunch - there was a guy named Paul Downton talking at our school about Eco cities and the changing climate. It was pretty standard issue information, but he was good and interesting and claims to have a book that is "too expensive". He's an Aussie though, so I like him :)

Lighting - aaaah lighting. Everyone is so ready to go home at this point.But lighting is really interesting. Today we learned about the psychology of light and how if everything is the same value of light in a room, the brain interperets it as a cloudy day, and you get depressed. Its true, studies show depression. This can also happen in elderly people with cataracts - they really need to brighten up their spaces if they want to be happy! Other than that, just talked about residential lighting a lot and how to do things to avoid crappy things hapenning. And then....home time!

So, looking back, it seems we had a lot of lab time this week. It is nice that they try to give us a considerable amount of time in class to do stuff, but it wasn't really like this the first couple of weeks, so I hope it does continue. Now its saturday and I am going to work on autocad, 3D and my auction item (its almost half done already) - lots of fun!

Saturday, September 25, 2010

Classmate's Vlog:

I just wanted to share with you .... PEARL!

Shes a sweet gal in my program and will be vlogging our journey through this treacherous land of BCIT INTD 2nd year full-time!
Soooo if you feel like having a deeper view of what we dooooo and stuff like that, she will show you and talk to you and she's pretty funny too. Oh, and you might see me in some of the videos. And you will definitely see our ugly ugly school. Here is last week (not to be confused with THIS week) - subscribe to her on Youtube and you will get all her vlogs!



Cya later alligators!

Thursday, September 23, 2010

School & Recycling

I am super duper busy spending long days with these guys! Thats everyone in my program, plus 2 of our main teachers. What an awesome groupe of people; SOOOO great to work with and just really cool. It's good, because we will be spending A LOT of time together!

I need to write a concept and make a concept board type thing for my upcycled-item-for-auction item (I think I mentioned it in my first 'school' post). I want to take a photo of the item(s) before and then the item after, which will end up being a telephone table/bench like they used to always use because phones had little cords and you had to sit by it to talk! Not all that common anymore .... so these pieces of furniture are a bit novel now, although fun and interesting! ...but, y'know, something like these:


The one I ended up finding looks sort of like the below one though, except the magazine rack part is between the side table and the seat...


Not as purdy, but it is going to do the trick (and I was really worried I wouldn't find one at all!)

So the whole concept is that we don't need these pieces anymore....and we don't need cords....so let's put them together to make something really unique!

I will be wrapping old (useless, discarded, tangled) cords from phones, tvs, computer equipment, etc. ALL around the frame. I will just recover the chair with some recycled fabric and other than that it will be all cords! 

Its a whole "done with the past, look to the future" scrappy type of thing. Okay, I dunno, I am trying to explain it to myself as I type it too and I'm not sure exactly how my concept is going to be portrayed! I was thinking of getting an old telephone to sit on there as well. Maybe connect it to the table top. And make it so that it hides a charging station for your ipod/phone/cell phone....to give it more of a purpose.... I actually just thought of that as I was typing.... Initially I wanted to do that with a drawer or shelf, but since my telephone bench doesn't have that, maybe adding a phone to it would be better! But I was thinking maybe I would use the phone bit as a concept 'board' and explain the piece by writing things on the phone or somehow attaching it to a sign. Or make a speach bubble coming out of the phone? Or I could do that whole thing ON a board. Yeeeeeaaaah.... like ............. (hello Picnik....)

I love Picnik. So then that could sit on the piece at the actual auction on the day. And it could just have a 'part' in my concept board that she wants on Tuesday. I hope to have to whole thing at least CLOSE to completed this weekend, so I will share pictures then.

Does anyone have any good ideas of how to make it obvious that it would be for a charging station? I think just connecting an extension cord to it would work, but I think there should be spaces/holes/pockets to put your phone/ipod etc. so it is more "thought-out" looking than a dangling extension cord from the back of it! Comment lots of ideas please!

I wanted to write more and make this a proper blog post, but I can't be bothered and I think sleep is more important and I am trying to be good about going to bed early. Sooo this is it for now!


Friday, September 17, 2010

top 5 tips when thinking about lighting in the home

My aunty Sue was wondering....

"Sue Nimegeers said...

I need help with my lighting....give me your top 5 tips when thinking about lighting in the home!!?? "

I kinda love this topic so I'm gonna write a quick response while I'm on my lunch break!

#1. YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR
 - If you see 2 bulbs that look the same by the label other than their prices, always go for the more       expensive one. You will get better quality light, colours that are true, long lasting equipment, and you will be happier for it!

#2. Always use more than one light source .... so, have your task lighting (lamps or wired-in lighting for particular tasks), your accent lighting (accenting art, an alcove, etc.) and your ambient lighting (most of us think of it as a ceiling mounted light). Referred to as "LAYERING light", it makes a room individual and interesting. Put it in in that order, using the ambient lighting to balance it out. But make sure there are still "pockets" of light, and its not over-lit, which destroys the whole purpose of layering light. Which brings me to ....

#3. BALANCE the values in the room. Yes, you always want light, medium and dark values in a room and light can help with this. Note: everybody reacts differently to different uses of colour in a space, but everybody reacts the SAME to lighting. Everyone will always look first at the brightest thing. So, if you want everyone to notice the circle of light attached to your ceiling first, make that your brightest spot. : D ... but that's not the "brightest" design idea...hehehe!

#4. I will say, for environmental purposes, use CFL (compact fluorescents) instead of incadescents. This is where you will DEFINITELY get value for money, and the colour rendering, warmth, etc. is no longer
 inferior to that of incandescent. I promise you. Also, people who say they get headaches and such from fluorescents are wrong. They get it from the glare that comes from the way they're being used. Improper lighting techniques can not be blamed on the bulb used!

#5. If you have Halogens or BR-Lamps or PAR-lamps (R38/PAR30/20 commonly used if you have recessed or "pot" lights), do not touch them when installing. They'll burn out fast (and they're innefficient incandescents to start with!).

And another note, because it drives me crazy when they are done wrong: bathrooms or change rooms (retail especially) should have more than 1 light source. The absolute worste thing to do is stick a light right above your head shining down on you. It creates big shadows that highlight under eye circles, cullulite, and everything we hate about our bodies! If you HAVE to have a light straight overhead  then at least have another one that is wall-mounted in front of you (think behind or beside the mirror) or on a wall to the side of the mirror, to counteract all those terrible shadows. Swimcois the absolute WORSTE for this! Their sales would probably double if they lit their change rooms properly!

Hope this helps! See-ya later!

Thursday, September 9, 2010

You got time to click on links, right?!

Oh thank you all so much for the sympathy comments! Its just what I needed! Really, I don't know what it is about comments but they really add so much to the blogging experience! ;) Especially those of you coming out of lurker status. . .

Class today was ... hmmmm.... long. exhausting. overwhelming. eye-openning. interesting. exciting. motivating.

I could go on and on about how great my new instructor is. She's the head of the 2nd year of Interior Design at BCIT. She teaches, I think, 5 of my classes, so the 22 of us in full time will get to know her well, and I can tell, it will be a relationship worth having! I don't even know where to start... she has stopped designing as a career and focused on teaching now, but she also always has her head planning something else as well. Like this summer she organized a design tour of London with a group of 8; she invited  "huge, internationally known, Interior Designers" and all showed up except one. They gave seminars and toured the city from a design perspective. She also has taken on the task of introducing BCIT students to the concept of Biomimicry; this year will be the second year with it in our course content. She's taken seminars on it through Janine Benyus - and you need to take twenty minutes to go watch her talk about it - and is convinced that this is the way to design, to solve every problem, and will be HUGE (instead of "eco-efficiency") in a good, big way. She also foresees biologists being present at the table of designers, architects, clients, engineers, etc. in the initial planning stages of a built project. So she is also developing a 2-year diploma program in Biomimcry to begin at BCIT (currently only available at the Toronto College of Art and Design, as far as Canada goes). We are so lucky to get to learn more about this as it is still somewhat in its infancy, and will be such a valuable asset for us.

She also has extended education in lighting design and so is able to teach us a lot - so valuable, as in this field, the lighting aspect really needs more course room than it gets! She has made sure that BCIT gets 95% more education in lighting than any other Interior Design courses available in Western Canada. What else...she set up a program where students went and studied in Italy a few years ago, in a remote area that didn't even have so much as a postcard available to buy. She then decided to buy a little cottage there because she fell so in love (the photo of the view she showed us was amazing). Today she was wearing a necklace made of bycicle inner tubes and old wire. It was all spiky and scary, and was pretty awesome. She is not the type of instructor who teaches the curriculum the same over and over and over again, she likes to change it up and keep herself interested, therefore, new stuff is always coming up. Cool. So now that you have a little picture of her...

Today in the morning we had Materials2. We learned lots about "efficiency" as taught in "Cradle to Cradle" (get yourself a copy! Or watch him talk on Ted) and then Biomimicry. We watched a video on landfills in the US, which was pretty insightful. It made me think: how many things do I touch in a day that I will throw "away". "Away" really is quite the concept, as it really can't go too far!
I challenge you to count yours! Every paper towel. Coffee cup. Tissue. Cheese wrapper. Napkin. Razor. Soap bottle.

I am super excited about this class because we will really analyse what "green" is and which building materials actually are, and which ones just tout the "chlorine free" or "green" or "natural" or "pesticide-free" horns. . . not to be cynical, but find out what they DO have in them, where they DO come from, how they ARE made... that means a lot more. The other assignment we have for that class is to recycle a found object or piece of garbage, make it desireable and new again, and they will be auctioned off at the 2nd annual BCIT Farmers & Artisan Market on October 8th. All proceeds will go to charity. We're also going on a tour of the Vancouver Landfill in a couple of weeks. We'll be goin to the Gaining Ground Conference (we get to pick which seminars we attend), HOK offices, participating in the Canadian IDEC competition, and we will also go to a green roof seminar.
(yes, all this just for materials class!)

Sooo much to think about, all buzzing around in my brain. And thats not to mention the Lighting class that was this afternoon (lots of review and new knowledge) and AutoCAD (the 2011 progam seems to be giving me lots of trouble. ugh.).

I think I am going to start a blog where I share my Interior Design projects, assignments, inspiration and ideas more. I feel like it needs to be a bit seperate, and less personal, so I will post that here soon.

Thanks for reading on! Sorry, I didn't mean to make this go on forever, but think how crowded it must be in my brain right now! Now go get educated by Ted!

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Where have all my commenters gone?!

First day of school! I'd thought I would write all about it in analytical detail. But its not looking that promising right now. You see, it is hard to keep blogging when the comments keep reading 0! And I know for a fact that there were 16 people here yesterday, 10 the day before that, and 21 the day before that. So come out of the millwork and give me a little love! Come on people! Otherwise forget it, I'm striking. I won't tell you about my first early morning start, heading to the school gym where I got my locker set up, my little jog around the park....or about having a lovely little shower and getting set up with laundry service so that my gym clothes and dirty towel are washed up for me every day. (I paid for it til June to keep me going every day!) But whatever, I'm not telling more about that... Or about playing bongo drums in a big cirlce for orientation. Or about our teachers advice ("If they catch you sleeping in the classrooms in the middle of the night they will kick you out... I guess they don't want you to literally live here... but if you bring a sleeping bag and just do an hour at a time under your desk they probably won't be able to catch you...") or classroom (We're supposed to plaster it with inspiration and we can even paint it! [as if we could all ever decide on a colour scheme]), or my shiny new outfit I wore and the ruffly new bag I carried. Nope. None of it. :)

- ayla

Monday, September 6, 2010

Boy's Birthday / Etsy Love


How cute is this card I got made for Ron, by CookieBits! I was super impressed, and I think I'll be back to her shop for more hand cut cards!


I also got him this vintage bowling shirt from BeyondTheDoor on Etsy. It's to make him more of a player, just like Charlie (haha!). We Love our Two & a Half Men! I should get a picture of him in it though, it looks great on him!

AND  this Agenda is in the mail (I can not wait!) from Etsy seller An Artful Agenda


There's my Etsy love from the last little while .... always another great shop to be found. Got any new favorites to share?!