SHELTER BUS

BUS SHELTER

Communication charette part 2

Communication Charette

Communication is about the process in which information is being passed from a sender to a recipient in order to create a shared understanding.  

PLACE: This is a model of a booth that we would have at the Tate Street festival.  It would reinforce the logo, as well as provide seating, like a bus shelter.

HTTP:// -The picture above would be an image that would rotate on UNCG's homepage.  People may have noticed students walking around in t-shirts with the same logo, as well as posters.  Seeing it on the website, they might think Oh, I've seen this! What the heck is it? When they click on the logo on the homepage, they would be directed to a series of images like the one above this one, which describe our studio and what we are working on:
 PEOPLE- We felt that a t-shirt would get the message out if a lot of people wore them on the same day.  It would get a question started in peoples' minds.  What is this?  Why is everyone wearing the same shirt?
PRINTED MATERIALS- We chose to design a poster to give more information about our program as well as about the Greensboro bus system.  Featuring the logo, it would also function as a branding mechanism.



PRODUCT- wait ON a bus while you wait FOR the bus was our group's idea. Every Bus bench would be different and unique. It could have no limits to the design either, and would be placed all over Greensboro.    (similar to the Big Apples in New York, or the cows in Kansas City), which would also function as benches at bus stops. 

Artifact for IAR 222

The Mobile above was made by Alexander Calder in 1972, and given as a gift by the collectors committee. It is one of the first mobiles ever made, and consists of steel wire and aluminum. The aluminum is painted red and blue, with the wires connecting each aluminum shape with one another in a visually appealing design. The shapes are rounded and slightly geometric with thin wires to create contrast The negative space of this work is especially intriguing because there is so much negative space that the feeling of the mobile floating is very prominent. The mobile idea, invented my Calder himself, is successful in this sculpture because of its negative space. Also, the colors are important in this work because the primary colors are fairly bright against the dark grey wire, creating a contrast. One last thing that is interesting about this piece is the symmetry. It is unbalanced yet it still floats in a straight line. This makes the piece different from anything else before or after it.
One piece of work that is fairly similar to this mobile is the curtain by Marian Mahler. It is a red curtain with a print that consists of yellow, white and black shapes coming down from strings. This reminds me of the mobile because of the way it is suspended. Also, the colors are similar because the red background is bright and the colored shapes on the foreground are brighter and darker than the red to create a contrast just like Calder’s piece. One other thing I noticed was the negative space in this work. It isn’t the same as the mobile, but it was used with the same idea.
Le Corbusier’s loveseat is one artifact that is completely different from the mobile. It is a larger piece for one, but it also has no negative space. The chair is very grounded because of it’s size and shape. Also, instead of organic shapes and curves, this chair has only straight lines.

Ergonomics, Codes, and Proxemics

Ergonomics "helps designers understand how to best address the needs of the user through theory, data, methods, resulting in an optimized overall experience for users."

Proxemics is the interaction of people with other people. for example how close they sit to each other on a bench.

For studio 9-17-08 we had to draw our Shelter Buses and show the Ergonomics, Codes, and Proxemics of each design.

I drew a few of the Ergonomics, and one Code

Essay about our experience:

Symbol group 6's experience with the various requirements to support human activities and needs at first was confusion and frustration because of misunderstanding the intentions of the exercise at first. Even after clarification, there was still a level of frustration because of the limits which caused several aspects of our designs to change. We also found that making a diagram was no longer quite as simple as it used to be. Suddenly we had to look up dimensions and numbers to apply to our diagram. We would recommend to other designers that they attempt to consider the needs of their clients and coding early on in the design process so that later on the changes won't be so drastic when they try and accommodate their design to fit the standards. This will save them a lot of problems later on. Codes help design by creating generalization and making people familiar with the objects the codes are applied to even if they haven’t seen these objects in that particular context before.The client will recognize a door frame for example because that is the size of a door frame in every other building they have entered. We anticipate that codes will change our work by making the design process more structured. This will both add to the ease and difficulty. With codes in place, suddenly we know the dimensions for our design, but it also limits to some extent what we can do. Keeping actual standards in mind means that we can no longer pick arbitrary numbers for a hallway.

Shelter Bus

Our group designed two buses that would provide two different needs for hurricane victims. The first bus is our "counseling" bus that provides counselors to victims. Our second bus is a damage prevention bus that will be available to people who need supplies during a hurricane. these materials would include wood, nails, water, batteries, and lots more. This project ws very hard to design because we were restricted to different bus dimensions. Also, the models were difficult to build with all the details.

Group members: Sara, Alex, Chelsea,

Interviews

To see our group interviews (6's) , go to this website or type in "bus:shelter:bus" on youtube.com

Tornado shelter

This project was a lot of fun for me because I lived in the center of tornado alley for 12 years and I have experience a few times where i needed to shelter myself from a tornado. Our group (see bus shelter post) researched tornado shelters and found that monolithic domes protected from the wind. Therefore, we decided to design an underground shelter with a rounded top that came out from the ground.

~ The first image is a painting that I did in high school. It was the inspiration for choosing a tornado as the natural disaster

Bus Shelter

For Studio 201, We were asked to design a bus shelter for the corner of Tate street and spring garden in Greensboro. My group members ( Sara, Alex, and Chelsea) and I came up with a simple design that allows people to be able to see the bus coming down the street, and still be sheltered from rain and other elements. Also, our design will be made with brick to represent the surrounding buildings and glass to tie the Gatewood and Weatherspoon buildings together.

Theory Hour for September 3rd

Dear Jenny Paige,

When you spoke of the cram and scram that happens at UNCG, I thought of an idea to become even more sustainable. You mentioned that the broken furniture does not get sold, and I think it would be beneficial to the interior architecture program if we were given the furniture or broken parts to create new pieces and designs in our studio classes and furniture design class.

Thank you,

Megan Schwarz

City Bus Ride

For IAR 201, three of my friends and I rode the city bus to the downtown Depot and then back. The bus came fifteen minutes earlier than scheduled, and while I was walking onto the bus, I had a confusing experience. I was trying to pay for the bus ride, but the person who entered the bus before me (Meg) didn't pay the entire dollar and twenty cents, so I had to pay extra but I couldn't understand the bus driver. Then once we were all settled in the back of the bus, some creepy man kept trying to wave at us from the front of the bus.

I noticed while sitting on the bus, that everybody spread out from each other, and not one person was traveling with somebody else. If I had to ride the bus by myself I would not feel comfortable. Even when I rode with three other people, we were getting stares from the other passengers as if we were not welcome and did not belong.

Then while we were at the depot, we couldn't figure out what bus to get on next. The maps online were very confusing and only somebody who rode the bus everyday would probably be able to fully understand it. Eventually, Meg and I asked the bus driver which bus we needed to take in order to go back where we came from. The bus driver was very rude and looked at us as if we were stupid. I had to explain to him that it was for a school project before he would tell us what bus to get on.

On the second bus, the seats were different than what they were on the first bus. They were uncomfortable and had no cushioning so when the bus driver slammed onto this brakes, I would have to grip the seat with my hands to keep from falling over. Also, after I touched the seats and railings, my hands smelled funny. I thought the bus seemed really unsanitary. The man sitting next to Jenni Deal kept putting his hands on her seat and the other people around us were continuing to stare at us.

Once we reached campus, the bus driver drove right past the bus stop that we were supposed to get off at. I was so confused trying to figure out where to go. There were yellow ropes on the side of the bus and I wanted to try and pull the rope to get he bus driver to pull over and let us out, but I didn’t know if I was allowed to do that. The atmosphere of the bus was scary and I felt as if I would get in trouble if I did anything out of the norm. The fact that we were trying to take pictures on the bus was also a factor that didn’t help us out. We got more stares than usual and I could tell that one woman next to me was getting pretty angry. Jenni ended up taking a video the entire time because she didn’t want people to keep thinking that we were trying to take pictures of them.

In the end, the city bus was not the greatest experience. I am glad I rode on it though, because if I ever have to do that again I will be able to figure out what I’m doing. However, I would probably never ride the bus myself because I would feel unsafe.

The First Week of Classes- 2nd year studio

This first week has been stressful to say the least. I've been used to slacking all summer, so I wasn't quite ready for so much work. However, after I calmed down a little bit, I had a pretty good week. I am looking forward to studio this semester based on the first project. We worked with groups the past few days, and it has helped me communicate a little better. hopefully that's a sign for what's to come.