20100910 and 20100911

hi. sorry i didn't really have anything to show on last thursday as i was severely confused about my process and kept thinking that the environmental variables were to differentiate the form and layout (while when it was really vice versa - coming up with the programmatic layout and form, and THEN using the appropriate software to calculate the form's effectiveness). that i'm getting the grasp of right now.

just to get my head around all this, i'm posting everything that i've gotten organized so far and ruminate on my actions where i deem necessary.

here's what i've done in the last 2 days:

- started writing up a proper manifesto / cliental brief of my program

- drew up a proper excel spreadsheet defining specific spaces in relation to variables. obviously as i continue to read up on things it will serve as an ongoing working template.

- started designing variations of the program - much of it's been worked out on paper and i'm taking some time to transfer all the handdrawn illustrations into illustrator/rhino

- picked out the favourites (of the 100 models) based on previous analyses, and have now started experimenting with how i might integrate that with my programmatic layout.

this is on top of additional site analysis i did/am doing on my own (which i hope to bring into use in informing my decision-making):

- the material and colour catalogues

- the general overview of topographical colouration and materiality

- line of sight from site
- solar analysis via ecotect/revit

- other therapy and counselling services within the area (and others listed outside of the auckland region
- acoustics analysis from adrian and yun

- thoughts on how the surrounding areas could benefit from my program.

this is stuff i should have presented for the mid crit:

- aforementioned 100 models - akin to MDRDV's method of experimentation etc

- ecotect solar analysis files for each one.

- additionally, i imported all the files into revit to test solar/lighting

on the sideline, i am:

- reading up more about therapy for the expressive arts. as i've mentioned before, it has been significantly hard finding relevant information - mainly because aside it being a program not widely explored compared to other programs and most of them being small scale/home-based, so on top of the scarce information about pre-existing art therapy centres, the other areas i've been looking into are: conventional counselling centres, clinics, and studio design. here is a draft write up of what i've found useful during my research process (which i guess will continue to accumulate over time) i've also stopped referring to the metric handbook information since i've already accumulated what i needed.

- compiling profiles of expressive art therapists / therapy centres to gain an insight of how they operate/run their counselling sessions
- figuring out how to use the geco gh definition for massing in relation to site (could only get it to work with a singular mass geometry, but not with the site).

- still learning revit and ecotect

sorry as i know this whole going around in circles process has set me back quite a bit - i will be posting things when they start coming together, but i've set the deadline for all the aforementioned to be finished by wednesday (it's kinda taking a while to 'translate' my drawings into a digital format....)