Assessment 2-Island Stage 2

By this stage 5 types of materiality had been installed to the island: contours; frame; surfaces; solid/void; transparency.

Over the course of the semester my project had not progressed sufficiently to develop into a cohesive object that demonstrated the qualities expected by the brief. I accept the bulk of the blame for this, due to a lack of pursuing the iterative explorations asked for in the brief. Upon reflection I also believe that I did not have the necessary experience or mindset to properly address the demands of the brief- which only comes with more exposure and design maturity. In essence I feel that the brief's search for an object that expressed its backstory and functionality through its materiality was too big of an ask, and to be properly attempted, would have needed a more in depth study of these underpinning concepts. I can't accept that the 'unmaking' exercise properly exposed us to the intellectual framework necessary to engage with what was being asked. I am strongly convinced that part of the blame rests with the uncommunicative and dismissive feedback of my tutor, and the childlike autonomy with which the subject coordinator conducted the studio. This meant that many of the intellectual and conceptual demands of the brief were abandoned, and in fact the project degenerated into a puerile and simplistic search for aesthetics. I feel that the lessons learnt from this project have come long after, due to reflection, and I would definitely take the opportunity to retake the challenge again with a more thoura understanding of its conceptual and intellectual demands- as this would allow for a wothwhile development of design skills. Having said this I can't deny that the process did expose me to a very interesting range of materials and fabrication techniques that were very entertaining and rewarding to attempt.

Assessment 2-Island Stage 1

The stipulations for this long undertaking were to come up with a name, history and functioning for an imagined island, and then to express this through the manipulation and expression of materiality. Throughout the project we would be exposed to specified materials and fabrication techniques. The aim was to develop high quality model making skills through iterative exploration of the potential for material and spatial concept.

Having just left high school this was certainly a very conceptually challenging and disorienting project. I felt like it completely took me out of my comfort zone for being able to understand and recreate functioning objects and space.