Ohio University Interior Architecture

ART 4958, Senior Thesis Studio

Spring 2020

Faculty:
Matthew Ziff, Associate Professor, Area Chair
M.Arch, Architect, NCIDQ

Thesis Project Overview Thoughts: Ideas and Schedule

Important Due Dates
Concept and Parti Presentations: Wednesday, January 22: In Groups of five (5)

Specific Interior Design Documents:

Generally Professional Designers will work on these documents in the order shown BUT
any of these can be an appropriate place to begin if you choose to work that way.

You need to be conscious of the distinction between 'designing' and 'presenting.'

DESIGNING ------------ PRESENTING

When you are 'designing' you are using specific media to explore, to look for what will
be a good way to meet the functional requirements you are working on.

When you are 'presenting' you are using specific media to SHOW what you have
designed. AutoCAD, for example is a BAD presentation medium: it looks geeky,
technical, machiney. AutoCAD drawings need to be put into a presentation mode by
carefully applying line weights, hatching styles, and text styles. THEN AutoCAD
drawings need to be inserted into a designed sheet layout using one of the many
graphics software, such as Illustrator or In Design.

'Presenting' is about making your ideas presentable, appealing to a viewer, in a high

quality manner.

All of the following need to be 'designed', and then need to be 'presented.'

• Concept sketches in plan or elevation or 3-D.

• Space planning studies:
• Physical Study Models: Three (3)

• Interior Partition/Wall & Door Design:

• Interior Elevations: eight (8):
• Lighting Design Ideas Exploration/Selections/Custom Design:
• Acoustical Design Ideas/Exploration & Documentation:
 • Reflected Ceiling Plan:
• Architectural (black and white: no materials indicated) Floor Plans:
• Rendered Floor Plan: furnishings & floor color/material indicated:
• Vertical Sections: two (2):

• Interior Perspectives: six (6):

• Architectural Details: four (4):

• Furniture Selections/Custom Design:
• Interior Finishes:
• Equipment:

• Budget Proposal (of one specific area):

• Code Compliance Plan:

90% Completion of Thesis: Wednesday, April 1

Opening of BFA Thesis Exhibition: Friday, April 24: 5:00 pm: Dairy Barn Cultural Arts
Center, Dairy Lane, Athens, Ohio

Concepts

A concept for a design project is an overarching idea that briefly describes what you are
trying to achieve in the project.

A concept statement should include the major goals of the project, the most important
constraints, or restrictions, within the project scenario, and a description of the unusual,
exciting, or distinctive needs and characteristics of the project.

A concept can also be thought of as the overall organizational and aesthetic intent that
you bring to a project. A synonym for concept could be 'strategy', or 'game plan'.
designing involves a good deal of thinking about things, many kinds of things. a
concept is an overarching, inclusive, but not exhaustive, suggestive, and useful
statement about the designer's approach to a project. a concept is primarily a
mental/cognitive thing; it does not express the physical reality of the work of design that
you have done.

"These initial experimental design concepts can then be further defined, criticized, and
rejected, or revised, and developed until a few workable solutions remain. As these
concepts are thought through in relation to program requirements and objectives, one
dominant theme should emerge; an assimilation of the myriad of details results in one
all-encompassing concept. This concept is the beginning of design. It must then be
transformed into tangible form---words and drawings---extracted from the designer's full
arsenal of aesthetic, technical, scientific, and humanistic education and training. After
these initial studies and decisions, the concept statement is written and the process of
organizing space as a more precise two-dimensional plan begins."
Inside Today's Home, by Nissen, Faulkner, and Faulkner, pp 193

"the...concept statement, ... establishes the underlying principles that the resulting
physical designs will address. This statement should be written in simple, declarative
sentences that concisely describe the principal ideas, both functional and aesthetic,
behind the proposed design. The concept statement should discuss the methods that
bring about results; it does not state what those results will be."
Designing Interiors, by Kilmer and Kilmer, pp 167

"concept formulation is not an automatic activity. It takes a concentrated effort to

develop a concept that appropriately integrates things not previously brought
together. Bringing together is a creative act---one that designers, architects, critics,
artists, musicians, and writers have identified as being about 10 per cent inspiration or
genius and 90 per cent hard work. Three problems block skill development in
conceptualization. The first block deals with problems of communication, the second
with inexperience, and the third with the problems of generating hierarchies." "(the
concept) is a thought concerning the way several elements or characteristics can be
combined into a single thing. In architecture, a concept also identifies how various
aspects of the requirements for a (project) can be brought together in a specific thought
that directly influences the design and its configuration. A concept in (design) is an
ambitious thing, the result of a concentrated and imaginative effort to bring apparently
dissimilar things together."
"Concepts in Architecture", by Tim McGinty

This is a concept statement written by Rick Butera, a design student for a lighting
design project. (click on the pdf page)

http://buterastudios2.blogspot.com/2007/09/studio-final-concept-statement.html

Concept & Parti Presentations:

Wednesday, January 22
The concept presentations are intended to communicate, through visual means
(sketches, models, drawings, et cetera) the direction your project is taking, and will
continue to take for the entire semester.

The concept presentation should show your overarching concept concerning:

how you are addressing the major planes, floors, walls, ceilings:
how you are addressing furniture, and furniture scale items:
how you are addressing color, throughout your project spaces:
how you are addressing lighting, including day lighting, throughout your project spaces:
how you are addressing acoustical issues throughout your project spaces:
at least one physical sketch/study model of element or elements in your project.
This presentation is to communicate your overall thinking about your project and the
driving criteria used in developing it further.

Parti
A physical, visible, representation of a concept a parti is a physical expression of the
approach a designer takes to a project. A parti is usually a sketch, or a three
dimensional model that says 'this is what the project is going to be like'.

"The parti (scheme) and esquisse (sketch) are the conceptual and graphic products of a
particular method of instruction developed in the Beaux Arts Schools of France during
the nineteenth century. (Students) were expected to develop a concept and preliminary
sketch of the (design) configuration in the first few hours of work on a project and to
hold to that parti throughout the project." "Concepts in Architecture", by Tim McGinty

A parti, (pronounced 'parteee') is a visual presentation of an overall, general, scheme of

a design project.

A parti explains very little in terms of specifics, but presents a general direction, attitude,
approach, and form of a project.

A parti says "my idea is this", and ideas do not come out of our heads in drafted,
detailed format. They come out much more like a sketch done with a soft, blunt chunk
of graphite.

You may support the visual portion of the parti with written words, phrases, and
sentences that further elucidate your ideas, but the visual portion is the most important
communication of a parti.

Monday, January 27

Monday, February 3

Monday, February 10

Monday, February 17

Monday, February 24

Monday, March 2

Monday, March 9: Week of Spring Break!

Monday, March 16: Extended Spring Break

Monday, March 23: Online Transition/Health Crisis

For the remaining weeks of the Spring Semester our studio class will be conducted
online using Microsoft Teams for video chat sessions and for file storage and review,
and e-mail for individual communications between students and faculty members.

We will hold video sessions every Monday and Wednesday, 12:00 - 3:00, our regular
studio class time slot.

Monday, March 30

Monday, April 6

Monday, April 13

Monday, April 20

Friday, May 1: Thesis Project Due Date

Important Considerations
Design Projects are Developed, over time, through regular, repeated, drawings,
sketches, and models.

As you sit at your desk working on your thesis project, you need to have design relevant
thoughts, such as "What if I made a ceiling plane that consisted of repeated triangular
pieces, at varying heights above the floor, using a material that was translucent."

What you need to do with this thought is NOT wonder if it should, or should not be what
your ceiling will become, but instead, MAKE a good sketch, or a good study model that
physically, visually, shows what it might look like.

In making these models, or sketches your idea will be advanced, you will have
unexpected new thoughts as you make them, and even if you end up rejecting this
particular idea, the model or sketch represents your 'process' of developing your project.

This is far, far more valuable than merely 'thinking' about whether or not your ceiling
idea will or will not be good. If you do this every day, by the end of the semester you will
have a really impressive body of visual process work that truly conveys the work you
have done in arriving at your final project.

The Concept of 'Inspiration' And The Use Of 'Inspirational' Images'

We encourage you to look at, and to seek to understand what other designers,
contemporary, interesting designers, and especially the 'great' designers have done.

We also very much want to encourage you to be creative, to generate forms and ideas
that you discover, as your own interpretation of issues, requirements, or material
applications.

To this end, the Interior Architecture faculty have come to a policy decision, stated
below.

If you choose to show in your project documents inspirational images, they may not
come from the same 'typology', that you are working on, nor may they come from the
same scale of project that you are working on.

In other words, if you are working on the design of an office space, you may not use
inspirational images of other office spaces.
If you are working on the design of a room, you may not use inspirational images of
other rooms.
Inspiration, for designers, must be a transformation, of a form, a material, a texture, a
pattern, at one scale, or application, to a different one.

One of the classic ways that designers have sought, and found, inspiration, is through a
close look at nature; at natural components, such as a bird's wing, a sea shell, a leaf, a
sunflower, a maple seed pod, a pine cone, et cetera.

Another classic way to seek and develop forms is to use an existing piece, such as a
part from a typewriter, as a beginning 'form' for a transformation into an interior
component.

Of course you can, and will, look at whatever you wish, but for your presentations to the
faculty do not use inspirational imagery as described above. We are taking this position
because it will make you better designers, not to irritate you.

Points To Keep In Mind When Designing

When major planes, like floors, ceilings, and walls, meet, SOMETHING VISUAL should
happen. This is an 'architectural' moment, and must be articulated with some type of
detail. The 'base' of a wall should be a specifically designed condition that means
something to you and to the way the space is percieved and constructed.
Floor plans must be drawn properly. Poche/darken/hatch all elements that are 'cut';
show door swings, show windows. The floor plan is like the hub of a wheel; it is the
center reference point, and orientation for understanding what is being shown in the
other images. The floor plan must read clearly, boldly, and accurately.

Include human figures in perspectives, and in vertical sections.

Design project work is an expression of skill (Sketch Up, drawing, rendering, et cetera),
knowledge (building code requirements, how stairs work, what materials can be used
for, et cetera), craft (how well something is executed), focus and direction of the
designer, and a sense of scale and detail.

Show 'N' arrows on all floor plan images. The orientation of a space is important;
sunlight changes spaces!

Be sure stairs are drawn properly: use a break line after the first six or seven stairs;
include an arrow, and the letters 'up' or 'dn'.

Cite all images, references, pieces of music, used in a presentation that are not your
own. Not doing so is plagiarism.

Go overboard with a design idea. If you have an idea for a form, or a texture, or an
organization, use it to the maximum; it is far easier to rein in an over exuberant use of
an idea, than to try to inject some life into a dull project.

Elevation images need accompanying vertical section details to explain, and give life, to
what is being shown in the elevations.
Details are the vehicle for giving a 'human' scale, and touch, to a space.
Sketches play a useful, and important role in a final presentation. They should be used
to show how you got to the final images. Do not make sketches compete with finished
Form z images, because they will usually look sort of 'inferior' to the form z images.

All sleeping spaces below the fifth floor of a building must have a window.

All floor levels must have a minimum of two means of egress UNLESS they are
occupied by fewer than fifty (50) people.

Vertical sections are very, very important drawings; they communicate information that
no other drawing can communicate.

Kitchen cabinets make a big impact on a kitchen space.

Select, or design your own, cabinets that really work with the design character you are
trying to create.

How do you know if a 'parti' is a good one or not? You probably should try several
different parti forms and then look at them with a critical eye to see if one looks like it will
be more useful, appropriate, interesting, or creative than the others.
 Interior Architecture is a major in which
making things
(not thinking about things: but rather the active, engaged, physical process of making drawings, models,
statements, objects, spaces)

defines who you are

(as a designing person, your ideas, knowledge, beliefs, desires, and points of view are only meaningfully
expressed by the things you make)

and
how well you are doing
(how well you are doing is right there in front of you; your work defines and presents how well you are
doing! listen to it carefully)