Morocco!

I'm going to Morocco May 12-June 24 for a study abroad program through Montana State Universities Architecture program. The full itinerary is at www.atlasculturalfoundation.org under What We Do/Study Abroad. I am also helping Cloe (the founder of ACF) in some foundational Non=profit work as an internship that applies towards my Non-Profit Management Certificate.

I have explored the images posted on Google Earth and really look forward to the experience to come in Morocco!

Winter Studio 2011

Here's some photos from my winter 2011 studio project: Light in Place.

Located in the main lobby to the Architecture building I used strips of paper to create the spider web and then trace paper cut to size of each window frame to create a "screen" that information was projected onto, color, light, and shadow.

It was a fun exercise in small installation art and seemed like a sculpture studio. The show was at night so I had a large theater light shining from an upstairs window and illuminating the ground plane directly outside the window. Strong reflections appeared in the pools of water that collected as the rain fell onto tarps (initially place for color but then served a double duty!).

Food

Studio Project
Make something with food and install it in Lawrence.

and since we went to the beach and found an amazing piece of seaweed (that's food too!) I installed it in the stairwell :)

Paper animal

Studio Assignment:

Build a paper animal and place it somewhere in Lawrence Hall (our Architecture building). There is a grand staircase that ends on the second floor then everyone takes an enclosed firestair to their studio on the 3rd and 4th floor. So I installed a watcher to stare you down as you enter.

Jell-O

Build something with Jell-O. . . . I think it's alive

How to use a vessel over time

Media A1

Winter 2011 Design Development Media course. We chose a vessel to bring through each assignment and I chose a hand made mug from Noel. Above are the hand drawings, below 6 sections done in AutoCad and overlaid to form the vessel using line weight.

Light In Place

Winter 2011 studio. Visiting professor who knows her light! The studio component is picking a place in a new hospital in New Jersey and designing something with light for that space. I choose the patient exam room as a place that there is inherently lots of waiting, nervousness, anxiety, and scared feelings. I purposely chose a room with no windows so my installation could take on the roll of intrigue, calmness, and soothing.



For the video see: and turn your head to the left :)

Fall studio final

This was my final submission to the Lyceum Competition, we had to make a 11" x 17" book and I bound my with string and a Mylar cover with the word MIRAGE transferred on (photo to come).
The project was a net zero rest stop along I 80 West of Salt Lake City on the Great Salt Desert salt flats. A very interesting site condition. I would say the studio focused on graphic design and how to get my ideas across graphically since I won't be there to describe it.

second part moon data

For this part we used the same data as P2, but had to laser cut or 3D model the form and insert a letter. My letter was "U". The final product is 2.5" x 2.5"

Fall 2010 studio

Here is the work in the first few weeks of the Lyceum Studio (We entered the Lyceum design competition ) It was a maximum of 6 week design project, so we studied form and interventions through data sets.
I collected Horsetail reeds by the local creek with my friend Seth and then cut them to height based on a z value I calculated by multiplying each axis by the other. I used capillary action to hold the pieces together as they were set upon glass submerged in a tray of water. I also did a time lapse of the whole thing drying and made a you tube video! The model being constructed and The model drying. My first attempt at video from still frames. The UO new Architecture Journal is using the drying images in a "flip book" as a small thumbnail at the bottom of each page.

Cartoon

I researched Health as a topic to investigate for my studio. We were tasked to come up with some cartoons that took a dire situation and made light of it in order to portray a very challenging problems. A commentary on our perceptions of health.

Passive Solar Heating/Cooling

A great course that use a past studio project to calculate passive heating and cooling requirements and alter aspects of the design accordingly. Our second phase was looking at the band of sun, so available direct gain into the space. I placed my Mexican Center for the Arts in downtown Grand Junction, CO, and am calculating the loads for just the top floor.

Agriculture as Urban Fabric

My studio project this term is to look at agriculture as a fabric within an urban context (Portland, OR in this case) We are looking at the influencing factors to a site, and trying to pull out the aspects that we each want to focus on. I have tried to understand many of the forces working on a city and how they weave together. How can our linear path of consumption be altered to allow for diversity and cycles to reveal themselves as we are all connected through this intricate web.

New Blog

Hi Everyone who follows my site, I have started a "new" blog through wordpress, which gives me a few more options for posting my school work/process. I will keep this site for qirky updates about my life, but also follow that site if you want my school processes.
http://lauracavin.wordpress.com/

Enjoy winter! The trees and flowers are blooming out here in Oregon. Strange to move from fall directly into spring for the next three months. . .

Final Review ARCH 681

ARCH 681 Final Review 12/21/09
Newport Seamen's Institute
Layout requirements: Hand drawn, 4 sheets at 30"x40"









Construction model of multi-purpose room along with pg 2-construction drawings and diagrams of the space.

Facade Study

3 floors, 5 bays of equal proportion, 3 layers beyond the glass plane but no more than 1/2" from mounting board.

A fun exercise in facade composition that often does not get explored until the very end of the schematic design phase. This project was for spatial composition so does not directly relate to my current studio project, but I tried to incorporate the window light tables that I want to explore in studio as well.

Mid Term

Mid Term Review November 4, 2009.


Street facade (south) with adjoining properties

Site plan with roof plan, left is level 3

section through the central circulation

model photos in group site model for context, central circulation and view from the pier.



Goals:
My goals for this studio have been to create a very cohesive site plan with central axis that combine the indoor and outdoor spaces. This centralized structure will allow for relationships to develop within the disparate program functions.
The second goal was how to daylight all of the spaces, and preferably from two sides. This will e accomplished through transverse circulation cooridors being lit from above with skylights/sawtooth ridges, and develop light shelves on the east and south sides to project light deeper into the large spaces.

Thoughts:
Felt like a final pin up, but one I wasn't fully resolved with all of my choices, so it's nice to have 3 more weeks to fine tune things. The areas I have not spent much energy include the mediation space and courtyard and the roof planes. How to unify while keeping the separate functions visible will be the next challenge. Also how to draw the entire facade together with some horizontal lines, window light shelves?