Reflections on Real-Life Design
This class has given us, as architecture students, the opportunity to put our design skill to the test in the real world for real people. This is something that very few, if any of us have done throughout our college and professional careers so far as being students of design. The installations that we implemented allowed us to design, build and observe new conditions of human-centered design which was incredibly eye-opening to me. Through thinking through our design issues and having to build something that would help people that we have never even met is something beyond our architecture education; it gave us real-life lessons and insights into how to think like an architect and design like an architect while having no first-hand experience.
To reflect our my part of the installation project, the privacy booths for the Lawyer of the Day program, I can take from this experience a new sense and understanding of being able to analyze space through my education and training as someone who knows how to conceptualize space and understand how humans use and see space, especially for people experiencing new spaces for the first time. I feel that our installation worked incredibly well for a first run installation, there could definitely be some improvements in the construction of the pieces as well as the dimensions and scale of the installation. As a team we have some ideas to better both our installation and the way that it functions for the lawyer of the day program that could translate into improving the lawyer of the day program itself. Ideas of improving the way the lawyers conduct private conversations as well as how they are positioned in the housing court sector of the courthouse through separating the one entity into two to improve flow of conversation and availability of the lawyers. Other ideas we had we about spreading the reach of our installation to be available throughout the courthouse through use of the temporary booths or through more permanent installations that could provide space for clients to meet with their own lawyers or space for people to use their phone in a private setting. This process of thinking and building will definitely better my understanding of what it means to be an architect and a designer.
