http://housedesigngallery.com/luxury-mansion/contemporary-luxuries-modern-house-design-by-agraz-arquitectos/

This really caught my eye as a piece of contemporary, stylish, light and spacious architecture. The interior carries on this feel, with the use of wood and neutral colours creating a relaxed and clean look.

The link above takes you to the House Design Gallery for the full article by Andre Ivano.

The Lake District stone

Whilst having a break in the Lake District a few weeks ago, I was interested by the traditional stone work used in the construction of the buildings around the National Park. The craftsmanship on the buildings, both old and new, is so intricate and detailed, and the result is buildings which fit in perfectly with the beautiful surrounding scenery, whilst still being outstanding to look at themselves.

Beside our hotel there was a building being constructed, and (presumably to save time and money) the building was being clad with around 5 inches of stone. In a nearby village we travelled through, rows of shops had been rebuilt, but again clad with the same traditional stone to maintain the traditional look on the facade of a contemporary building.

BOMB Project (2)

Over the last 3 days we have been doing a bomb project with Pete Morris from Curl la Tourelle Architects in London.

Our brief was to design something which brought the smartphone into the community and enabled people to connect and interact through it.

Myself, Caroline Martin and Charles Stewart teamed up, and looked into the different apps which were available in four different categories: social networking, music, games and photos. We chose to focus on social networking and music, and looking at a way to create an app which integrated both. We felt that it would be good to connect people through their similar tastes in music, so we created 'iRequest'.

iRequest is a smartphone app which involves the user requesting their favourite songs from the DJ's playlist before entering or whilst in a club, they are then sent directly to the DJs database, and come up in an order of which songs are requested the most. (i.e. if one song is requested 10 times, it will be above a song which is requested 7).

When the requested song is about to be played, the user receives a message informing them of this and can make their way to the VIP pod, a special area designed with surrounding LED screens which show a club scene with people dancing to the rhythm of the song. In the pod they can then meet and dance with other people who have requested the same song, therefore joining together people with similar music tastes.

Trekabout Progress - Group 2 Meeting Agendas

23.02.2011

On my return from a study trip in Magdeburg, we had a group meeting to further discuss our business proposal. Whilst me and Emilie were away, the rest of the group had changed the idea of our business, and had decided to make a website which would be targeting hillwalkers. It would give them the opportunity to book their hillwalking experiences online, all at once. After explaining this to us, we went on to allocate each person an area to research. Me and Emilie together were to look at the different places to go hillwalking in Scotland, and the accommodation available in each of the areas. We found around five walks for each area and some accommodation to go with them, which ranged from self catering to hotels. I feel that splitting the responsibilities up and giving everyone something to focus on ensured that we moved on quickly with our project without confusions.

24.02.2011

During this meeting we gathered everyone's research together and started to plan the presentation we were going to give. We looked into creating a website for our business and started to think of names for it, as well as different ways we could advertise and make money.

04.03.2011

In this meeting we started to create our presentation. We started to think about how to create the website, and allocated further jobs to everyone. We also started to look into costing more, and tried to figure out what would be a reasonable price for companies to be charged for the use of our website (i.e. advertising on it).

08.03.2011

During this meeting we started to design the website properly, looking into what categories we would put on it (accommodation, walks (including areas to select), profiles, travel, hire equipment, and then the usual contact us, etc). We looked at company values and decided what these would then be (shown on a previous post).

11.03.2011

We looked up some facts and figures abut hillwalking, picking out the main points which would attract people to the activity even if they were new to it, such as the health benefits and weight loss, as well as the experience of the great outdoors. We also created a facebook page and a twitter account, to make our business easily accessible and to build up a greater client list, as they could find it or be recommended it through friends etc.

14.03.2011

We finalised our presentation in this meeting and the people who were speaking went through what they were going to say, to time it and make sure it didn't exceed the 10 minutes.

16.03.2011

This was when we presented our business proposal. It went pretty smoothly, and we managed to keep just inside the allocated time slot (10 minutes) at 9 minutes 58 seconds! We got asked a few questions about our business, but overall it went well.

After the presentation, we finalised our portfolio ready for handing in with our research, development and final idea for our business. It also included photos of us working, mind maps we had created during the thought process and then the various other elements needed including a three year costing plan for our business and our bibliography.

Trekabout

Throughout our meetings we have been developing our business proposal and have now created our business 'Trekabout'.

Trekabout is an interactive, online travel agency for hillwalkers of all abilities that promotes small businesses and nurtures the hill walking community. Customers can create a personal profile on Trekabout that gives others a sense of their abilities and acheivements as a hill walker. Our accessible website is a hub where hill walkers can arrange each part of their trip, from travel and accommodation, to borrowing equipment and recruiting friends to their walk. Personal profiles, forums and photography gallery will spur on new friendships and communications within the hillwalking community and give less competent walkers the chance to find experiences walkers to aid them on their journey.

We respect that the hill walking community are protective of the small businesses and accommodation they use on a regular basis, so Trekabout aims to promote these places and provide them with a regular business but only that are recommended, tries, tested and found to meet our high standards. We want these services to help themselves by helping us, by looking after their customers that will lead the way, rather than our own predictions. It encourages a post-consumerist outlook on life, where people can learn, at little cost, that great experiences can be uncovered right on their doorstep.

Group Meetings

During our meetings this week we have been planning the layout of our slideshow for the presentation, and we have discussed the accounting side of things and planned our costs and expenditure. We discussed some more about our website and the different pages and categories which will be on it.

We looked more at our values and finalised our values:

• celebrating nature as a source of leisure and education
• promoting existing mutual respect within the hillwalking community
• supporting small businesses and towns/villages by drawing in new customers
• encouraging respect, love and appreciation for the outdoors
• always promoting fun, safety and respect within nature
• supporting friendly communication and socialising within an open group where people are expected to help and be helped
• helping a holisitic nature experience for beginners, experienced walkers, families and friends
• personally experiencing walks, accommodation and travel options before recommending them to customers

We also created a facebook and twitter page, to promote our business over the internet more, and to bring together more like minded people.

Scandinavian Architecture

Private Summer House in Sweden, WRB Architects

Through our current studio project, Simulate Stimulate, I have been looking a lot into Norwegian and Scandinavian Architecture. The site I have chosen for my project is in Wormit, a small village in Fife near to Newport-on-Tay. The village has historical connections with Norway, as the Norwegian King (King Haakon VII) stayed in Wormit during World War II, and many Norwegian boats were docked at Wormit Harbour. The local Church of Scotland held services for Norwegian Soldiers during and after the war ended. The King's soldiers painted a mural on the walls of the house in which the King stayed, which is still there today. The Norwegian Flag is still flown in Wormit today.

Rock Blending Summer House in Vestfold, Norway. By Jarmund / Vigsnæs AS Architects MNAL

The traits of modern Scandinavian architecture are very appealing to me, with large areas of glass in most of the buildings, which creates a feeling of being close to the outdoors and the environment. The main material used in many of the designs I have looked at is wood, which creates a natural feel which blends into the natural surroundings of most of the buildings. As Norway is a very sparsely populated country, the space around the buildings is usually fairly large, which i feel is an important part of the success of the architecture. I have included a few photos of some of my favourite scandinavian designs.

Villa Storingavika in Norway, Saunders Architecture

The Edge House, Norway by Jarmund / Vigsnæs AS Architects MNAL

Business Proposal

For the next stage of our Design studies, we have been asked to create a business which would appeal to post-consumers, like the one we created for the previous assignment. Our idea was to create a website for hillwalkers, similar to a package holiday website. This website would provide the opportunity for walkers to search for a route, book accommodation and transport, hire equipment and get in touch with other walkers who are of the same experience as them who may want to join them. We found that although there was walking websites available, most of them only provided links to other websites for accommodation and transport, meaning the user would have to book everything separately. Our website would eliminate this and mean that booking a hillwalking trip would be much easier, quicker, and therefore stress-free.

GIDE 2011

Last week our course travelled to Magdeburg for the 2011 GIDE International event. A number of students from the seven participating countries (Scotland, England, Slovenia, Switzerland, Italy, Belgium and Germany) all attended, and we were put into groups with students from these countries.

Our group went to visit "Experimentelle Fabrik" in Magdeburg, which is a development and research centre which tests products for the 'CE' mark.

"The main project of the Experimental Factory integrates several individual projects which research the development, production, experiments and tests of new innovative products in the field of mechanical engineering. "

We were then asked to design and make a game. After mind mapping in our groups, we came to the idea of 'stepping stones'. We split into smaller groups and each created out own 'stepping stone', before linking them all together to create an obstacle course-like game.

The game was created to be played against another person, with each player having a 'jumping board', which they used to jump from one obstacle to another. At each obstacle the player had to complete the task, pick up a cube from the other end, and then go back through the obstacle before moving onto the next one. The player who collects all four cubes first wins.

Post Consumer Profile - Peter Smith

Our second assignment was to create a profile of a post consumer. To take a different view on this task, we decided to make a facebook profile of what we feel a post consumer would be like:

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001952368482

Peter Smith is a middle aged man, who volunteers for charities like Oxfam. His interests include environmentally-friendly things such as hybrid cars, and he is also into locally produced food, and likes growing his own vegetables in an allotment. Peter enjoys outdoor activities such as hillwalking and cycling, which are not only good for the environment but they also keep him healthy.

Personality test

Individually, our group took part in the VARK personality questionnaire. I found that although the questions were good, some of them were vague, and on a number of occasions I found that my answer was not a straight forward agree or disagree, but that it would depend entirely on the situation. In some circumtances I would agree with the statement and others I wouldn't, it would depend on factors such as the project, the group I was working with and the part I was playing in the groupwork.

My results found that I was moderate in both activist and theorist, however after reading the information about each group, I felt that I was most strongly an activist. This was also what one of the members of my group which I have worked closely with and am friends with thought I was.

For the most part, our group found that quite a lot of the results to the test were a bit wrong and did not fall into the group that they thought they would. Our group found we have a fair mixture of people in different groups, with four activists, one theorist, two reflectors and one pragmatist. I feel that this works well in our group, as a mixture of all the personality groups should be.