Case Study - Architect of 1890-1930

Kirtland Cutter

For this Case Study, I chose to research Kirtland K. Cutter of the Spokane area. I was very fascinated by the architectural designs that he had done and decided that he was the most interesting architect of the time period that I found. Each case study was given to multiple people to then research and combine graphic design ideas in the poster layouts to allow for the posters to aesthetically match each other. I feel that the partners that I worked with were very good at working with others so organizing and agreeing on a layout design was very easily done and agreed upon. Learning about Kirtland Cutter was interesting and I felt that I learned a lot about the time period which the project I am working on now is based out of as well as Cutter's style of design. Being from the East side of Washington, learning about the architecture and reasons to the design of Spokane was also interesting.

Habitat For Humanity Design Project

In a group of three , we worked to design a home for the Palouse Habitat for Humanity. With an approximate square footage of 1,100, we worked to design a two story, 3 - 4 bedroom home with two bath and the possibility for aging in place. This made for a pretty difficult task as we also had the maximum of a 640 sq. ft. foot print of living space (garage not included) to work with. My partners and I worked on multiple different preliminary layout designs and as a group chose what we thought was the best usage of space and met with a Habitat for Humanity Architect who then told us the positives of our design and the ways we could improve it and we went from there. In the end I felt that we came up with a very efficient design for Habitat for Humanity in a realistic manner in that it could be built for a fairly low cost while meeting requirements for Habitat for Humanity’s financial needs. Sticking to the foot print and roughly to the square footage, sacrificing the cost of a complicated roofing system for a larger square footage, we were able to add in the family room as it saves money in the roofing materials and complicated building systems. For this design, we were able to add in multiple 5 ft. turning radius within the 1st floor plan in order to accompany the possibility of a family member needing to use a wheelchair in the long run. Moving the laundry into the garage and pushing the garage out a few extra feet spared living space within the 640 sq. ft. footprint and allowed for the laundry and bathroom to share water walls. This also led to a shared water wall with the upstairs bathroom saving Habitat for Humanity money in building. To keep with the idea that Habitat for Humanity had to encourage family time and interaction, our group decided to add in the family room and the shared study nook on the 2nd floor. This will encourage the children of the family who lives in this home to study and work together and to have possible game and TV nights together. Our overall design came from the word "roots" as we felt that this home would become the foundation to the new life to come much like the roots of a tree stabilize its growth in time. To come up with our word of roots, we looked at many Habitat for Humanity photographs and made a large list of words that came to mind, varying from love, hope, thankful, life, family, opportunity, all the way to elements like contrast and repetition, we settles on the word roots as we felt is was the strongest word we could work from and said much more about the home itself as well as the family inhabiting it. These are the two final posters which we presented our design with and a photograph of our final model of the home design. Overall, I feel that our group did an excellent job meeting the requirements and keeping the Habitat for Humanity workers and cost in mind as well as the possible home owners. I felt that it was a difficult task handed to us in the beginning, but with reworking the layout and thinking with the client in mind we were able to meet the needs for Habitat for Humanity. I feel that our rendering and hand drafting abilities in this project show our strengths as with the design idea that we came up with in the end.

Street Bean Espresso and Shelter

When I visited the Street Bean Espresso and Shelter, I had a rude awakening for what is out there and what I don’t usually see on a daily basis. Being from such a small town, the idea of having a shelter in the town is unheard of and hearing how common it is in Seattle was pretty striking. When we entered the shelter, I got to see a sense of “home” from a different perspective. Home can mean so many different things to different people and seeing this place as a temporary but profound home to those that need it, was a pretty emotional encounter for me. When you are dealing with a large population like the streets of Seattle, you have to accommodate for the possibility of many residents in the shelter. Being a space for numerous people, you must accommodate to the idea that not everyone has the same tastes, level of comfort, or idea of “home” and with that being said, you must have versatile areas throughout a space in order to comfort the varying personalities to those staying there. Knowing this, as a designer for a residential space, I have to be able to accommodate each client with a space which they feel comfortable in. I really liked that they accommodated in a comfortable fashion, a place for some of their attendees to work across the street and to socialize. It’s almost as if they gave them a home away from home, where they can get away. This is a good idea to keep in mind when designing commercially (like the café).