IDEATION

Design Thinking

What does design thinking mean to me?

How am i using it for this project and future projects?

Design thinking is seeing things in more detail. It is when you notice things most people wouldn't. It is not just in the way they look but how they work and effect other people. It is how thing affect their surroundings. Design thinking is taking inspiration from these details and and manipulating it into something that works best for the purpose you intend for it.

People can all be connected in many ways. Most of the time it is spacial design that is most effective for this. For this project, and future projects, the main focus is the directing people through a comfortable space that is built most functionally for it's intended purpose. In this project we've decided to do this by creating a more comfortable space where people don't feel threatened or intruded upon. In a comfortable space people are more willing to be social. The main purpose for the gateway plaza project is to create community but without the tenants having a comfortable communal space for them to socialize they will not spend time outside of their apartments.

Pulling it together

Design Problem Definition:

Create a social Oasis that combines a General store/restaurant encompassed by atriums.

Concept Statement:

Design a co-op General store that promotes socialization and a sense of community through residential interaction of the Greenhouse/Atrium, and slow foods cookery. Space will be defined by large planters, cobble stone pathways and tranquil garden styled elements.

Sketches

User needs for immigrants:

Jobs/Income

Open, clean spaces

Large spaces (to allow for family)

Language barrier resolutions

Access to food

Familiarity

Inclusion

Precedent Collage

RELEASE

In order to foster community between elderly people, immigrants and college students we made hte second floor into a green house where the tenants in this building can grow vegetables and then sell them themselves at the co-op that will be next door. It's gonna be a great system. we have a lot of other peices to it that's gonna make it perfect for jobs and people getting to know each other and it helps them be green and sustainable.

The way that we've decided to bring people together on neighborhood C's second floor is by creating a greenhouse system with connecting eating area and food co-op. In this area all of the tenants will be offered volunteer and job opportunities. They will be given the choice to work in the co-op or help grow and harvest the produce that is being grown in the greenhouse. They can watch their plants grow and sell them or eat them themselves.

By creating a opportunity for people such as this we are giving people nearby jobs and limitless opportunities to meet their neighbors.

Release is meant by the way you feel when you feel when you enter the space and experience this exterior environment on the interior. You get a sense of being in a different place and escaping your everyday routine. It also applies to the way plants grow, releasing into full bloom.

Vegetable Studies

When i researched the way that produce is grown i found these images that show different environments in which vegetables thrive.

The image bellow shows the layers of soil that will help the produce to grow to their healthiest.