Friday, June 30, 2017

Freddie got it all !

Its exams period and our graduates finishes their graduation project. Thats actually the last time they have to present and share what they have done the last year to friends family and of course to the critical group of docent who supported the students within this busy period.

This is usually not the place to show these projects, but when a student finishes a project that continues a project that was already started in the bucky lab within their first semester its worth mentioning here.

Today Freddie Koch presented her graduation project, in which she continued the recycling of plastic waste. Back then she made a sunshade entirely out of recycled plastic for schools together with her teammates Layla van Ellen and Nico Schouten. Within her graduation project she developed a material / recycling bank joined by a plastic recycling factory in Indonesia / Bandung. The entire building structure is made out of bamboo and the outer facade cladding made out of recycled plastic.

Next to a very clear developed cycle of the material flow and the wonderful design she also build scale and full scale models.

We may get some more pictures later but here already a few impressions about her great day today ...which she finished with a 10 !

Congratulations for this wonderful project and all the best for the future. And of course congratulations also to all the other students who finished the last days.

Her project was supervised by Mo Smit, Paddy Tomesen and Jan Jongert within the graduation studio Intecture of Architectural Engineering.











Monday, June 26, 2017

Ahrend Personal Comfort Zone - Finals

The finals - actually the day we all work towards ...and honestly the day that comes so quickly every semester - no wonder within a full packed and very busy semester - but also the highlight of our semester.

Its the day we come together, see all projects after each other, the day we meet our partners and welcome guests but its also the moment we are able to see what each of the groups learned, understood or had difficulties with. And as usual the finals are also the day we set up our exhibition and are able to see all the projects in a row.

This one was special, not only due to the challenging task thinking about the Personal Comfort Zone but also due to the fact of the scale. We often design a fraction of a facade, something cut out of the bigger picture - still in full scale but most likely not the full thing ...this time it was different. The location was the open office plan- a place every student is already fully emerged into. Sitting together in a crowded open office plan makes every member of our groups already an expert as user. Some actually had chosen to conquer the task to design a new chair - of course a work every architect dream of and most likely has done once - omg and that with Ahrend as a partner - designing chairs for more than 100 years ...

What can we say ...what could have been the most disastrous semester turned actually into the most divers and honestly one of the best up to now. We have never seen the students so engaged, passionated and busy through the entire semester and finally able to keep that pace til the finishing line.

The diversity from a small lamp that also provides air to a seat that allows you to retrieve from the noisy office - all scales were tackled.

At the end our guests from Ahrend which also asked very good questions and started the dialog with the students and our docents during the presentations complimented our projects and the solutions presented.

Some valuable points we like to share :
- always build prototypes, allow to test these from different users
- don't use a chronological order but show already the product and its special qualities in the beginning and explain how you have achieved that by sharing sketches, problems and also failures during this process

And while we usually have to tell the students at the end of each semester that this course is not about the product but about the process we may be wrong this time - some have actually the potential to be further developed and our wonderful journey with Ahrend may not be ended today...

we will stop here, but will show more details about the projects here in the next weeks, but here some impressions of the day and a special Thank you to our guests from Ahrend













Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Ahrend Comfort Zone Bucky Lab groups

and here the groups - thanks for the wonderful projects and the fun we had today !













Ahrend comfort zone - details

here some details













Photoshooting Ahrend Comfort Zone - products

After a long day we are done with the photoshooting of this years semester assignment : the personal comfort zone in cooperation with Ahrend.

here a first glimpse of the products we made, the finals will be next monday starting 14.00