// FREE RANGE ART & DESIGN SHOW

Myself and my fellow Interior Design graduates at the Glasgow School of Art will be taking part in the Free Range Art & Design show in the Old Truman Gallery in London during 14th to 18th July. This will be a great chance to see what other interior design courses present in the exhibition - hopefully the Art School comes out best. I'm looking forward to getting back to the City, it will hopefully be my new home in the near future.

For the Free Range website click here.

A little bit about what I do...

Click here for some info about me.

Visit Scotland Hotel Project

Our first major Interior project in 3rd year was set by Visit Scotland, the tourism board for Scotland. Our brief is to redesign a hotel, either in a rural or urban location, in a way which conveys Scottish heritage & culture. We are to interpret our ideas into the Interior of the hotel.
There are two possible sites for the hotels:
the urban site - currently the EuroHostel at the Clydeside
the rural site - the Loch Fyne Hotel & Spa in Inverary
Both hotels are currently 3star. We were each given the task of designing either a 3 star or 5 star hotel.
I got 3 star rural!

Concept
As i had the rural hotel I considered the fact that guests would spend alot of their stay exploring the outdoors. The hotel faces the Loch and has countryside surrounding it. The small village of Inverary has one main street with gift shops. There are 2 other hotels/guest houses in Inverary. The Loch Fyne Hotel is the only one with a spa.
So, considering that guests would spend most of their day walking/driving/exploring, I imagined they would like a place to rest their feet and relax in some cozy surroundings. The idea of "home" came from this. It is said that Scots are incredibly hospitable so I wanted to create a space in which everyone felt at home. Somewhere they could relax and feel comfortable in their surroundings, unlike some hotel experiences where there seems to be a behavioural etiquette.
I also wanted to use traditional Scottish materials, but use them in new ways - to modernise it and show that Scotland is a fashionable and design conscious place.

inspiration














This image reminded me of the idea of home - it's cozy, it's lived in, it's a collection of different 'stuff'.









Again, this image shows how a persons collection of random objects are put together to give a home identity. Each piece isn't planned, but it fits the purpose for the space.


















I collected alot of images of homes with photographs. These give a space personal identity and, again, remind you of home. In my hotel these frames could hold photos of the area - letting the residents see snapshots of the area history.

Third Year/Project 1

brief: "You are halfway through your course. It's time to take stock, to reflect on the design process and on your own ability to deal with it. You can improve your own performance if you analyse it, indentify your strengths and weaknesses - and then deal with the weaknesses.

"Make 2 diagrammatic drawings, one describing the qualities you think essential in the making of a good interior and one describing the design process."

initial responses

Design Process: My first thought was that the design

process is a journey. You have a starting position (project brief) and a final destination (design outcome). I recognised that I had my own common approach to each project but these could take many form ie. routes. And that I often require direction along the way.

I found a map which I thought suitable for describing this "design journey".

It begins with the brief, and from that point I branch out into the first ideas the brief has sparked. At this stage there is alot of trial and error involved to find an appropriate solution to the brief, and once it has been found it can evolve rapidly - combining both function/practicality with creative/innovative ideas.

The dashed lines describe the vague ideas that happen along the way that quickly dissolve.

Qualities for Good Design: During our first discussions the question was raised "is an interior good purely because alot of people like it?" This made me re-think my initial ideas, as originally I thought about the different components which lead to a "successful" interior ie. light, materials, textures.

But this didn't seem to answer the question brought up in the first review. I tried to think how an interior could attract a mass market and how it should provide some experience for each person entering. This is where my idea for "challenging the human senses" came. I remembered how certain smells, sounds, textures could remind you of past experiences and i thought that if you can connect to the viewer this way then you can make some sort of lasting impression which they will remember.

Team 2 Detail

Brief: Take pictures of interesting details/ materials meeting other materials/ joins

I found an example of copper folding to create a wall/ surface covering in The Lighthouse.

The copper appeared to have been moulded into shape around the existing concrete walls.

Detailed images show how the copper had been folded in such a way that it kept it's shape around the concrete with no evidence of welding or any other form of fusion to the concrete surface.

We considered how the copper could keep such close contact with the flat surface of the copper - if the copper was bent round the concrete in-situ then it would try to pull its edges back into it's original flat state.

I attempted to recreate the folds with paper to display how certain folds can force the metal to hold it's (new) manipulated shape.

As I tried to fold the paper round the solid surface, the paper would pull itself back out of the shape and would not sit flush against the surface.