At Ohio State University, Mack Scogin Merrill Elam's new Knowlton Hall brings the design process to the larger academic community
The reading for this week is about the architecture design building for Ohio State University. It is a short story about the design of the building, but what I took most from the reading was how the building responded to the clients.
The architects made every effort to ensure that the building functioned as required by the brief, but also to make sure that the spaces were inspiring for the students. I truly believe that they accomplished this. Having looked at the building, it is clear how it would inspire the pupils there. I like very much that they have considered their clients so well and paid so much attention to how to encourage them.
This goes further into the architects having to take into consideration the input of a major donor to the project, who insisted on the use of marble cladding. The reading says that the architects were able to offer various alternative suggestions to the marble cladding as that particular direction would not be especially durable. However, they ended up having to follow the donor's request and subsequently came up with a clever and beautifully elegant way of doing so, using tiles of marble which can be replaced individually.
What I like about this so much is the commitment to both design and the clients that the architects showed here. At this stage in my education, it is often hard to remember that in the future a project will be very focused on what a client would like, not necessarily so much on what I would like to produce. It is important to remember that a client may have their own set of ideas for what they want and that we can rarely produce any design that we would like.
What I have taken the most from with this reading is the importance of remembering who the clients are. This reading has come at a very appropriate time, as my current Design Studio project is to design a school for a specific set of clients. This reading is encouraging in reinforcing the idea of constantly responding to them, and not just my own ideas. The building in this reading is a prime example of how well architects can work to produce astonishing designs when they take the time to consider who the clients are and what they want. I wish to apply such thinking to my own works and will certainly be considering clients and briefs far more in the future.
The architects made every effort to ensure that the building functioned as required by the brief, but also to make sure that the spaces were inspiring for the students. I truly believe that they accomplished this. Having looked at the building, it is clear how it would inspire the pupils there. I like very much that they have considered their clients so well and paid so much attention to how to encourage them.
This goes further into the architects having to take into consideration the input of a major donor to the project, who insisted on the use of marble cladding. The reading says that the architects were able to offer various alternative suggestions to the marble cladding as that particular direction would not be especially durable. However, they ended up having to follow the donor's request and subsequently came up with a clever and beautifully elegant way of doing so, using tiles of marble which can be replaced individually.
What I like about this so much is the commitment to both design and the clients that the architects showed here. At this stage in my education, it is often hard to remember that in the future a project will be very focused on what a client would like, not necessarily so much on what I would like to produce. It is important to remember that a client may have their own set of ideas for what they want and that we can rarely produce any design that we would like.
What I have taken the most from with this reading is the importance of remembering who the clients are. This reading has come at a very appropriate time, as my current Design Studio project is to design a school for a specific set of clients. This reading is encouraging in reinforcing the idea of constantly responding to them, and not just my own ideas. The building in this reading is a prime example of how well architects can work to produce astonishing designs when they take the time to consider who the clients are and what they want. I wish to apply such thinking to my own works and will certainly be considering clients and briefs far more in the future.
Hart, S. (2002). At Ohio State University, Mack Scogin Merrill Elam's new Knowlton Hall brings the design process to the larger academic community. McGraw-Hill.