Final design

Wall solution

This is the wall I have come up with for the area which had no wall. It is influenced by the vine structure and branches of a tree. However I did not want the structure to obviously look like a tree trunk holding up the 'tree canopy' roof, so I tried to make the structure look a bit geometric. This contrasted nicely with the more natural style of the rest of the office.

I continued the vine effect up through the roof (perspex planes), to create a bit of reality to the roof structure. This shows how the roof is held up and also creates a tree effect.

The wall also provides me with a space to hang my TV from - it streams a Youtube video about a kitchen design, it is something which I found while looking at my Info-Link Journal. It is quite futuristic in the way it is presented, which I find compliments my office well - old meets new.

View from the office

The view from my office towards the water is serene and peaceful, which is the mood I wanted my office to provoke. This mood one experiences at my office is what I believe to be good for making business decisions and negotiating.

Link to blog

I added a link in my office to my blog. This is so that people in my office can see what I am working on. It is placed on the stone arch and I made it out of a blue material so that it stands out in my office. This is so that people will notice it and look at my blog :D

I made it the same material as my teleportation pad.

Weather protection

I have decided that I need to have a roof or some form of weather protection for my office. To be in keeping with my 'natural' style I have produced - I have decided to make a roof which will look like a tree canopy. So, I made an alpha channel material which looked like tree leaves and I layered them up in Second Life to make the structure appear more like a tree.

The 'actual' material of the roof would be (like the wall) transparent perspex with the tree leaves pattern printed onto it. This will create a better weather protection than not having a roof at all (obviously!) which is actually what I was considering but I realised that not having some form of roof wouldn't be functional. However, the roof I have placed on my office is not fully weather proof. I wouldn't consider my office as an 'all weather venue', I see it more as a meeting place when the weather is good.

I felt that using a natural form (like the tree) wouldn't distract too much attention from my overall design - i.e. I didn't want my roof to be the main feature.

Teleportation Pad

I have made a teleportation pad which teleports avatars to my office. It has 'touch to teleport to my office' written above the object itself - and so its pretty self explainable as to what the avatar has to do to teleport - touch it! :D

I have placed the teleportation pad in another area of Putahi so that the teleportation is worth while, not just moving a few steps.

Wall dilemma

So, I have one of my walls sorted (first two images below) but I need another wall design. I was thinking of keeping the same style of wall as the one I already have. But I found as the environment around the space where the new wall will go is different to the wall I just put in, I think that I will need to have a different style (or atleast modify the style I have now so it will work).

Space where I need to place a wall/division of some form

Walls

I felt that my office needed some form of wall/division so that if could be clearly seen, and there was some form of separation from the surrounding environment and the office itself. However, I didn't want my office to be a closed in or 'boxy' as I want people, to some degree, to interact with the natural environment around them while they are in my office (i.e. hear, see, smell, and in some cases touch). Hence why I didn't want to put in rigid walls in - closes off the potential person-environment interaction. This was a bit of an issue for me, as I needed to find the balance between the limit at which a wall isn't considered a wall anymore and the amount of interaction I wanted the occupants to have with the surrounding environment. Here I am referencing my Research Design Connections Journal, as they published a quote that stated 'how people interact with the man made buildings and the natural environment'. I found this quote very interesting, and it has influenced my design a lot so far as I am thinking about how people would interact with the space I am creating.

My first attempt at making the wall. In theory it could work, but visually there was something wrong with it. It didn't work.:

I tried moving the wall I had made onto the other side, but even then - it visually did not look right.

So I decided to manipulate the wall a bit, and I came up with this design which is now one of the walls of my office. It gives the appearance of a division without excluding what is beyond the boundary all together.

- NB: materials for 'actual' design would be coloured perspex (i.e. transparent perspex with the green vine pattern printed onto it) and white/light silver hexagonal wire netting.

Night Shot

This night shot, shows the lamp that I have added to my design. I think that I might add a script to it so that it can change colour as it will create a bit of excitement and interest to my design.

I have also added steps which lead to the water. I came up with this solution when I was thinking about how my office will interact with the natural environment around it. As well as creating more seating spaces (if desired people can sit there and look out onto the water) this solution has created a smooth transition from my office floor to the water below.

However, at the moment my office looks a bit Caveman meets old Roman Bath ruin. So I think I may need to work on the design a bit..

Progressing the design

Floor and part of the seats have been added to the design

This shows how I intend people to sit in my office. They can sit anywhere along the 'L' shaped seat.

I was considering placing seats opposite the large 'L' shaped sofa, but I realised that as I was using a small space - the whole office would be taken up with seats and would make the area feel and look very cramped. So I decided on keeping the one seating area.

Floor design

To be in keeping with the rustic look I have started with the arch entrance, I decided to make a ground texture which had the same feel to it. The material I made looks like a large marble tile with engravings on it. The engravings are actually part of a hand-drawn construction drawing - hence why they look a bit 'rough'. I manipulated the image on photoshop so that the drawing itself wasn't so obvious as I didn't want the connection to myInfo-Link Journal to be so literal.

Archway

I decided I wanted my office to have quite a rustic entrance. Taking references from my Art and Archaeology Technical Abstracts Journal, I came to the conclusion that I would use an old stone arch. I have done this because the Arch structure has been used for 1000's of years, Ancient Roman architecture is a good example of this and many of the arches built by them are still standing strong till this day.

Showing views of the two faces of the arch

- I made this arch using photoshop alpha channels.

What is an office?

So, what is an office?

"A room, set of rooms, or building where the business of a commercial or industrial organisation or of a professional person is conducted."

"A room assigned to a specific person or a group of a person in a commercial or industrial organisation"

There are different spaces within an office; areas where the client's can see (i.e. reception areas, negotiation/meeting rooms) and areas where the clients can't see (i.e. employee's workspaces, the 'break' rooms/kitchen areas).

I am going to be designing an office space which focuses on the meeting/negotiation aspect of a professional office (e.g. law firms or accountants). The clients will be able to come and discuss their projects with their professional in an intimate and relaxed environment. Meaning that the client will not be limited in where they are able to go in my office (i.e. no areas which they can't go/explore). As I want my office to be intimate, it will be relatively small compared to some of the other offices on Putahi - I don't see this as a bad thing though :)

New Design

I have realised now, after doing more research into my journals, that my office currently doesn't represent them very well. So - I can either continue changing the office I currently have, or I can start again with the new knowledge and ideas I have got from reading into my journals more. I think I will go with the latter option, it does mean I will have to start fresh, but I think that as I researched more I will have a greater sense of what I want my office to look and feel like.

The ideas I am considering pursuing:

• Merging the old with the new - i.e. have old stone (maybe ruins?) buildings with new glass facades. This could be difficult to pull off successfully - but not impossible ;) - Could also incorporate videos/film as the 'modern' aspect.
• How people interact with the manmade building and the already existing natural environment - i.e. water and land
• Restoring vs. Weathering. i.e. conservation (preserving) vs. what will the building look like in 50-100 years time. I reckon this could be really effective, i.e. to design something which has the sense that it has already aged - of course the design would be what I personally predict would happen (i.e. weathering, like everything to do with nature is unpredictable), so probably wouldn't be what actually happens in real life - but I would try my best :D

Journals

While I was researching my journals, I found that they all had websites. This helped me a lot as I could research the contents of the journals wherever I wanted! (i.e. not just in the library)

My first journal, Art and Archaeology Technical Abstracts, is a collection of more than 100,000 'abstracts of international conservation literature'. These abstracts cover topics from the more general issues in conservation to things like history, ethics and policy of architectural preservation or to the more specialised topics like building materials, processes of deterioration and treatments used on materials to prevent them from degrading.

http://aata.getty.edu/NPS/

Another one of my journals, Info-Link (New Zealand and South Pacific: Quarterly Review of Architectural, Interior Design and Construction Products), is basically a directory for the architecture, building, construction and design sectors. On their website, Info-Link provides a 'comprehensive central online source containing the latest product, company and industry news updates'. They also make it very easy for the site users to locate the goods and/or services they require from specific product and service areas.

http://info-link.co.nz/

Australia also has an Info-Link (Australia's Architecture, Construction and Design Directory). The intention of the Australian Info-Link is similar, if not the same as the New Zealand one - as they want to promote products and services to design and building professionals (i.e. Architects, Designers, Builders, etc). They have a website which explains the magazine's intentions more clearly than the New Zealand one.

http://www.infolink.com.au/

My last journal, Research Design Connections (RDC: The knowledge tool to create great places), is a magazine based on research. RDC has recognised that it is becoming more and more important to base design decisions on 'rigorous research'. Within this journal, high-quality recent research is translated from scientific notes into everyday language so that their (RDC's) subscribers can understand and learn of the new information.

http://www.researchdesignconnections.com/