Post 07



Rengel's Chapter 7 Summary:

     This chapter focuses on residential design and overall Roberto J. Rengel gives us tips on how to have a successful space planning for this particular type of design, especially for smaller scales and spaces. We have to better understand the dynamics of living in shared spaces, and for that, to start the process, we have to look back and see with our own experience ( the houses/dorms/apartments we have seen or lived) since we are familiar to residential design, and examine what are the preferences and habits of our clients ( we have to make an assessment with them of their needs and ask about their lifestyle).
All of these, especially the assessment will help to establish what kind of furnishings and spaces will need to be provided in order to accommodate the particular functions they needed.

There are some design considerations that are universal too, in the residential design aspect such as dividing the overall space into private (quiet) and public (active) spaces so that the noise is kept in a certain area of the residence, allowing the bedrooms to not have to deal with noise. We also have to design spaces with similar functions together to have a more cohesive plan, and look at the general context of the overall space when it comes to the "good views", "natural light" and exterior noise. Rengel, through this chapter focuses on one particular design recommendation/tip/consideration which is the "economy" part of design.

The economy aspect of design is trying to design a more efficient, simple design without designing unusable portions of rooms and wasting space, by taking advantage of the size of the rooms by combining spaces and by providing short distance between the rooms since "unnecessarily long corridors" need to be avoided.

Plus, what I've learned from this chapter, is that if we mastered planning small residential spaces such as apartments or small houses, we are likely to master the bigger scales. It requires a lot of thinking to design a space that is organized, especially in those types of spaces because it requires to combine a lot of spaces in one room, which makes the arrangement of furniture primordial.

This apartment plan show that the private spaces are enclosed in one side. While the other side show the spaces that are more active. These active spaces interact with each other.

Nussbaumer's Chapter 7 Summary:

     This chapter focuses now on the children. Designing a space for the children in particular, is challenging because they are in a period of fast growth. Plus, not only we have to accommodate according to their age, we also have to accommodate according to their gender. If we do apply this, we are then able to provide for their needs. This chapter, also emphasizes the importance to accommodate and design for every child, in general. Which means, we also have to provide for the disabled ones ( whether it is physical, developmental, cognitive, or learning).

The part that is the most challenging is to accommodate for all stages of childhood to better design spaces that are safe enough for their movements ( roll over, crawl, stand, walk, etc), and for their social and emotional development. There are four different stages:

1. Sensorimotor ( 0-2): discovering their movements and 5 senses.
2. Preoperational (2-7): Understanding concepts, symbols and language
3. Concrete Operational (7-11): Having different point of views and have acquired some logic and common sense.
4. Formal Operational (11+): Changes in how he/she thinks. Acquirement of systematic logic and reasoning a lot more.

It is primordial to give spaces to the children that will encourage positively the development in all 4 stages.