First year review

Upon attending first year reviews this semester, I observed and critiqued Ms. Paige Hohlt in her work and presentation for the writers residence project. In terms of eye catching presentations for starters, it was clear Ms. Hohlt had been studying the famous chair cards assigned to her in her history class (I TA that class) as recognizable chairs showed up in her renderings such as the BRNO chair by Mies Van der Rhoe and also his Barcelona chairs. Sitting down to see something immediately recognizable caught my eye and keep my attention, I thought it was a classy touch. In a first year critique it is tough to evaluate all considerations of the project which would dictate a person actually being able to live in the space, but Paige addressed three considerations that I thought were quite successful. Everything in the space could easily have gone into much more detail such as attention to light and shadow in renderings more so in watching how the designed light would actually hit the space, but she included ceiling height changes to provide a sense of greater coziness in the space. With this, she also added recessed lighting by not carrying the ceiling heights all the way to the edge of the walls. In this I noticed that all of the ceiling height changes were the same however, I would be curious to see how different ceiling heights could add to different feelings in the space as one transitions through the rooms. Perhaps next time taking that into consideration as spaces transition from public to private, how does that affect the feeling of the space, and also how can you manipulate the room to achieve that effect. Reciting that the outside view to the residence were not the most lovely, she addressed her window treatments as well, a small attribute of the presentation that made her stand out from her peers. Built-ins helped define her space instead of an array of organized clutter which I commend her for as well. In terms of overall presentation, it is important to show to the audience all of these fine attributes before questions are asked, so I would recommend really analyzing what to present beforehand closer, the rule of thumb is; if you don't address it, you will probably get asked about it. In this and almost all presentations, there were a lack of labels. This is a good touch to add especially as a viewer, I am trying to connect all of your work together and understanding say were the section cuts were taken and were the perspectives lie without and finger pointing is relatively crucial in my opinion. This is something I have missed myself and seeing it in an others presentation brings even more clarity to how this can confuse the audience. Overall practicing speeches would help greatly, the audience for first year was rather large but she needed to look more at the audience and speak louder. Comments aside, a successful first year presentation in my opinion.