Week 2-Day 1 9th April 2018

During the morning I spent my time finishing off the job I was working on last week on Friday which was creating a dressing room/walk in wardrobe. To finish off the job I finished dressing the room by adding clothes, shoes, bags etc onto the shelves and rails, and then after I had finished dressing it I then created a set of renders of the dressing room from different angles so that once I have photoshopped the images to make them clearer and crisper I can create a final photoset of this job. Now that I have completed a job from start to finish by myself I am really happy with the work I have been able to produce so far and I am looking forward to completing more jobs like this as the week goes on as well as looking forward to working on my own independent project and being able to design everything from start to finish with no restrictions. At the moment I am still finding the process of dressing a room a bit difficult and tedious as gauging the positions of different items with the room is still appearing to be quite difficult.

During the afternoon, I began my independent project that I had been set by the team. The team thought it would be best for me to start my individual project during the second week as I have now had a weeks training on their software systems which means I am now able to proceed with my individual project independently, as I myself now feel that I know enough about how to use the software systems and I am more than comfortable enough to use them on my own. The brief I was given for my project is to design a contemporary library/TV lounge. To begin with I took to Pinterest to find inspiration for colour schemes, room size/layout, furniture etc. Then from the photographs I had found for inspiration that fit with the ideas I had in my head I then started my design by doing some quick sketches for how I want certain pieces of my furniture to look such as my library wall and TV board, and then also sketching out the the shape and size of my room. Once I had a finalised idea that I was happy with I then proceeded to build my library wall and TV board in SketchUp as this meant I was able to build a completely unique set of furniture for my room. I had also decided that I wanted the back wall of my room to be all windows including a set of patio doors and that I also wanted a sloped ceiling so I also had to build both of these two items in SketchUp. Once I had built all four items in SketchUp I then coloured each material on each item a different colour so that once I was ready to put them into ArtiCAD I could easily identify each section and apply the material/texture/colour that I desired to that section. Even after the first initial reading of the brief I was excited to start this project as I liked the sound of what I was being asked to design, as well as, the challenge of designing something that fit a brief that has so much free rein. I was also really pleased with myself that I managed to build a ceiling slope, windows/patio doors, and two pieces of furniture in SketchUp by myself as SketchUp has always been a software system that I have rather struggled with at times.

To ensure that all of my pieces of furniture, windows/patio doors, and the slope ceiling were to scale and the right size I drew up a quick floor plan in DraftSight to figure how big I wanted my room and what shape I wanted my room so that I could then make sure all my SketchUp items were the correct size and to scale. Now that I had the floor plan figured out I then went onto ArtiCAD and built the floor plan for my room in their so that I would then be able to drop in my furniture and start building and dressing the room so that I could produce a set of renders.

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Week 2-Day 2 10th April 2018

During the morning I finished off building some of my SketchUp models as I had some issues and difficulties when building my windows/patio doors and my library wall so their were a few tweaks to be made to make sure that everything was correct and perfect for when I dropped them into my ArtiCAD plan. Figuring out these items and getting everything to work correctly with each other was at times difficult so building these two took me longer than I had expected. After I had finally figured out all the kinks and had finished building the library wall and patio doors/windows I then coloured each section that would be a different texture/colour/material a different colour so that once these items were in SketchUp I could easily identify which section was going to be certain materials. Due to these two items having their complications I had a less productive day and this is all I was able to do which I found rather frustrating and I was also a bit disappointed in myself for not being able to get more done. Due to not being able to get much done today I did find the day to bit slow and boring but that was all down to the facts that I had to do a lot of bak and forth between SketchUp and ArtiCAD to make sure that everything was drawn to the right size and that everything fit correctly and figuring out these little issues took me longer than I had expected.

Week 2-Day 3 11th April 2018

During the morning I made some last minute, final adjustments to my library wall model and to my patio doors/windows and once I was finally happy with the final outcome I then went onto building my floor plan in ArtiCAD. To do this I started by building the external walls at 6800mm x 7200mm, including an arch way on one of the walls that was set at 2000mm wide and 2000mm high and finally I set the ceiling height which due to me including a sloped ceiling was set at the highest point of the slope which was 3500mm from the floor. Once I had the walls built for my room I then started dropping in the furniture I had built in SketchUp into my room and positioning them in my room. I started off with my library wall and TV board as these were the easiest the position correctly as it was just a case of dropping them in and putting them up against the wall. I then moved on to adding the patio doors/windows and sloped ceiling which took a little bit more time to position correctly as I had to make sure the slope of the ceiling was going up in the right direction, that the windows/patio doors were the right way round and that they were all butted up together correctly so that their were no gaps in the ceiling.

Once I had the structure of my room built and the furniture in I then started to have a play around with the colours/textures/materials of furniture, walls, ceiling and floor. I wanted to have quite a neutral colour scheme as I believe this would complement the room I was building better and would give a more aesthetically pleasing finish; therefore, I went with a colour scheme that consisted of black, white and grey to give a minimalistic appearance. The main material I decided to use was the woodgrain 'Black Anthracite' on both my library wall and TV board. However to create some contrast because this is quite a dark material I had some of the back panels of my library wall in white paint with some integrated lighting and the cupboards on my TV board a glossy white and grey. I then moved on to adding colours/textures/materials to the rest of my room by having all white walls and ceiling and putting glass into the windows with black window frames which I believe gives the windows a clearer and more modern vibe. So far I have been really enjoying doing this project I had been given as not only has it been fun to do a project from start to finish I have also very much enjoyed having the free rein to create what I want in my style and to my liking with no restrictions. I am really looking forward to seeing where this project of mine will go and how it will look as a final outcome when I have completely finished.

After this I then wanted to add some light to the room by adding some down lights into ceiling, however I discovered that their is no real way to do this in ArtiCAD on a sloped ceiling; therefore, I had to go back to SketchUp and draw the down lights directly onto my model and then drop the ceiling back into ArtiCAD. So far I have really enjoyed this project even the challenging parts as I have actually enjoyed learning how to fix and overcome the challenges and problems I have faced whilst trying the create furniture in SketchUp and a photoset on my own.

Week 2-Day 4 12th April 2018

During the morning I continued to figure out how many down lights I needed in my ceiling, where to position them and then proceeded to build them into my sloped ceiling. After this I was then able to drop my new ceiling into ArtiCAD and colour the lights; the outside being chrome and the inside being white and to then get this to appear like a light on a render I then had to go into the settings of the colour and set it to lit appearance. To create even more light in the room I added a scene behind the windows by adding a 'cube' behind them and putting a layer on top of it that had a scene on it that looked like a back garden on a summery day and then edited the sun light levels that came into the room by changing the position and intensity of the sun which created a lot more light in my room and gave my renders a more realistic appearance.

To create further light and realism I quickly built another room off of the arch way and added some down lights into the ceiling of this room. After I had all the structure of the room built, the lighting improved and the furniture pieces that I had built positioned and coloured in my room I then went on to dressing the room. I started off with the library wall as I knew this was going to take the longest due to the size of this piece of furniture and how much had to go in it to dress it. This was a very time consuming process so I had only managed to dress the library wall and TV board during the afternoon so hopefully I will finish dressing the rest of the room tomorrow so that I am able to begin producing renders the following week. Again, as with every room I have dressed so far I have found this to be a rather time consuming and tedious process and now that I have done it a few times I can say that it hasn't been something I have particularly enjoyed doing just because of how tedious it can be. However, it is a process worth doing and it is one that is worth doing right as when I have come to render different jobs I have worked on, dressing the room well really makes a big difference to how good and realistic the jobs look.

Week 2-Day 5 13th April 2018

During the morning I continued to dress the room I had built and designed by concentrating on the middle section of the room by adding more furniture such as a sofa, chairs, rugs, coffee table and more. Due to the size and scale of my room I was able to really play around with a lot of different furniture and add large, contemporary and interesting pieces into my room. I contained with the minimalistic appearance and the colour scheme of black, white and grey throughout my furniture to tie my whole room together as this gave my living room a more modern and contemporary look which I personally prefer and is also exactly what I wanted to achieve. However, to create a bit of colour and contrast I did add some chrome finishes to different items in the room, as well as, having some of the ornaments placed on the shelves on the library wall different colours, and also having the rug a white and blue pattern and finally adding an indoor plant for some extra life and colour. The final item I added into my room was a ladder and ladder rail onto my library wall as due to the height of certain sections one would be needed to reach the highest sections.

Now that I had completed dressed the room and was happy with how everything looked together, my room is now ready for renders which I shall produce next week as their is not enough time to create a complete render today in the highest level of HD due to the size and scale of the room I am rendering. For the rest of the afternoon I made a start on drawing up my plans and elevations in DraftSight.

Now that I have completed my project I can say that I have really enjoyed the brief and task I was set with as although at times I did find challenging, I was always able to overcome these problems either on my own or with the help of the team who have been absolutely amazing whilst I have been here. I have also enjoyed how creative this brief has allowed me to be as their wasn't many restrictions as to what I could design which really allowed me to create something in my style. So far whilst here I also feel like my skills in the software systems I have been introduced to, in particular SketchUp have really improved and my confidence in using these independently has really grown a lot in these two weeks. I have also really impressed myself this week as when I was set the brief the team gave it me at the beginning of this week so that I would have two weeks to complete it from start to finish on my own as they thought this is how long it would take me but I am really happy and impressed with myself as I have been able to get it all done within a matter of a few days.