Design education

I mentioned in my last entry, on the life as a design student is never easy, particularly the life as a Temasek Polytechnic design student.

We have no exams though, haha, go eat your heart out. We just need to do projects and our grades will be graded on how we did on our projects.

Actually in a scheme like this, it benefit the rich people most, where they can pay and hire people to do the work for them. But like all dignified designers, we DESPISE these people. If you want to get the design diploma, jolly well spend good effort on it like we do. Hmmphh.


A typical project begins with a project brief given by the lecturers, then the student will have to come up with the design brief, which came by from a lot of research and reading.

When the design brief is approved, it will follow with MORE research and reading.


In the actual working world, the client outlines what he wants to us, and we compile it into a 'brief'. This 'brief' is in short a requirement list that we need to fulfil. But in school, we are given what my lecturers call 'project brief', and we design students have to come up with the 'design brief'.

Confused? Dont be. =)

In school, usually we will need to learn all different aspects of interior design. Interior design is loosely classified under 'Retail', 'Residential', 'Commercial' and 'Hospitality'. Say the lecturer wants us to do a retail shop design, he is probably going to give us a project brief to say:

"A retail space exhibits, and recalls your inner crave. Create a space of 500 sq ft taking into consideration form, function and experience."

Everytime we receive project briefs, many "WHA KAOs" float in our minds and we slap our forehead in desperation, hoping it register some recognition of the riddle we just received.

Hahaha.

And from this project brief, we will have to come out with a design brief. Because there are no actual clients, we have to play the role of the client as well. Trust me, it is not as easy as you think. You might think that you can put in criteria that you are sure you can fulfil, then there wont be any level of difficulty, but you think the lecturers are stupid meh?

To play the client, we have have to study the client's business. We have to understand the product and we have to understand the history. In short, we will to be playing two roles - one of the difficult client, and one of the brilliant designer.

Hahaha.

We will then write the brief on the following points (inclusive but not exhaustive):
1. profile of client
2. the product
3. the history of company
4. location and site analysis
5. our initial projected direction for project
6. possible theme
7. initial concept (to be developed further upon extensive research)

When this brief is approved by lecturers, we will dive into the library for more research on the product, as well as the theme - say sustainability. These readings and research is labourious and tiring, because we have to wade through piles and piles of books, and swim through million of words, before something struck us as relevant and we can use it in our favour.

Then it will be the site visit. On site, we will take site measurements, site photos, and then we will be on site doing sketching and recording, and afterwards we shall need to compile these into a site presentation board, the first board we will ever finish in a project.

Then we will be doing lots of sketching, in school, on site, at home or during long journey rides. We will also be collecting some mood images to compile into a mood board, and then it will be more and more sketching.


Usually by the third week, we are supposed to have a concept for the space, as well as thought of the architectural changes we are going to do to the space.

We should be having a first draft of a layout done and be ready for the first presentation cum insult session. After many presentations, most of us are quite immuned to our lecturer's sharp tone and fierce words, but the first few presentations in year one was horrendous.

We were basically run down by the lecturers for producing sloppy work, and we've got a lecturer who would slash our presentation boards if the photos pasted are not aligned. To our lecturers, if we cant even paste our site photos in a straight line, what else can he expect of us?

Or he will say things like "This is what you want to show me? I dont want to comment on such sub-standard work."

Ouch. Those work are done through many sleepless nights and built on plenty of readings and research.

Anyway, after the insult session, we will be fine tuning our work, and then we will have to do mock up models. These models are made out of corrugated card boards or acrylics (if we can afford it) or wood pieces (if we managed to pick them up from the industrial waste dump).

These working and reworking will carry on for the next 5 or 6 weeks, then hopefully the whole design in completed by then. We will have around 3 weeks to produce for the final presentation, where we will have to do layouts, elevations, sections, details (which we always didnt do, hee) and detail plans (like the ceiling plans, floor pattern plans.)

We will also have to do 3D visual modeling using computer softwares which will take us 2 weeks on its own. Final models have to be 1:100 scale, instead of 1:200 scale, and that means the model is humongous, and we will have to do it in school.

Oh, how can I forget about the material sample board? We have to collect the materials the we want to use in our designs and usually this result in a lot of begging at the interior decorators' shops, or at the supplier's company.

And last but not least we will need to do a powerpoint presentation to aid our presentations, or if we are extremely busy, we will have to rehearse our presentation over and over again. Because without the aid of a ppt, we might not be able to talk coherently and the flow of the presentation might be affected. (We cannot carry notes in hand, in case you want to ask.)

When the presentation is finally over, we will indulge ourselves in a day's sleep, and maybe a day's shopping or catching up with friends or coursemates (you will be surprised at the low level of interaction during our individual projects - all of us are merely zombies pacing the studios.)

After these 2 days of well-deserved break is taken, what do we do next?

Guess?

Guess?

No need lah, we will just continue to do other projects and continue to go without sleep. Hahaha. =)