Kit of Parts Reviews: Blakeni Walls

Blakeni’s concept word was bubble. She brainstormed for ideas for her spaces by creating a list of associative words she linked with the word bubble. The three words she stuck with for her three spaces were “pop”, “child-like”, and “delicate”, in that order.

The conceptual frame for her first space was one of futurism, and real v. the surreal. Her ideas about futurism are carried out well in her minimalist approach to her renderings, of which the sections are most clear. The word “pop” comes into play through the “pops” of color found through out the space against a neutral white background. The conceptual frame for her second space was the idea of an adults’ playground. She uses Marcel Wanders’ Mondrian South Beach hotel as inspiration. The third space she saw as a challenge to herself; trying to make such a large space seem delicate and light. She makes deliberate use of the feelings of floating, hovering, and transparency.

Blakeni brings her ideas to life in her first space by using the two columns to give separation between the bubbles of space she creates by the level change and the transparent frosted glass wall that marks the bathroom area. In her second space she creates a jungle gym of spaces by using her 2 solids to create a lofted space, and a curved bar area. The loft also has a spherical for that emulates, and separates the different activity bubbles. In the third space however, one could argue that it is not necessarily the kit of parts that gives this large space its delicate nature. It is of my opinion that it is the material, and the floating staircase that does this the best. I feel that it is the illusion of the lack of a structural system, and the transparent nature of glass as a material in these 2 elements that make this space work for me.

I feel that the visual presentation on Monday was done well in regard to the spoken portion by the presenter, but lack of varied line weights in drawings made them difficult to read, and t would have been helpful if all three dimensional ideations of the spaces had been complete.