2012 national competition project #180 | cafeteria redesign: Recent activity

Good problem statement. Remember you can also suggest what your approach or goal is. Such a design brief provides you with a clear target and when you have finished each phase you can always come back to confirm if you are still on track.

The video is very effect, and I see you have given us some different views in this phase, though the design itself has not evolved any. Also while renderings are important for describing the built environment, orthographic views are equally important, so I would expect to see plans and sections also in the final design presentation (as well as earlier).

The fence between the seating area and road provides a nice buffer, as well as having it raised. The next step could be to consider whether any shading of the outdoor eating area would be desired, and whether you want to achieve that through canopies, trees, or other means.

You have definitely opened up the entry between serving and dinning, replacing the columns with an arch. How does the current serving area function? How is the equipment laid out? Is their any problems of congestion within that space itself? Its layout is not clear here, as it appears empty.

You have taken good photos that illustrate the spaces well, except it would also have been helpful to have taken photos while the cafeteria is in use and filled with students so that potential problems or challenges are documented better.

Studying the site plan at this phase is terrific. For the sake of those not familiar with your school it could be helpful to indicate on the site plan where the current cafeteria is located and also make the north arrow more evident.

Very well done. You have lots of opportunities still to define color and materials but you have walked us through a lot of design development. I would have loved to see more sketches and models (no physical models is always a problem in my mind since you are creating space). The computer is good but working in real materials at a defined scale, especially in the beginning, is better. My last comment would be this: add all of the design ideas into a final fly through- take us from beginning to end much like a student moving through and using the space. And also one last question- what happens when the weather is cold or rainy?

This image could have gone sooner and would have provided some human scale to the proposed desk eating area. The figures provide such useful context in understanding scale.

Very nice job. It's great to see you thinking about your CAD model as a tool for explaining the various aspects and views of the proposed space.

Again, very effective usage of fly through to let us really know where we are in space!