After the Presentation

The other day, I talked about our upcoming research presentation and how I was looking forward to getting more information. And let me tell you--I definitely got information! Although all the presentations were helpful and informative, I think I really learned a lot about demographics. We will be working with a low-income population that lives in a high crime area with public schools that have very low graduation rates. My studio project last semester was sort-of similar in that it was in a low-income urban area (St. Louis, in that case), so in some ways I feel prepared to take this project on. One thing that I find exciting about this project, though, is that St. Louis was a city whose heyday is behind it, although it is still a very respectable (and, if you ask me, pretty darn cool) city with a lot of culture. On the other hand, Las Vegas is in its heyday now. It's exploded with growth in recent decades and is still a place people come to for the tech, service, and entertainment industries.

I also enjoyed the overview of form-based code. Although I expected the presentation to entail some suggestions about what the form-based code will be, it was more about presenting how form-based codes are typically structured. That was really interesting and thought-provoking, so I'm excited to get to the site and see what we can do.

After we gave our presentations, Ken (our instructor) suggested that we critique each other's presentations so that we could get some feedback. Some of the positives people had about my presentation were that it was informative, thorough, and presented in a clear & organized fashion. Of course, that was great to hear, but that isn't typically a struggle for me. As I mentioned previously, I was really trying to challenge myself on the graphics and colors. Everyone seemed to be in agreement that my diagrams were too small, but besides that, I got mixed reviews on the layout. On the one hand, some classmates said it "needs more structure" and has "too much white space," and on the other, I was told it was "clean" and "easy to understand." So obviously, I didn't knock it out of the park quite yet. Color was similarly divided: one person said I had a "good use of color" (yay!) while another said they didn't like the color scheme (bummer!) I played around with the Kuhler color wheel for a long time trying to find good colors before giving up; instead, I took a photo of the iconic "Welcome to Las Vegas" sign and picked four colors out of it, which I used. Apparently, this was only moderately successful! :)

My presentation was about weather and climate, which is incredibly significant to our project. Everything from orientation to program to energy strategies relate to the weather. What materials we choose, where we put our windows, etc. are all directly related to wind, temperature, humidity, and so on.

Our trip to Las Vegas is in only a week and a half! I can't wait to see the site.