miharagavisajayawardene-blog

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After half a century in business, the famous designer Mario Buatta designed this English country- house in America, after waiting for so long he published his first masterpiece. 

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Can never say no! Its always a new experience and we have to enjoy every bit of it. Always new ideas, it never gets too old. Question for What makes you a designer? 

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The group project we did for module DE1166. We were asked to design a chair as a group and we designed a couples chair. With the inspiration of Roy Lichenstein and Phillip Stark. We choose one of each work. The brushstroke painting and Masterschair. And we decided to make it a couples chair was because Roy Lichenstein is a romantic person. We submitted a presentation board and a model. 

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My Exhibition Model

This is an on going process of my exhibition model, which i’m doing the Galle Lighthouse. It was an easy decision to make about what historical building I was going to do but the hard part was, the marking not as easy as it looks. I experimented with different kinds of materials and finally came up with plaster of paris. 

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An open very nature of looking space. With wooden flooring and walls. Gives a very comfortable feel to it. Which lets in alot of natural light. 

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Cresent Moon Tower

This is another hotel which is currently under construction in Buka, Azerbaijan. The construction started in October 2009, is told to be done by 2017. Its not only a hotel but a shopping mall, office and residential. 

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Burj Al Arab 

A luxury hotel in the Dubia, United Arab Emirates and is third tallest hotel in the world. It’s an artificial island which is been connected to the mainland. The architectural appearance of the building is a mimic the sail of a ship. Which was completed in the year 1999. The architect was Tom Wright WKK architects. 

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Leaning tower of Pisa 

This is a free-standing bell tower of the cathedral of the Italian city of Pisa. The architecture of this building is Bonanno Pisano. And the architectural style is Romanesque. Which was complete 1372 made out of marble and stone. 

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A room cannot be a space with the natural light coming in. Thats what gives more energy to a room! Thats why they say, there always should be a window otherwise you will live in the darkness! 

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TAJ MAHAL!!

Meaning Crown of the Palace, place in the Indian city of Agra in the Yamuna River is a white ivory marble mausoleum. It was built in the year 1632 by the architect Ustad Ahmad Lahauri. But int he request of Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan. Has traditional design of Persian and Mughal architecture. Its 73 meters (240 ft). 

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This our cycle of any project we do!! Like i said before about my retail project its always a rough happy ending!!! Life of designers i must say...

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This is something everyone should live on! I believe our home is one way we express who we really are, an as interior designers its our duty to study our clients and see what exactly they want and what exactly will suit them. We should be aware and alert, because remember we have to satisfy them and their needs not what we want... We must always respect them and help them express themselves through their house the way we express our selves through design.

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Arts and Crafts Movement

Well I have picked this topic to write about in my final VA module submission. So i decided to talk about it and share abit about on my blog too. 

Arts and crafts movement was a decorative and fine arts that began in Britain and went around Europe and North America between the years 1880 and 1920s. It stood for traditional craftsmanship. But it was a strong influence on arts in Europe, this continued among designers, craft makers, and town planners. One of the people who inspired this idea was William Morries. His work became famous and interesting. He has won many awards as an interior designer. 

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This is the famous ‘Egg chair’ of Fritz Hansen. This chair was designed with Arne Jacabson in the year 1958. Something which is similar to this is the Swan chair. This was first displayed in the Radisson SAS Hotel in Denmark. Therefore, this chair was original manufactured in Denmark. The materials which were used for this was a steel frame and fabric cover. With the height about 107cm and width of 87cm and depth of 75(95)cm.

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Geoffrey Bawa!! One of the most inspirational architects i know and have learned about. Alittle bit about Geoffrey Bawa, he was a Sri Lankan architect and was one of the most influential architect in whole of Asia during his generation. But i must say he hasn’t only influenced his generation which was 1919 but has influenced my generation. His work is just completely different and globally he is known as ‘tropical modernism’ . Bawa was a person who loved nature he never let the nature die in the surrounding of his buildings, if you look closely you can see atleast one tree in any of his work. He was person who loved nature and always gave the naturalistic looks in his architecture. Thats what i love about his work. 

He has a wide range of work he has done specially in Sri Lanka and till date it’s been open for the tourist. But his work his in known in India, Pakistan, Singapore, Fiji, Japan, Indonesia. He has worked on houses, hotels, clubs, schools, offices and government buildings.

Some of his famous work are- Seema Malaka, Parliment of Sri Lanka, Kandalama Hotel, Lunuganga Bawa’s House, University of Ruhuna, Club Villa Hotel Bentota. 

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Helvetica is actually a very famous font in the design world, which designed by the swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger. Its a widely used typeface which was designed and developed in the year 1957. Although it was created in the 19th century, it became famous and worldwide only in the 20th century. There are a few characteristics of this narrow t and f, squaring- looking s, rounded off square tail of R, bracketed top flag of 1, concave curved stem of 7, quite tight spacing between letters and the list goes on. This doesn't only exist in English but in other alphabets too. For example- Latin, Hindu, Hebrew, Greek, Japanese, Korean, Urdu etc. 

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A rough happily ever after.

Come on its story time!! Yes, a story through the most challenging adventure I have done yet in the design world, it’s not really a fairytale but must say a rough happy ending. Well then let me start, our favourite lecturer Kike briefed us on 13th March 2017 on what our 5 outcomes were at the end of this adventure, we had to be done by the 8th of May 2017 mind you before 12:00pm. And he went on listing… first one was model (oh well, we have made one before that should be easy) but… not just a model, but a model with proposed scheme/layout, second one a development and research pack of 45+ (oh no what are we to write for that many pages), third one was concept 3D models (What does that even mean?), forth one was 2 A2 printed presentation sheets which had to include rendered plan and section, rendered external elevation( window display and signage), sketches (minimum of both display and signage), narrative, brand logo and material specification (at this point I was completely lost), but that’s not it there’s one more which was included in the retail project but graded for another module (at this point I was completely lost I didn’t even know where to start). So he gave us the option of picking our own companies and I picked Desigual. So we kicked off with our work, our favourite lecturer told us on 24th of March 2017 to finish 10 pages of our development book with 3 days which he would like to review on 27th March 2017, well that wasn’t so bad I mean we good a review and an idea on what he wanted and how we could improve. Well then the day couldn’t get any better by the 31st of March 2017 Kike wanted to see 30 pages of our development book and to come up with our concept too. (So many things running in our heads, how are we going to finish all this? what are we going to include in our development book? So many questions were running in our heads). Well, at this point I had to start researching about this company. The only thing I knew about Desigual was it was colourful and with a lot of patterns. But as I went in depth about this it was interesting. I felt like this was a company that I could easily use to express my ideas in the design world. So I went along researching more and more about the company I started to get ideas about their uniqueness and how they differentiate from all the other companies. Their main aim is to make their customers feel comfortable, and to atleast put one outfit in each wardrobe because it was able to be worn by anyone and make anyone feel beautiful. What attracted me most was their uniqueness and how they think about their customers and not about earning money. So, like I told I did my research and started on my development book (I didn’t think I’ll have so many ideas at the end of the day). So as it went on I started getting ideas for my concept. The word that hit me was ‘UNIQUENESS’. What is so unique in this world? What can you differentiate from everything else? And what hit me was ‘NATURE’. Just to let you at this point of the adventure it seemed so easy, what I had in my mind was I got this I can do this! I could just finish everything in a blink of an eye with only 2 weeks left! I know what was I even thinking when I had a lot more to do. So back to the story, I picked out the word nature. I know why nature right? Nature is something unique in this world, something out of the ordinary that’s what immediately linked with desigual for me. So my concept was ‘DESIGUAL IS NATURE’. Why did I pick this though? Anyway nature is something that very unique, if you look at trees you will find the same kind of tree but the shape, size, and colour will always differ. Goes same with flowers, plants and animals. The kind is the same but what differs is the shape, colour and size. But how is this linked with Deisgual? Well, the people that come in could be from the same race but do they look alike? No, that’s what matters to Desigual they come in different colours, shapes and sizes and Desigual fits to that difference. This is what made me think of desigual like nature it is friendly but also different in its own way. Well along this adventure, my concept and development book was somewhat checked off, but there was a lot more to do that’s when I started panicking. I still had a model to make, presentation board to finish and sample board and I had to design the store too. With all that running in our we had reviews with our favourite lecturer, and he seemed happy with the progress and gave me ideas on how I can improve, but still ‘TIME’ the clock was ticking, the days were going by quickly. In such less time so much to do. So as I had an idea of what I was doing, now I had to bring it reality. I had to design the store in an eco-friendly way and draw the layout and how exactly I wanted it. Down to a week left, oh wow what an adventure it sure was a rocky and steep climb to the top. A lot of energy was needed, at this point I must say I was a zombie. I had no idea what I was doing and I need to get my work done. But somehow I managed to make my model I wasn’t the happiest but I did and so with the presentation boards too. The presentation boards, I hand did my renders (the sections, elevations and floor plans) and I was happy with what I had done. At a point I could feel things were coming into place but also falling apart at the same time. I was tired and I needed sleep, that’s when the countdown began. And when it was finally time to submit, I had done it reached the top and I survived. Must say this adventure was sure a good experience and thought me a lot. It wasn’t an easy way up, sure was rocky and steep, but I pulled it off on the 8th of March.