Space Training Centre
S P A T I A L D E S I G N
Task: Design a Space Training Centre for Elon Musk, in the city of Eindhoven, Netherland (figuratively, of course).
Role: Ideation, Image Editing, Graphic Design, Physical Prototyping, Presenting
Tools: Illustrator, Photoshop, Model Board, Google Drive
In a group of 6, our team's objective was to design and build the interior and exterior of a Space X Training Centre for Tesla’s Elon Musk in the city we were instructed to design for, Eindhoven. This building’s purpose is not only to train astronauts to prepare for their journey into space, but also contributing to the astronauts mental and physical therapy by including a think and healing area.
Our team's building photoshopped in the city of Eindhoven.
D E S I G N D E C I S I O N S
Observe and Readapt
Like many projects, our starting point was through sketches and ideations. As none of us are true architects, our approach to designing a building was to observe and readapt from architects who we were inspired by. The great architects we studied were Zaha Hadid and Steven Holl's use of curves as we readapted their work into our design, shown in the images below.
Bending the Rules
In our final state, unlike many other teams, our building’s interior was not physically place inside our building. Rather, we created its physical form separately and took images, photoshopped them, and displayed them on our presentation slides. This executive decision was made by our team as we knew our building was designed with mainly curves on its exterior, it required support which we hid in its interior. We're designers, not engineers!
C H A L L E N G E S
Time Management
In order for us to get the best possible results, our team met everyday. And as a designer, you know that a project is never truly complete. Projects can always be iterated and iterated, which meant day and night was spent on designing this building. However, while taking other classes and also working a part-time job, I needed balance. In order to be able to structure my time, our team had more distinct roles in the second half of creating our project. For the final two weeks, my main role was to create the final physical form of our building and Photoshop the images of our interior to make the image cleaner.
Designing with Curves
Our group fell in love with curves and the movement of curves and how it created a more open and welcoming space for the people who entered our building. Thus, a problem we continuously ran into was creating a rectilinear counterpoint to balance our design without making our building look uncomfortable and unbalanced. What we did to solve this problem was adding rectilinear totems in our interior to balance the curved railing and threshold.
The interior of our building.
R E S U L T S
The end result included the physical scaled down prototype we created and a 10 minute presentation for our peers, professor, and any guests that wanted to see the final results. Our presentation included renders of both the interior and exterior of our building, and our physical model. As this was our last presentation, I became very comfortable with public speaking as we had weekly presentation leading up to its final one. For the outcome, our professor was truly impressed by our work, achieving an A+ in Spatial Design.
