We are approaching the end of the second semester and unfortunately I am still consulting with a number of lecturers to find an appropriate tutor to guide me with the thesis project. As already mentioned in a previous post, I was having trouble finding a tutor. After consulting with one of the lecturers he suggested I speak to the director so a meeting was set up, hoping that this issue would be resolved. Unfortunately this was not the case since the director believes that what I am proposing is not in line with what has been delivered during the three year program. Another point presented during the meeting was that lighting was too far off from Spatial Design however I believe otherwise. Having worked in the field for two summers myself, I have witnessed countless of design projects lacking one of the most important elements within a project which is lighting. Properly illuminating a space should be part of the design from the very beginning and should not just be an engineers job, which is what the director believes. I have been passionate about this subject and knowing that I will definitely continue my studies on it specifically, I wanted to have a chance at presenting my ideas and pitting them to use in this project. The project in itself was tackling an ongoing problem within already built spaces. I was advised to use lighting as an integral component within the project such as the use of flood-lights at Ground Zero in New York but frankly I do not understand the point of this suggestion since the latter still falls under the subject of Lighting Design. I understand that I am not an engineer, but I am a designer and I was thought to consider a number of elements within my designs including lighting, both from school and work experience. Maybe I am just not explaining my self properly when speaking to lecturers or the director but I will most definitely not give up on something I have been wanting to do since before I joined the degree. This was one of the main reasons I applied for a course at MCAST after attending University, to hopefully pursue my studies in Lighting design after finishing the degree in Spatial Design.
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A few months back, together with some class mates a trip was planned to visit Milan during the Milan Design Week. Last weekend came along and we had the opportunity of spending an entire weekend in the beautiful city of Milan. More importantly we were going to visit the Milan Design Week which was very exciting considering we are design students. It was a new experience for all of us, getting to see both international and national designers , meeting new people and discovering things we had never seen before apart from visiting Milan's tourist attractions of course.
Seeing as both my thesis and hypothesis were related to lighting , I was eager to visit an entire section from the fair on lighting. Philips and Artemide were two of the stalls that really stood out, which also happened to be two of my favourite design companies. They have been such an inspiration to me so far when working on my thesis and hypothesis that I couldn't wait to see some products in front of my eyes and maybe get a booklet or two for some more information. Besides regular visitors, we encountered a number of business men/women or design companies that were looking for products to incorporate within their designs. This visit helped in getting to know about new design companies as well as learn new information on the ones we already knew about. With the current projects we have this semester it was a great inspiration for unit such as retail or classrooms design because now we had fresh ideas and discovered new products which could be incorporated within uor design. I will most definitely attend a design week in the years to come, especially since we live on such a small island with little opportunities where different ideas are somewhat limited. I am dedicating this post to talk about one of the tasks within this unit. Criticising fellow classmates during their turn for the debates was not an easy task to say the least. I was pretty frustrated when some debaters did not let us record the debate. I understand that it is their right to do so but I myself don't find it comfortable for someone to record me speaking but since I knew it would help my friends when analysing it I gave the go ahead and expected the same in return.
Since some students were speaking with a fast rhythm when it comes to presenting, mostly because of nervousness, it was hard to keep up with what was being said and at the same time write down notes. I managed to jot down the major points within each debate I was present for as well as how the debaters presented the information and who I believe had done better out of each set. A common problem encountered were the nerves which were easily noticeable through one's speech. I found the debates very interesting and most students did show they had done in depth research before hand with the expedition of one pair not eve attending for their debate. Another noticeable point was the fact that most were reading directly from notes which I myself ended up doing since we found it impossible to remember all that information especially when nervous whilst having your opponent staring at you right opposite. That was indeed quite intimidating, even more so since we were being timed. Overall there were a number of good debates were both sides did quite well and presented their information clearly and effectively. |
Rita Curmi2nd year Student Archives
May 2017
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