Dee Oh En Ee

Final Presentation Board

It's done! My thesis project of my twelfth and final semester in college. I called it the Leaf Shadow House due to the conceptual experience of the space. When you look up at a bunch of trees, perhaps in the forest, or walking through campus, what do you see? Layers of light. Layers of green. Shadows. The canopy effect of the trees is one that always soothes me and is quite frankly, one of my favorite little things in life. If it's a nice sunny day, I guarantee I'll be happy to see the bright green and yellow of the trees.

I used this as inspiration to create a house which could live among the trees and use their leaves as sustainable features.  In the warmer months, the leaves shade the house, and the lack of leaves in the colder months allows for more sunlight to get into the space.

My personal favorite time of daylight is sunset. Truth be told, any sort of light between the hours of 11-4 for me are entirely too bright and hurt my delicate scandinavian eyes (yeah, I went there). I'm one of those people that can be brought to tears (not really) by a good sunset--the colors, the clouds, the atmosphere. For this reason, I made the west side of the house almost entirely glass facade. While dinner is on the table, the sun is setting and you get to view every part of it. It's the little things, folks.

A small part of me also did this as a thesis because of my small obsession with English country cottages that are entirely abundant in greenery. My parents watch a lot of British crime dramas...

The pattern on the glass facades? Abstracted leaf patterns to contrast the real-life leaves right next to them.  The combination of both of their shadows creates awesome moving art on the blank walls throughout the day, with the sun as the artist.

That just got deep.

In a nutshell, I love this project. I'm glad it was my last here at design school, and I hope it will also help me get a job... *fingers crossed*