Thanksgiving and Grad Studio

By Chhanya Nidal

It’s again the time about article for Blog. One more article to worry about when you have your finals at your head on. These weeks I have been passing through very tough time which probably all the students in the studio are passing through.

I have been waiting for thanks giving for five days long holiday and eventually the thanks giving arrived. Most of the friends form studio went home spending some good time with their family. I could feel how it would be when we see our family when we are really having hard time alone from home.

Being far from home and family I did not feel so since we were invited for thanks giving Dinner by one of our studio professor Shannon McDonald. My first thanks giving at U.S. was awesome and I had a pretty nice break from studio work. For the past two three days we have been staying at studio working on our project. This was also a first experience staying long night away from apartment.

We are almost at the end of the semester and we our having our final presentation on Friday, December 4^th. I am kind of excited and nervous as well. Since the day I will be presenting what I have been doing in Design Studio for the entire semester. For the Architecture 551, we are doing a project in Rio, Brazil.

We had two choice to design. Either we could do a hotel or multifamily apartment. I chose to design a mixed use apartment which I am quite interested in.

I am not only designing a space or multi bed rooms for Brazilians but also creating a community for them. Brazilian are fun loving people who love to hang out and socialize as much as possible. They highly praised friendship and hospitality and have a strong family value and social interaction. Studying the nature of Brazilian, their culture and the climate were the point of departure for my design.

The units in my apartment ranges from studio to four bed room apartment with garden and live work apartments. I started the building in a cluster with pockets of green spaces in-between and a central open space as communal space. The varying roof of units are also used as terrace garden. I have been trying to create the place as per Brazilian need and nature. I had a very good time throughout this semester and are almost at the end. I wish all my hard work would pay at the final presentations.