Last but not the least: Retrospection of a Year Long Journey

By: Kristina Shrestha

A year long journey started from the very first day at SIUC. The very first blog reminds me of the pristine memories and experiences I have ever had as a new Graduate student. Now, I am here posting my last blog. Last but not the least, this blog will retrospect and summarize the year long journey here at SIUC.

Despite ups and downs, this journey will be a major milestone for my career and will be a very good lesson for the future. No doubt, I learned a lot. I honed my skills on software and tools that will act like my backbone for my upcoming career. Revit, 3Ds max, Rhino, and Grasshopper were challenging to me at first glance but now situation has changed a lot. I am honed my skills on these tools including AutoCAD and Sketch Up that I had been using for almost a decade.

As mentioned above, today I am going to write about my projects so far. The first project that I had accomplished in last summer was “Open Air museum of Buildings” designed imitating nature. It is located at Little Grassy Lake, Illinois. The opening building had to be designed in such a way that it will relate to other buildings which were in display at that time. The buildings that I chose for the open air museum and buildings from nature were Falling Water House, Leaf House, Shell house, Casey Kay house and Pod Exhibition Pavilion. The opening building was the first building which would provide the facilities for the visitors.

The second project was the planning of a city in Glenelg, Maryland. The master planning had to be done in groups of three and we had choice to select buildings for an individual project. There were five choices. i.e., Apartments, Hotels, Community Centers, Senior Living and Retails. I selected mid-rise apartment for the design. The project included 11 floors and 8 floors apartments. They were two bedroom, three bedrooms and four bedroom apartments. They were located near the community center and the retail area. The site was planned in such a way that the retail space will be in a walking distance.

This semester I am working on my thesis. My thesis topic is “Creative Workspace”. The main theme of the thesis is to create a workspace which would enhance the creativity of the people working in the environment. The site for the project is downtown St Louis, Missouri. Two historic buildings exists in the area. They will be preserved and rehabilitated into apartments for the employees. My thesis is still in progress and will end at the end this summer.