Sneaky Peek - What I’ve been working on.

I think it’s probably pretty obvious, based on the amount of posts I’ve had in the past few months, that I’m busy. I don’t pretend to be any busier than the next girl, but I’m busy for me. I thought I’d share with you all what I’ve been working on at school… especially since next quarter I’m going to have to set-up a website of my work and share it with the world anyway, I might as well try to get over the “OMG people are going to hate it” thing now. You know that feeling when someone “in real life” says they saw/read your blog and you have a mini panic attack in your head? What is it we’re so worried about? Well, in this case it’s the opposite. My people “in real life” have seen my projects, but you? Not so much.

Soooo, this is the work in progress of my Senior Studio project (aka SS1 & SS2 – a two quarter class. I’m in SS2 now). We were given a city (mine is Boston) and a building (we all got the same fictional building) and were told to come up with a use, then space plan, design, etc the project.

My project is “Clean Kitchen”, a food allergy clinic.

It’s a multi-use building (mainly because it had to be) meaning there are different uses for the building, both commercial and residential. In the basement there is an allergy-free food market, tiny bookstore area and a pharmacy. Seriously, I would LOVE to have a market this large to get gluten-free stuff.


On the main floor (aka the first floor) there’s a allergy-free cafe, two temporary residences for visiting speakers & chefs, and two cooking classrooms. The idea is that young families and adults can come here to learn to cook tasty allergy-free food. I wish the places near me, with cooking classes, would have specific allergy-free cooking classes. The cafe then serves the types of food you can expect to learn to make in the different classes.


On the second floor there are two more temporary residences (we were required to have 2 on each of the above ground floors), laundry, storage, a conference room, admin offices and Drs’ offices. I imagine the awesome Dr. who diagnosed my food allergies working here with an amazing view of Boston out her window. Not like the lovely view of Orange County she has now is bad ;-)


Those plans and my branding is the main thing we worked on last quarter. This past Tuesday we turned in our progress boards… basically the furniture, finishes etc that we see being used in the project, displayed in a way similar to the way our final board (yes one, but it.is.HUGE. Like taller than me) will lay out.


I’m not 100% happy with the residence right now. I started out with that first picture (from Crate & Barrel) as inspiration, because I like the art work and sideboard, but I found it difficult to find the other furniture I need to express what I was going for. Honestly, I think I was a little burnt out and I’ll start fresh again next week. Now, that I’ve had time to step back and look at it with a different eye, I know what I need to do.

My teachers really liked where I was headed with this project and that made me really happy and proud of what I’ve accomplished so far. The one compliment that really sticks out in my mind is, one teacher said, “It looks like the 60’s I wish I’d lived in.” Totally what I was going for, YES!

And, that’s what I’ve been working on for the last 4 months. Obviously there is a lot more, we had a few papers, a rough (ROUGH) model and I’m working on a booklet (like Blurb), but this is the gist.

What was/is your Senior project?