During this year as I said, we have to intern for 10 months, however 4 weeks during this year we attend campus and work on an assignment during the week and hand it in at the end of the week. I find these block weeks really fun as I get to design and being back at campus really makes you appreciate being a student, because working everyday from 8am-4:30pm in a office on Autocad 27/7, working on layouts gets EXTREMELY BORING at times. It makes me worry about the fact that I stopped letting my mind expand on creative designs and thinking out side the box. I definitely experienced  that during our second block week!! I struggled to come out with a concept!!

During our second block week, we had the assignment of "Infecting The City", our task was to build a pop up store/ stage / gallery that interacts with the city vibes of Cape Town. It was a really fun project as it introduced us to the "First Thursday"concept. On the first Thursday of every month, people can explore the art galleries and cultural events of Cape Towns central city till late at night. I really think this event is amazing, during summer time after work, its a great way to network and also explore Cape Towns little treasures! While we did our site visit, I walked around and asked the galleries what they thought about the event, they said its a very vibrant way to get young and old together who are creative in their own little ways. I also found a cute Cafe called Mozart Cafe, which I actually took my friends to that weekend.

But back to the assignment....other than the cool task...my main concern was time  and as many architect wish for,is more TIME!!.

As we only had four days to visit the site, come up with a concept, gets precedent studies, make a model and have a plan, 3D drawing, section, elevation all done by the Friday afternoon as Monday was a public holiday......what a killer, but the rush of it all is actually quite accelerating if you ask me.

However my concept was really cool, I struggled  to express it and I'm sure that will bring my mark down.

My task was to build a presentation pod that exhibits painting done by a urban painter. My concept was to have a structure that was an art piece by itself yet still be able to "frame" my artist work in a funky fresh way, yet letting the structure be sustainable, light and easy to ones eye.

So i came up with a rectangular structure which had one way in and out allowing the structure to have frames in the walls that could hold the artist paintings and have paper that can be recycled, so the artist can interact with the customers and allow them to make their own art piece to. In the centre of the structure was a floating table and the roof was at a slanted angle made out of old frames allowing the artist paintings to sit in the frames. Giving the the illusion of cluttered paintings as a roof .

below are some pictures of my model, and concepts

also for more info on the "First Friday" visit http://www.first-thursdays.co.za/

I used these two pop up stores as precedent studies

My chosen site

My first concept model in a 1:50 scale