The last ACE Mentor Program session was a very interesting one. Group 4 met at an interior design firm on the east side of Portland.

The meeting started off as usual with a tour of the firm’s offices. This is where I started getting interested in their work. I, personally, am very interested in industrial design and wish to pursue this in my future. I did not know much about interior design or even what the firm truly did, but I saw some of its great innovative designs in desks and office furniture. These pieces of work were very different than what people might think of as typical for a workplace. I enjoyed this innovative take on the mainstream concepts. I hope to work on similar work with new and innovative products when I am done with college.

I know that my group had not put an incredible amount of work into planning the inside of any rooms in our design besides the auditorium. So this session changed our minds on what to do with these important rooms. These rooms in particular were the band, choir and drama rooms. These were planned to be some of the most high-traffic areas of the building, yet we still didn’t know what they would look like for the students. We also needed to plan the common room and the visitor lobby.

Two other members of Group 4 and I worked on the lobby. We decided there needed to be ample seating for visitors who had to wait there, along with good lighting and a notice board. One special feature about this space was the large glass wall that curved around one side of the room, allowing for the iconic look from the outside while also allowing people to see the insides of the lobby from the road. This encouraged us to make it a very bright and colorful room.

We also decided that it would be important to have doors separating this space from the hallways. This would allow for a separation to keep the visitors out of the student area and vice versa.

For the seating in the lobby we had two long benches going along the glass wall and a circular seating arrangement in the middle drawing attention toward it. Our original plan was to have ottoman-like seats in the middle. This would be on a circular track so that they could move side to side in the circle but not be removed from this area. We thought it would be different and new, but just too much trouble. We ended up just having them attached to the ground and unable to move in any way.

When we thought our plan for the lobby was done, we talked with the other small teams in our group. The common room focused on sharing the hall space. This area had some couches and benches against a wall, with many wall features to draw it together. The three classrooms were also decorated in their own unique colors.

We decided that next week would be a big session for putting the finishing touches on many parts of our design. It will be the big final step to getting everything to work together once and for all.

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Before last week’s ACE meeting I didn’t understand all that went into landscape design.

My group, Group 4, went to a landscape architecture firm. This was probably one of the most fun meetings that I have been to so far.

It started out as usual with a presentation about the firm and the type of work they do there. From there we had many questions, especially because this line of work was very interesting for a few members in my group.

Going through the slide show and seeing some before and after plans of how landscape architecture works was quite beautiful. Seeing how we can change the focus and outlook of a building with simple greenery was interesting.

After the slide show and the questions, we were split into several groups. Each of our mini groups focused on one part of the site. Some worked on the amphitheater or the large field. But there were other less prominent places that also needed work. There was a large slope in between the main buildings of the school and the run-down field. This was assigned as my area to focus on.

It was my first time doing something independent in the group, as there were not enough members in Group 4 to be able to assign two students to each mini group. I worked on planning pathways to connect the separate buildings together. I also thought up seating to allow people to watch the games on the field or to work on warm days. I also included plans for posts to hold a giant tarp on those ever so common rainy days. Overall, I do not think it was a defining feature, but it helped bring everything together a lot better.

During the last 10 minutes of the session, we all regrouped to present our work. The field had been redone to accommodate risers and allow more accessibility for sports teams. It also made way for a necessary scoreboard. The amphitheater was planned in a small area by the side of the drama room. It has outdoor lighting and a small hill to perform on. Even the parking lot was redone to have easier access for students and visitors.

It was a very successful meeting at this firm. We left feeling so much closer to actually completing our planning project.

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I never quite realized how many people were participating in the ACE Mentor Program until last week. Even though I had seen all of the people meeting on Tuesdays before, it still seemed like there were more people than I expected. Before, everyone seemed quiet as we were all new. This time everyone seemed abuzz with our own individual ideas. We had all done something to talk about, and we were all there to share with the other groups.

It started off with us splitting into teams of eight, with two from each group. We then shared what our project was about, with each group rotating to see one another’s projects. There were four projects, and we learned that they were all very different.

Three groups were working on the Arts Annex, with my group being one of those. Another group was working on a shop class and annex. The three Art Annex groups had more to share with each other as they all had a completely different approach to the building.

My group’s simple one-story building with the auditorium in the center was not like the other two designs. The other designs both had two-story buildings. One featured a sky bridge and the other had plans of adding one into theirs. These ideas were not like my group’s.

Another way that the other groups were different was the way that they all were mostly box shapes from the outside. Though some of them were very artsy and nice on the inside, they did not present well from the outside yet.

What my group plans to take from this meeting is the other groups’ ideas about innovation and green space. Though my group’s design is very presentable from the outside, it lacks increasing ideas to any room on the inside besides the auditorium. It’s time we made the inside a place for the students just as much as the public. Even though we only have three classrooms, it is still important that we focus on making these classrooms all that they can be so the students have the best ability to learn and perform.

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