Expressing Creativity Through Designing A Music Room

I thought I had an advantage amongst the other students when I first thought of what to do for my personal project. That is because I knew that I wanted to do something related to either architecture, engineering, and music. At first I was confused on which one to choose, but then I said to myself, “why not combine all.”, hence the existence of this project. To complete it though there are multiple skills that I have to learn or develop further. From a younger age I always had an interest in the three. I used to always read books, children books specifically about houses or construction workers when I was a lot younger. This hasn't changed, however of course not children books. In spite of my high interest in the three topics, I'm not familiar with some. I always had experience in music whether it be playing the drums, piano, or guitar but, I have never really had experience when it comes to designing. Yes, I have sketched every now and then but I would not really consider that legitimate. What’s unfortunate is that I am not really good at drawing. One thing I do know is that I’m creative. That’s one thing I need to work on for this project. Developing my skills in drawing, specifically things like, one point perspective, two point perspective, etc. This would really help organize my thoughts and ideas when designing the room. The next thing to learn is knowing how to use a designing software. Although, drawing and sketching is good in organizing our thoughts and ideas, it isn't exactly the most practical thing when actually wanting to build it. For that, I will learn how to use a design software called sketch up. After this is all sorted out, I can work with a professional designer to help me choose and find the materials that are available for the music room. This project really excites me because the three mean a lot to me. Learning more and digging deeper makes me more excited and interested in it.

Product Goal

The product for this project would be to combine all the learning goals I have accomplished and turn that knowledge into a fully functional music room in my house. What I mean by fully functional would be a working music room that I can use and one agreed upon by the whole family as the product will be located at home. After thinking about the other products that are possible, I thought this was the most meaningful to me as it really combines the things I love.

Reflection

The freedom and creativity that comes with the art of interior design and architecture is what hooked me in the first place. What I didn’t know is that the process of completing a project is an incredibly long and heavy process. There was a lot of research to do and definitely a lot of problems that came throughout the process. Something neat about my project is that I have planned this project years before it actually started. Ever since my older sister started her personal project, I began to start mine.

I knew that it would have to be something that would relate to architecture, and because of that I took advantage of the design classes I had. Luckily enough most of the design projects I did had to do something with digital 3D modeling and actually constructing physical models. This way, I'm quite familiar with 3D modeling and the design process. For most of the process, I was able to implement the previous lessons I learned from my design projects.

I first started my digital 3D modeling journey in 2020, when I had to make one for the phone stand project. Although it was a different software and totally different mechanics, I still was able to get a rhythm and feeling on how it would work out. In SketchUp, the tools were quite similar, I was able to implement what I learnt in that project to this personal project to speed up the learning process portion of the project.

The assembly kit project for me would be the most useful one and enjoyable one. I first started drawing and designing skills in this project. I started watching videos of how to draw from different points of views; to mention some, one point perspective, birds eye view, linear, and two point perspective. They were all very challenging but in the end I was able to do it somehow. A big tip would be to stay stable and definitely use a ruler for everything. The next step was making a prototype.

The lego picture above isn’t actually the final product, but was actually a prototype. The model was my first step in developing my skills when it comes to designing and model building. There was no math put into this prototype or computation. I just assumed the sizes based on the sketch and then added more detail with the lego pieces. It was incredibly interesting for me to compare the process of making this mockup/prototype and an actual mockup for an actual real life room.

In 2022 when personal project actually started for me, all I had to do was develop my skills even further. I met two key characters that really helped me through this process and honestly, they were the ones who taught me most. I was able to gain a lot of knowledge about mockups, the process of designing a room, construction, etc.

Product Evaluation

To evaluate the product I created two forms of evaluation. One is an evaluation from my friends and the other my family. I made a short google form to gather the short evaluations from my friends. I asked them to rate my success criterias from one to eight. I showed them my product video, and I explained to them the situation with the leakage and the room; I asked for that circumstance to be considered in their evaluation. As for my family, the success criterias are still the same, but then I wanted a more in depth feedback as they were the one that was going to use it most besides me.

As for my final evaluation I would say that all the hardships were worth it in the end. I’m very proud of my product and I couldn’t have done it without the help of others. Without the help of Pak Yedi , Tante Dee, My family, advisors, and friends, I wouldn’t have been able to achieve it. For the product itself, I thought it quite accurately depicts my vision for this room. What I would clearly want to improve on is the technical aspects of this room. In a music studio sound is very important, and I didn’t study how the sound can bounce around the room. If I were to study that, I would have definitely come up with a better solution to the sound. Besides that, I thought the room was a bit crooked. The left wall is slightly diagonal, and I look forward to improving my mock-up making skills.

This project made me realize that I think interior design and architecture is something that I would do as a hobby but not for work. When making my mock-up, I realized that I just wanted to have fun making this, I didn’t want to consider it as work. When I first started this project, I thought my future was set in either being an architect or an engineer, but this experience made me reflect and rethink my decision. Besides knowing whether I'm willing to do this for a living or not, I was also able to see my abilities in this. It seems that my attention to detail needs more improvement. In the end the personal project gave reassurance to my future and I thank it for that.