This is the working draft of the room. I drafted this in Vectorworks. The room is designed for 14 stations and a teaching area. The room is a smart classroom, so, unless something happens, I will have access to all of the electronics (dvd, elmo, cd, vcr, as well as computer with internet access. We are getting a laptop cart to use in theatre design as well and it will be loaded with Vectorworks, Adobe Suite, and Office. Eventually we will add Poser, and some pattern drafting software
So, after drafting the room in Vectorworks, I turned it into a pdf and imported it as an image in Google Sketchup. Here I modeled the drafting tables and the custom cabinets. (The chair I downloaded. The ones we are looking at will not have arms. ) The tables and chairs will be purchased, but the rest will be built in my shop. Notice that after modeling the stations I cut three stations. Not enough room. My largest class has been 11 in design over the last few years, so hopefully that will work!
The painting of the room as well as moving the dry erase board over the sinks will all be part of my shop crew task. Currently the room is fully carpeted, but we will rip the carpet out to reveal the concrete floor. We will paint the walls before removing the carpet. I wish there was money to put in a floor, but the concrete will be easier to keep clean than the carpet.
In the front of the room will be a large teaching area for looking at renderings, models, and doing group work and discussions. The smart classroom equipment will hopefully be built into the end of the cabinet you see in the photo here.
The colors of the room will be sage and a lighter gray with the wall over the sinks being a darker value version of the sage. The concrete beam in the back by the windows will also be painted in the darker color.
In the center of the room will be a short wall that will give a privacy screen to the center desks. It will house additional electrical outlets and internet connections and be a place to stick up research, etc... Since I am 6'3" tall, the 5'6" wall (yes, it was going to be 4'6" but that changed too after the model) is short enough I can easily see over it and the students in their drafting chairs will be able to also.
I have been pricing drafting desks. Man, they are expensive. These are about the most reasonable ones I have found. They are designed for desktop computers, but we will use our laptops with them.
The top is a split top that is 36 inches wide by 30 inches deep. The color will be black metal base with cherry wood tops. They will have parallel rules attached and come with a drawer and keyboard tray.
Another view...
They are designed to not fall, since they will be heavy. This way smaller people will be able to adjust the tops without them slamming down and hurting someone.
Close up of the back of the board. Again - none of this is official. It all has to go through the approval process, but since we have waited ten years, I hope all goes well. 🙂 I will post some before, during, and after shots of the progress of the room as it develops. And if the design changes again, that too....
Taped out the short privacy wall and marked all electrical and internet outlets. Notice the projector has already been turned to face the new projection screen wall.
Here, the center shelf has been removed so that the smart classroom equipment (dvd player, cd player, laptop, elmo, vcr, and even a tape player ??) can be installed. The orange tape marks show where electrical and internet will be placed. The lights in this room will be removed and new fixtures that are mounted inside the ceiling grid will be installed soon.
Here is the dedicated internet switch. It will have two wireless routers as well as 17 or so hard wired connections for this room. Right now it is on a shelf on the back wall, but it will be moved above the tiles in the ceiling to hide it and the routers.
Electric work in progress - design studio — with Internet switch.
The new wall is going up now.
Another look at the half wall. All electrical and internet work is complete. The smart classroom equipment and its wiring will be moved next.
The sheet-rock leaning against the dry erase board will go onto the wall today.
The gray cart on wheels against the wall is the laptop storage cart. 🙂
The lights you see in the room now are being removed. They will be replaced with recessed lights flush mounted into the ceiling grid. The electrician said he planned to get started on this today. 🙂
The design studio furniture arrived today.
Three large pallets of furniture.
The fourth pallet is computers.
Sheet-rock is now on the short wall. 🙂
Sheet-rock is now on the short wall. 🙂
Sheet-rock is now on the short wall. 🙂
Sheet-rock is now on the short wall. 🙂
15 new laptop computer in the cart and charging!! 🙂
A box of high-speed laptops.
The slower version of our laptops are booted and on the internet in 90 seconds. (That is the baby brother to these!) woohoo!
Today they were installing the new lighting in the design studio. The new fixtures are flush mounted in the ceiling. The old ones hung down below the ceiling and were really ugly. Now those old ones are piled on the floor. haha.. guess we need to roll the dumpster over under the window and chunk them down into it.
Here is the marker board in its new location at the front of the room. Notice the old lighting. The new lights are so much better.
The electric projection screen was installed into the ceiling yesterday. WooHoo!
We put together 8 of the 11 drafting tables. 🙂 Now we have to add the parallel rules to the tops and put together the chairs. The scene shop looks strange with all the new drafting desks in there.
Paint, electronics, yikes. We worked into the night last night getting everything as close to finished as we could.
I love the colors. We are replacing the baseboard with black since we got paint on the brown and the new center wall did not have any base cap yet anyway. That will happen in a week or two.
Removing the painters tape. We have lots of tiny touch-ups to do, but it is looking really nice
At 10:00 am this morning we got the electronics in the cabinet. The drop down projection screen works like a charm and we now have the Elmo, DVD, Tape deck, CD changer, aux imput, and even a vcr. The satellite tv cable has not been connected yet. — at University of the Ozarks.
All the tape removed. Now we vacuum and move in some of the desks for classes tomorrow. — at University of the Ozarks.
And here is a shot of the desks on the drafting side of the room. We ordered the drafting mats today. It will take 7 days for them to arrive. We will start construction of the cabinets for each station after the first two plays are built this semester. The center wall has a cap that was routed today and will be stained tomorrow. It will run down the vertical wall and on top of the short horizontal wall to accent and finish off the design details for that small wall. The laptop stands went in today at 5:15, so each station has one, but I did not get a chance to snap a photo of those just yet. More updates soon. Classes in about 10 hours.
Almost ready for tomorrow morning and my 8:00 am scenic design class.
