Capstone Project Update

I have a few more ideas, and I'm refining my project a little more. I want to gear it toward performing arts, with a gallery and black box theater on the first floor, a dance school on one floor, and practice spaces for theater and music on another floor. I want to look into how I might make the walls for the practice spaces movable so they can be any size or shape and maybe serve as temporary set pieces for blocking.

In high school a good friend and I always talked about opening up a musical theater school when we were older, so I guess this is sort of a variation on that. I plan to contact my former ballet teacher and a few friends who are involved in theater for help in those areas.

The physics of movement is an underlying design concept I'm considering.

One precedent I've found is Herzog and De Meuron's Laban Center for Contemporary Dance in London.

I'm also thinking about technology and components for focuses.

Project: A community arts center, focused on arts education, incorporating dance/music therapy and including spaces that can be rented for weekend workshops (theater, dance, etc.), maybe a small auditorium and most likely a gallery

Focuses: Hostoric preservation, lighting, LEED

Buildings: Fuqua, Welsh Levy/Knox

Capstone project type

This week we are deciding what types of spaces to create for our capstone projects. I'm considering a combination of 3 of these in a mixed-use building:

Multifamily housing in a mixed-use building (top levels)
Historic preservation/possibly offices for a historical society (middle levels)
Photography studios (ground or middle levels)
Small museum or gallery (lower levels, coupled with photo studios or historic preservation)
Retail (convenience store or boutique, ground level)
Dance school/studios (ground or middle levels)


I have quite a decision to make. I want to design a mixed-use building to gain experience in as many types of design as possible. I plan to go downtown tomorrow or Tuesday to get a closer look at the buildings we're choosing from, and hopefully that will help me to narrow down my options.

Response to "The Great Good Place"

Because I grew up in suburbs, I can relate to the excerpt from Ray Oldenburg’s The Great Good Place. A sense of community is an unfortunate thing to be without, and I agree that the American culture is lacking in this area. Possibly the only time we experience a real sense of place is during the school years, particularly during college. For a few years we are exposed to the types of casual gathering Oldenburg praises. Students gather on campus between and after classes, in coffee shops and bars, and casually at one another’s apartments. Hardly anyone is isolated under these conditions. Perhaps this is why many people say that their college years were the best of their lives.

The pattern of stressful work hours and periods of isolation is one I’m sure everyone recognizes. I certainly know people who spend lots of money on entertainment systems and frequently redecorate their houses for entertainment. The internet adds another level of this, as we can easily communicate with one another with minimal contact from our own isolated homes. I don’t think suburbs are terrible places to live, at least during childhood and teenage years, but I do agree with Oldenburg’s sentiment about the importance of gathering. A combination of types of places seems to be the best way to encourage people to gather. The recent trend in mixed-use residential areas shows developers are attempting to put this possible solution to use.

What does this mean for Baton Rouge? The downtown area is plagued by lack of use in a city filled with spread-out subdivisions. One mixed-use project, Perkins Rowe, is under construction in another part of town. Downtown Baton Rouge has never been much of a mixed-use area. At the height of its popularity, it was a retail destination. I’d like to design a mixed-use residential building for my capstone project, but the question that arises is this: Should we encourage people to live downtown to bring it back to life if that wasn’t intended in the first place, or should we find another way to draw people there on a regular basis?

Exploring Downtown Baton Rouge

Today we took a trip downtown to explore the area. Here's what I found:



I've seen this chandelier before in what appears to be some sort of conference room over a parking garage. It really makes me want to see what the room looks like, although I have a feeling it's not as interesting from the other side of the window.



The fountain outside of the Shaw Center catches the eye because of the constant, unpredictable movement in an otherwise quiet area during the day.


Here is an intersection at River Road on the levee. Lines and lights are everywhere.


This is a building we're working on in another studio class. I was attracted to the rough painted brick against the sleek glass.


Throughout the downtown area, among the serious architecture, there are lively bits of color and images in the form of signs and graffiti. This is one of my favorites.


This is another spot I often notice. The bright yellow really stood out today against the overcast sky.


Outside of Happy's pub, the sidewalk is painted white and green.


The Shaw Center can be seen from almost anywhere downtown, and the modern materials contrast nicely against the old brick on the older buildings.


I love the purple accents on this building, all the different positions of the blinds, and the glimpses of furniture.


This is a traffic light on Main St. I've never been downtown during the Christmas holidays, but I assume these string lights decorate the streets during that time.


I noticed these satellite dishes outside of a building near Laurel St. It looks like something has caught their attention.


This is a piece of a parking lot that faces River Road. It's a good example of the great mixture of colors and textures found all around the downtown area.

Response to "Outside Lies Magic"

While reading an excerpt from John Stilgoe’s Outside Lies Magic, I was reminded of my own recent experience. I spent two months in New York City for a summer design internship, and it differed dramatically from previous visits. While tourists do their fair share of exploring a destination city, their exploration is often limited to large landmarks and popular attractions. Time spent between sites is spent navigating, to an extent. Living in the city for a more extended period of time and falling into a routine allowed me to form a much greater attachment to my temporary home. I spent hours after work and on weekends walking around by myself, looking at things and taking photos. The small details of a city's buildings, parks, and sidewalks speak of its history and set it apart from any other place.

I've never heard of such a thing as a course on exploring. Exploring comes naturally to me, as it may for many designers. Interest in one's surroundings and inclination toward visual expression are what draw people to the design field in the first place. The tendency to notice things and wonder about them helps an observer identify problems and makes him more likely to develop innovative solutions. Stilgoe is right when he says that “education and entertainment media teach nothing about being original, about being innovative, about being creative or inventive.” Information that is distributed to the masses is much less likely to spark independent thinking than one’s own observations.

For our senior project, we are invited to convert a building in downtown Baton Rouge to anything we’d like. Spending some time exploring downtown undoubtedly will give great clues as to what certain areas are suffering the most and what the area needs to continue the positive changes being made there in recent years. It also should tune us in to what makes our city unique and special.

About Me

My name is Emily Ardoin, and I am a senior in the Louisiana State University interior design program. This blog will serve as a record of my progress for my senior design project. I haven't yet chosen what type of space I want to do, but I'm considering downtown apartments or a mixed use space. I'd like to work historic preservation into the project and also place emphasis on urban planning. After I graduate, I plan to work for a few years and then possibly go to grad school for architecture. My online portfolio: http://my.lsu.edu/eardoi1