Redesigning the CAD Pad

14th March 2012

One of the most exciting parts of my EMP is the opportunity to re-configure the layout of the CAD Pad for renovation over the summer. I happened to be in the right place at the right time and was able to volunteer myself for the technical drawings - but then I was promptly asked to work out the layout and spacing of desks.

Adele is my "go to" tutor for this unit, and sent me an initial email to get started on 12th March;

"Hi Amber

You wanted some guidelines about the CAD Pad. First thing we need to do is to get regs about the distance between workspaces with chair room etc. You can get this off the National Building Regs website. Make sure you have the info for businesses (occasional use) and not home dwellings.

I have spoken to the team and we would like to see different configurations

1. What the space would be like with the desks coming in (therefore facing the tutor) rather then around the edge of the room
2. The same sort of set up but better considered space for each computer (better spacing) especially where the legs go.
3. What it would look like swapping the room around (having the tutor near the door)
4. We would like it to be flexible at one end so we can have small tutorial if possible.

I hope that’s enough to go on for now. Let me know if you would like to meet up.

Adele"

I had a further conversation with Adele and Will - the two tutors who teach the most in the CAD Pad to clear up a few more points. The first and main one was to look up the building regulations that I have to legally comply with and on further research the book "The Metric Handbook" is the one to look at. I need to keep the amount of computers the same, but there will be larger computers bought (18 PCs, 3 Macs, 21 in total). There is no digital groundplan with dimensions available to me so I will need to measure the room out for myself; all I could access was this image:

There is a buget of £50,000 available for the renovation but I do not really need to consider this into my designs. Another thing I don't need to consider is the colour-way as it will be neutral, which is a shame because a theme of "Religious Iconcography with a Saved By The Bell vibe" would have been great.

I will need to submit several configurations for presentation to the tutors with various layouts. There have been several requests by the tutors which I need to oblige; using the pillar to hold some kind of room divide. The possibility of moving the printers up to the door end so that studens can print of work without interrupting any tutorials that may be going on at the "teaching" end. "Teaching" end might also benefit from an interactive smartboard such as the one in the Design Studio.

Talking to Alison about what she feels would benefit her as a technician, a secure space to keep the wacom tablets and styli and potential to keep paper up here as opposed to the office. I feel as a student that it needs to be more organised up here as it gets quite messy. The wires are also massively inconvenient, as is the lack of space at a workstation.

Time to throw some ideas together, put a Spatial Design hat on and get cracking!