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My design experience throughout the diploma has been quite varied, 

 

In ten designs, I've been active in areas from community activisation to garden design, to teaching, to administration, to self education & personal development.

 

So I've not had one main focus, instead I've tried my had at afew things & learnt lots in the process.... I've grounding in these areas

 

Ive been very inspired by my latest design project -Interior Design'- which focuses on 'zone 00' and the way it impacts on the rest of my life & work. In particluar the patterns I used in this design such as 'spirals of erosion' & 'the four quadrants' I've found to be fundamental to change making so I'll be giving more consideration to these in my upcoming work.

 

All of my diploma designs have been implemented either by the client or by myself & this has increased my learning considerably, I've had to reflect on the practicality of the designs, & the challenges that come with translating design theory into real life.

 

Lesons here have been around working in harmony with natural & established rhythms such as seasonal patterns (ALP, Interior Design, Food Garden).

 

This links in to my previous point, & the big learning here is to understand & design for the involved humans energy, focus, time, skills, comfort zones & expectations as well as the culture that they may be within, what their supports are socially & culturally.

 

This learning curve began near the beginning of my diploma with the compost loo design, followed by the community skillshare network design, it was an issue I perhaps didn't completely resolve back then & so I've had to deal with it again more recently in my ALP design, my own Food Garden design & finally my Interior design where I feel I finally got a better undertanding of how it works!

 

Throughout each design I've had to do lots of research, reading books, online and going to courses to gain the required information to fullfill the needs of the design, this has enourmously increased my own knowledge around plants, soil, trees, tools, composting, community organisation tools, and so on. 

 

As far as designing is concerned, one of my main issues is technological limits. I've identified it in more than one design but up until now I've managed to get away without addressing it properly. Mapping & drawing maps takes me a long time by hand, even though I would prefer to spend less time than I currently do in front of a screen I can seee how digitalising this skill would bring my work up a notch or two in terms of efficiency. I will look for a way of learning that efficiently.

 

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Networks/events etc I've been involved in