what bldg is this?

Do you know what building this is?

This is one of the US's most famous art deco buildings.

Picture from: http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1121/605258822_ab913814d1.jpg?v=0

Art Deco

Originating in the 1920s and 30s, Art Deco took its name from the Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes (International Exposition of Modern Industrial and Decorative Art), which was an exhibition held in Paris in 1925. Art deco was seen throughout many mediums including architecture, furniture, pottery, glass and jewelry. Many of the Art Deco designers rejected traditional materials for their work and chose instead to work more unusual materials like ebony, steel, marble and rare, expensive types of wood. Their designs tended to be geometric with clean unfussy lines. Art Deco is widely considered to be an eclectic form of elegant and stylish modernism that celebrated the Machine Age through use of man-made materials, repetition, and symmetry but was influenced from a wide range of factors from very different periods. The earliest influences came from the "primitive" arts of Africa, Egypt, and Aztec Mexico and the industrial designs of the machine age/streamline technology such as modern aviation, electric lighting, the radio, the ocean liner and the skyscraper. Fractionated, faceted forms of decorative Cubism and Futurism , and crystalline were expressions of the industrial design influences.
Themes in art deco were trapezoidal, zigzagged, geometric, and jumbled shapes and were characterized by materials such as aluminum, stainless steel, lacquer, terra cotta tile,inlaid wood and the stepped forms, sweeping curves, chevron patterns, and the commonly used sunburst pattern. The art deco became a major part of American design during the Great Depression
because it was practical and had some simplicity, but was still a reminder of the “American Dream” and better times.

Project Idea

With my background in Architecture and the Patient Room research I have worked on, I want my semester project to some how relate back to that. The Patient Room of the Future is a research project that is part of the Hospital of the Future grant through the Department of Defense, Spartanburg Regional Health Center, NXT Health, and Clemson University School of Architecture. Because of the vast amount of research needing to be done in hospitals, we have started the research with a general medical/surgical patient room because meg/surg rooms are the most common room type across the board as well as lack any major changes in their design in 50+ years. We are truly studying all aspects of the design of the room from an architectural standpoint, human factors aspect and from the doctor/patient/nurse viewpoint. This will ensure that the patient room meets the needs of all people using the space from the standpoint of health, safety, and design. (For more information, the original publication on the first round of research is available from Lulu.com http://www.lulu.com/content/412300 -- It gives a pretty good overview of the project though we are now starting the 3rd iteration of the room.)

I think it is possible to divide the project such that my Avatar is a nurse. My digital remix and video would be related back to the patient room... possibly relating to a typical nursing task (which could probably come from the nursing task analysis I did through on-site research at Spartanburg Regional last summer). I am not sure how a video would work. Finally, I think that my Second Life Construction would be a modified version of what my group built last semester. I would want to build the room so the proportions were correct as well as get the details (head wall stuff such as the medical gasses, outlets, suction canisters, etc as well as sinks, washing station, etc0 in the room.