Studio four one four has won its first competition!

Hosted by The Socio Design Foundation, this competition’s challenge was to distill an idea down to a single vignette. The guidelines? Literally one line; “Space for the Rehabilitating”.

The monthly competition held by the SCF, to “recognized the spatial impact on the psyche of society,” is only our second entry into competitions since inception of the group, and has already yielded us a win.

We assembled a team to solve their design problem. The solution presented was to question the connotations of the word “Rehabilitation”, and present in a light that everyone could be part of. As in our depiction, we took the city and it’s sensory overloading nature and developed a journey for an individual to take a reprieve, or moment of repose among the chaos.

The figurative tunnel “journey” for each person would be to gradually take each stimuli away to make the participant aware of their senses that are being bombarded, and then reintroducing them in a healing way. Rehabilitating the individual on the personal level. When fully recharged, they can make the journey back to their daily lives but are aware of themselves and their surroundings; they are rehabilitated.

Team members included: Alex Harm, Joe Buccini, Nick Mather, Ryan Bratz

View Project in Portfolio

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A 12000 sqm bungalow set in caldecott drive, singapore designed by formwerkz architects. Three volumes of varying sizes are arranged to take full advantage of this triangulated site. Blessed with a relatively untouched forest along the longest length of the site, we ran a 50m long, moat-like infinity pool along its boundary to reflect the foliage. The three volumes and its adjoining courtyards are entirely wrapped in black granite, in stark contrast to a predominately white interior… (source)

• Becky Lecey

• Alex Harm

• Paul Steidl

• Ryan Bratz

• Sam Brannon

• Eric Barch

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We have been planning, organizing and collaborating on Studio four one four for about 5 months now. In that time we have learned some things. Perhaps our most important “learning experience” happened this last week.

We learned the hard way what we can and cannot do.

A few days ago we were contact by the Executive Director of the AIA (Wisconsin) informing us that we were infringing on a few of the core statutes of the state. Specifically 443.02.

We’ll give you the express version. We called ourselves architectural designers, which is not allowed. See, we were always taught there is a big difference (legally and morally) between an Architect and an architectural designer. The difference being about 7 years experience, learning a lot of complicated safety regulations, and passing very difficult tests.

Turns out the law doesn’t really state that difference. If you are a group of individuals, none of which are licensed, and want to start a design group, then the most you can do is that; start a design group.

You cannot start an architectural design group.

The reason comes down to the idea that, if you are claiming to offer architectural design services, you convey the message that you offer the same level of safety in your designs that a trained/licensed Architect would offer.

Obviously this is not the case with us. We just want to design, make some awesome renderings, compete in a few competitions, and grow individually so that one day, when the world is ready for us, we can migrate into a real firm more seamlessly.

Here is what you can do.

You can call yourself a generic design group/firm/whatever. You can offer residential design services. In fact, you can also offer to design anything under 50,000 sq ft. It’s limited, but if you have a small budget, work part time, and most importantly don’t have a licensed person on your staff, then this is probably something you need to think about.

Anyway, we are not going anywhere. We love what we do and no one can tell us not to do it. It’s all going to come down to how public we can be, and how much we can expect to give back to the community.

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“The metaphor of a tree house was invoked from the onset of design conceptualization to create an environment for learning via a journey of discovery and play. The use of skylights, trellises and colored glass transforms incoming daylight into a myriad of shades and colours, creating an intriguing dappled light quality within the library that simulates light filtered through the foliage of trees.”

• Paul Steidl

• Ben Mather

• Joe Buccini

• Ryan Bratz

• Becky Lecey

• Eric Barch

• Sam Brannon

• Alex Harm

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The Sensor[y Rehab]ilitation project was recently completed for a competition. We thought it would be beneficial for others to have an assembly of the graphic components we used to create the final image. Although we did not create most of these ourselves, we would like to give away the package for free. Hopefully it will help save you all some time.

If you like the package, have any comments, want some insight or whatever feel free to contact us or leave a comment below.

Thank you and enjoy!

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This very first 4:14 Sketch is of the Ecotourism Center in France on Arch Daily. Designed by Inca Architectes, the building is “…thought of as a living room in the woods. Its wide and smooth shapes gently wandering along the preserved trees are inspired from the eroded stones seen on the site…” Apparently this is the very first Eco tourism center in this specific region in France. That is cool. It would be even cooler if we knew what that was. Anyway, that’s not quite the point. Enjoy the sketches.

• Ben Mather

• Ben Mather

• Ryan Bratz

• Joe Buccini

• Eric Barch

• Sam Brannon

• Alex Harm

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Welcome to Studio four one four.

We are a group of designers doing what we love. We are passionate, skilled, motivated, and have an ever-expanding urge to create new things.

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