Residential Project: Choosing Textiles

In my Introduction to Textiles class at Chabot, we are learning about the properties of different fabrics and their uses. Our first assignment was to select a series of fabrics for a living and dining room space that we had to draw to scale.

The criteria was as follows:

• fabrics | a minimum of 3 patterned (more than one color, not tone on tone) fabrics in each room 
• spaces | dining and living rooms must be open to each other somehow
• measurements | walls to be 6 inches thick and both spaces need to have a combined area of approximately 600 square feet total
• scale | 1/2" scale on 11" X 17" paper
• furniture + decor | living room needs to have six specified items, dining room room needs to have 4
• presentation | fully color rendered floorplan, 3" x 3" samples of each fabric, and written descriptions of textile fibers

This assignment initially posed as a challenge for me because my design aesthetic is very minimal in terms of colors and patterns. But as a designer, I know that it is important to be nimble and flexible because my clients are not going to be just like me. So, I took this assignment as an opportunity to learn, grow, and expand my skill-set.

I am very intrigued by the Moroccan lattice designs and used that as inspiration as I began to explore patterned textiles.

Different lattice patterns that I used as inspiration for the final design.

Simultaneously, I began to create many floor plan iterations of my adjoining living and dining spaces. The many iterations occurred because plotting on AutoCad at 1/2" scale was posing to be a problem.

My first hand-drafted iteration of the floor plan. It ended up being too large of a footprint and wouldn't fit on the 11x17 paper.

There was not enough clearance for some of the furniture in this iteration.

This pretty much ended up being the final design, with a minor adjustment to the ottoman selection.

Eventually, I found a design that fit and went through a process of pairing fabrics together and pairing fabrics with furniture to see how they complemented each other.

This is what I ended up with:

I am very pleased with the final product (as was my professor). You can find the full presentation, with a detailed look of the fabrics and furniture selections here: Moroccan Twist Textiles Assignment.

I am now excited about working with different patterns in fabric and can't wait until I get to implement textiles in a new design.

Cheers,
{Rashida}