Katie (Quote 1):  Streams is a seminar at our Virginia Ball Center which is a fully immersive program.  This specific seminar was with nature and technology and trying to find a way to put the two together that would be beneficial to both.  So, it's designing with nature in mind so you create these new contemporary forms but you're not really affecting nature in a detrimental way.

Katie (Quote 2):  The Mounds Park Project started with a design phase where everyone was working on it, trying to figure out some interactive piece that we could place in the park to get the people who visit there and walk around the trails to really focus more on the river.

Katie (Quote 3):  So, the shape of it is actually shaped like an ear canal and that helps to bring the sound through.  The people who interact with it can sit, and they're slightly isolated from the trails because the back of it is facing the trails and covers the visitors.  Also, they can look out onto the river with the direct view that's framed by the wood pieces.  So, its really just a great interactive piece that we've got really good reviews on so far.  People that walked by while we were building it, they just said, "Oh, this looks pretty cool, what is it?  When do we get to use it?"  So, there are a lot of people that walk through there, walk their dogs.  So, we were really happy to be able to create something for them to really enjoy and interact with.

Katie (Quote 4):  This project really helped me with my collaboration skills.  So, working with the older students, I was the only second-year on this project, I was working with mostly students that had two or three more years of experience than I did.  So, I really took a lot of their experience and worked with that and that really helped me develop as a designer and it helped me to learn the process of making an entire project.  So, I think my design process is a lot better because I work with nature.  I make sure to take a look at the site as I'm designing and then I actually understand better how these are going to be put together, how much work it takes because definitely the Mounds projects took more work than we thought it was going to but in the end it was worth it because of the outcome.  So, mostly it was my design process and the building skills.