DESIGN PROCESS

General Design Process… An Overview

We took the option of finding a boat that was a very good foundation for what we were looking for with the facility (in with the price) to change or alter the design/layout to suit our needs.

I am very pleased we took this route as by all accounts if I had started from a blank piece of paper I’d probably still be designing it now! Do not be put of by the this if you are thinking design a narrow boat from start to finish as your chosen boat builder will of course offer you a design service as standard if you opt for a bespoke build. If you find a boat, like we did, that’s a good foundation for what you are looking for please check before placing the order what the cost implications could be for this tailoring service.

We changed something in every room and some rooms completely (Spare Room). Having something to start with instantly allowed us to observe the areas that did not meet our needs or tastes and then focus on these areas in the design process we undertook.

Bathroom Plan View Design Concepts

In this section you will see the design drawings leading up to the chosen layout. With this room I spent a lot of time thinking about the layout options rather than sketching them out.

If you are designing your narrowboat layout there are no hard fast rules to reaching your solution, you need to think about what methods best suit you and your abilities.

We have graphical skills but there is a lot said for using our scaled plan view layout sheets. This can often be a fast and efficient method especially if combined with our canal boat equipment sheet which provides dimensional details of the most common canal boat equipment.

Widebeam canal boat bathroom design concept and ideas

Widebeam canal boat bathroom design concept and ideas 02

Widebeam canal boat bathroom design concept and ideas 03

Widebeam canal boat bathroom design concept and ideas 04

Widebeam canal boat bathroom design concept and ideas 05

Master Bedroom Corner Unit Design Concept

Design concept for master bedroom corner unit on a widebeam canal boat

Here you can see another method we utilised for realising a design concept further in 3D. This is called a 2 Point Perspective Drawing and can quickly become very confusing if your not careful.

To better explain the theory behind 2 point perspective drawing I have taken this quote from www.creativeglossary.com.

‘Two-point perspective is a type of linear perspective. All categories of linear perspective include a horizon line and a stationary point (the position of the observer). In two-point perspective, there exist two points from which an object’s lines radiate from; the sides of the object vanish to one of two vanishing points on the horizon line. An object’s vertical lines do not relate to the perspective rules of the horizontal lines. By changing the vanishing points of the object, one can make increase or decrease the size of the object. Two-point perspective is the same as angular perspective.’

Wide beam canal boat master bedroom deign concept

Here you can see the finished 2 point perspective drawing cleaned up with out the vanishing lines on show. Hopefully you will agree this gives a good impression of what the unit might in reality look like.