MidSemester Crit feedback

We pinned up our A1 sheet and individually talked to the tutors about what we had done so far. I had no idea if I was on the right track, so I was relieved when they said they had liked what I had done. Some advice they gave to work on were;
- to think about how I could incorporate the architectural historian and the landscaper in the design.
- Library - architectural historian
- could landscape the area

Gathering

I started reading the articles on CECIL Judy posted to get some inspiration. Some quotations I thought might be relevant to my design brief.

Waiting Spaces
-"temporary transformation of waiting spaces into public spaces"

From Product to Process
- This article emphasied how the culture of a place modifies the design

Typology Wars
-Striation "articulating the built volume/ lanscape surfaces" - Bahram Shirdel's concept

The Mix House
-Buildings are drivien by acoustic qualities
- Contemporaty modern technologies + modernist acoustics = create opportunities for people to share meaningful audiovisual experiences in space

Site

Site

Brief

Today we learnt the easiest way to remember the definiton of 'typology' is types of buildings. So for example, housing, factories, commercial, public, but then each one branches off again. So housing typologies might include, linear, courtyard, split floor levels, curving elements etc.

So by tomorrow we have to find a way to combine elements of all of these!!!
1. SITE
2. Skills of my 4 colleagues
3. Matrix Building
4. Waking and Sustenance projects
5. 1:100 building

So it really is about 'gathering' -  of ideas and people! 

Feedback

Ideas I can look into and also feedback on what I had done so far,
- Drawings are not messy enough
- Maybe look into the hierarchy of the people in my studio?
- Start to find ideas from my 'waking' and 'sustenance' projects that are similar
- I can demolish buildings, to fit my studio in.
- Good to use different media
- Shouldnt have 'fluffy lines'

Week 6 - Gathering

Our group has now moved onto 'Animation'. We have been told to buy an A1 piece of paper and just start drawing. So, so far I have drawn my site and faces of my 4 colleagues with their 'skill'. In my studio there are; a photographer (dark room?), a draughtsman (drawing table, bright area), landscaper, lawyer/researcher (computer)  and an architect. Also I have decided to keep the site my 1:100 situated. I will need to decide whether I want my studio hanging, have it connected to the buildings on either side, protuding from the 1:100 building, on the ground etc.

Thursday Crit

Yeong Kyong Kim
http://orangenink3.tumblr.com/archive
http://orangenink3.tumblr.com/post/9036862120/sustenance-stop-motion
Yeong's concept was about heat and warmth. She designed a building where the top is transparent and therefore receives heat during the day and radiates it out at night, (i think similar to a trombe wall?) She has put more windows on a particular side so it aborbs more natural sunlight. She played around with layering, as her building consists of geometric shapes one on top of one another, but hollowed out in the inside to achieve this atrium feeling (well thats what I got from it). Shes sited her building in the park opposite Vector Arena, directly above the man made water feature. From what I saw on her A1 sheet she got to the final design quite quickly, however this may not be the case because I have heard you also erase ideas and draw on top of it. When I asked Yeong if she had any advice for me she said to use a tripod when taking photos.

Zoe Philips
http://sem2carnivale.tumblr.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIkNk2DOFoU

Zoe's concept was 'paratism' and looked into a building site and what was being sustained there. Her design was built up with scaffolding  and ropes to tie down the material draped over it. (materials found at the site)Her drawing
seems to look at how the old buildings are cannabils and the new builidngs take on the role of the new parasite. She made her structure so it can be moved around the site, like a temporary building! She recommended I check that I do not have this particular function clicked (cant remember what its called) before I import my picutres so I dont get the Ken Burns Effect on my stop motion.

Yucong (Steven) Shan
http://coolsyc.blogspot.com/)



 Photographs of his A1 paper


Steven said his concept revolves around sunlight . His building is a pyramid with a ball on the top to 'represent' the sun and has vertical lines for the sun rays. He has sited his building in the carpark in front of the old railway station
and consists of 3 floors. THe ground floor is for shopping, the second houses Foodtown and the top floor is a office. He said he chose that place because there are no shops to buy anything from. Although it seems he has drawn many different floor plans his development does not stray away from the pyramid idea. The materials he will use is "glass" and "alucoband".

Matrix

My matrix

Photo Montage

In this photo montage I have put my structure on the site. On the left is Alex's model, unfortunatley I couldn't get a photo of his final project so instead I put in his draft model. Our stalls are placed beside each other because we sell similar products- he sells men's cologne. April's stall is on the other side of mine, and we placed ours togethor because she sells plants- both ornamental and decorative. So in theory I would use her herbs etc to make my skin care products!

Final Model

This is my final model at 1:20 (however i got told it is a bit small, so I have enlarged it in my photo montage). My market stall sells natural skin care products, with honey as the main ingredient. My model has two parts, two triangles that fit into one another. Each end has a joint, and the top ends have been made so it can open, allowing the stall to be portable. The structure is intimate and not very 'open', as natural skin care products should avoid direct sunlight. The flaps act to also help block out the sun but with a few hexagons cut out so it is not completely dark inside. The structure is engraved with hexagons, that are all the same scale. The structure alone is very 'precise', and this contrasts with the rough 'skin'- which is beeswax.

Roberta mentioned she saw beeswax at 'Flotsam and Jetsam', so I went and they had a range of different size beewax candles. I brought 3 long candles and only used up half of one!

Construction

Next time I think I will buy hinges not make my own. They were very time consuming and in my final model, looks messy.

6mm wide and 20mm long

The plywood started snapping and I was scared it would snap in half. So I decided to not attach the wings on the same way. Instead I brought UHU super glue, I realise this is not ideal but I thought it was a better option than having a broken model!

Draft Model

Laser Cut

The sides turned out perfectly however I the bottom two circles I was just going to have the hexagons cut out, but after physically seeing it, I decided an engraved outline would looker cleaner and fit better with the other sides.

Models

So I have made two models. In Model A I experiemented with different ideas, such as whether I should have same size hexagons or different sizes, engraving a frame or having the engraved hexagons right to the edge ,the matter of shelving and lastly having a skeleton AND an outer skin.


After physically seeing it, I then decided to develop it further. Having different size hexagons looked very 'random' and did not have a feeling of 'precision' which is what I want.  The frame did not look like what I expected, I wanted my skin to be 'delicate' which would contrast with the 'precise' feeling of the structure.


Therefore I decided to make another model- Model B,  in this model instead of having two seperate layers, it conveys the 'idea' of two layers more simply. I will lasercut pin sized holes into the structure (i couldnt do it in the model because the wood was too thick) and engrave hexagon shapes in to the surface.


(After honeybees build their comb, they start filling it with honey and seal the bigger holes with wax)I then dipped each section into wax, i tried to get some thick areas but also parts where there is a very thin layer of wax. I have been searching everywhere for beeswax, however I have not been able to find it. However I have been told Elam sells it, so I will go there and ask. If I cannot get beeswax i will just have to use wax..


I wanted try lasercutting wax however the person in charge was hesitant about the idea as it could get messy, and I agree because it would melt and could possibly damage the machine.

Skin

The bulsa was extremely fragile and started snapping so I had to use masking tape to keep it togethor

Skeleton

Too random

Honeycomb

I think this photo is fantastic! it shows the honeycomb process, where the bees build the comb and as it fills up with honey they seal it with wax.
This has helped me to develop my design.

Joint

Skeleton

I have chosen a light warm coloured wood and took it into the workshop to cut- to get the exact measurements.

Research

Propolis is a resinous mixture that honey bees collect from tree buds, sap flows, or other botanical sources. It is used as a sealant for unwanted open spaces in the hive. Propolis is used for small gaps (approximately 6 millimeters (0.24 in) or less), while larger spaces are usually filled with beeswax. Its color varies depending on its botanical source, the most common being dark brown. Propolis is sticky at and above room temperature (20° Celsius).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propolis 

Propolis

Propolis (sometimes called bee glue or bee propolis, but different from bee pollen) is a resin-like brown substance made by bees from material collected from trees and shrubs.
Bees make propolis by collecting resin secreted by plants to protect leaf buds and trunk wounds, and by combining it with beeswax and enzymes,make propolis.
Despite what many people believe, propolis is not bee pollen. Propolis is however, carried by bees on their hind legs in the same way pollen from flowers is transported.
Bees use propolis to seal gaps in the hive, to sterilise the nest, and also use propolis to embalm intruding insects and animals too large to move out.
Propolis has the same antibacterial and antifungal properties as the plant resins which form its base. Bees make use of these antibacterial properties to protect their hives, especially from the Bacillus larvae, an organism which causes disease in bees.
However, all propolis is definitely not created equal. The properties of propolis vary widely depending on location, reflecting the variability of plant material available to bees.
For humans, the benefits of propolis extend far beyond use as an antibacterial and antifungal agent. A growing body of scientific research shows propolis, especially propolis from particular countries, is effective in combating viruses and halting the growth of certain types of cancer.
Propolis is collected by commercial beekeepers by scraping hive parts or on special propolis collection mats. Raw propolis is processed to remove beeswax and other impurities, before being used in products as varied as propolis liquid, tincture, and even a propolis toothpaste
http://www.bio30.com/what_is_propolis.cfm

Research

http://www.ehow.co.uk/how_8364672_remove-bees-super-harvest-honey.html 

This website describes how to remove the honey.

Development

Feedback from tutors and some of my own development...


- Not only will I perforate the structure but also cut out pin holes
- the structure wont be one whole piece but into 3 pieces, and will be stuck togethor with hinges- I talked to Phill and told him how I wanted the hinge, and we nutted it out to find a good solution! I will go back there on wednesday morning to do it.
- Pollen powder?
- The structure will have this 'prisine' feeling while the frame of the skin will look delicate. I dont know if I want to contrast this and use wax to make it 'wild' (because making organic skin products is messy!)
- beeswax- Im having trouble finding it!but i will experiment with wax and if i cannot find beeswax might have use wax?
- wax/string?
- pour wax on cardboard and then laser cut out holes (far apart)
- Dipping a section in wax?

Mock up Models

Started getting too complicated, and for it to join up perfectly it became bigger than the prescribed 5m by 5m

thumbprint texture