1,385
Welcome back to the second installment of this project. The first one seemed well received, so I intend to do a few more. I apologize for the gap in time between these. This project finished well over a week ago, but I never got the chance to hit up our photography studio to get nice pictures of the final project. The next installment should not be to long, as that project is also already done and photographed.
You all will have to let me know if you want to see some other things as well. I could do things like give an architectural tour of my campus, because it is rather impressive, with many big name architects designing buildings.I could also offer insight into other aspects of not only architecture school, but college in general (At least to the extent that I am aware, after half a semester here). Anyways, here's project number two:
Project #2: Line
So there are three dimensions of space, and they can be characterized as Line, Plane, and Volume in construction. The next three projects all tackle each of these individually. First up is line. We were talked by the end to create a cube out of lines, in the form of bass wood sticks. First up though were some basic line studies.
For these studies, we were tasked with taking a 4" x 4" area and with 5 lines, creating a meaningful composition. The lines could be of varying width, so long as they read as lines. They also had to remain parallel to the vertical and horizontal axis, so nothing diagonal. I found this actually pretty enjoyable. It was kind of satisfying to create these little quick drawings, and aesthetically, it somehow looked pretty good. The drawings almost gave off some strange art-deco vibe. For starters, we create 12 that weren't perfect, but accomplished the task. This is the result of that:
Note that I did in fact use a single diagonal line, as well as some cut lines, which also weren't allowed. While we were given these restrictions, it was also implied to try and push them... just to see what happens. I did just that in two of my examples.
Once we were done with the 12, we then had to choose the best 3 and up the quality. We drew this on expensive paper with expensive pens and markers, but it did look way better:
There are still some imperfections however. This is something that I aim to learn how to control over time.
Anyway, once we had completed this phase of the project, it was on to taking these concepts into the third dimension. We were tasked with using 3/16" bass wood square rods to try and put together two 6" x 6" x 6" study models. These models had to imply a complete cube without defining it, so you really couldn't just make a cube shaped frame and call it good. We also had to explore the interior of the cube, making pieces cut through the middle. So using a fair bit of wood a mini saw, and some wood glue, we pieced together two models over the course of two days. Here they are:
For me, I was quite happy with my compositions. Generally, these models were fairly sloppy. I will state firsthand that it is very difficult to do things like this with wood this small, and we did not have much time at all. It made no matter though, we simply needed to convey and idea here. I like now my model on the left more than the one on the right. I was exploring the idea of two parallel hoops that measured 6 inches on each side. Its an idea that I would run with for the end, but at the time I liked the right model more, so for a bit I decided to pursue it. This would hurt me in the end.
Next step was to draw one of our study models. I naturally chose the one on the right, and using micron pens on expensive paper, I put together an axonometric drawing. This is similar to an isometric drawing, except instead of basing angles on 30 and 60 degrees, its based on 45 degrees. This gives an emphasis on the top face. Why we went with this and not isometric I do not know, as we weren't supposed to favor any side over another. This was however my first time doing an axonometric drawing, so I'm grateful for that experience. Here it is:
(ignore the strange tan lines on my hand, there's a reason for those)
The drawing turned out alright. I messed up towards the center and drew a line where I shouldn't of, but this was a practice drawing to teach us the method. It was expected that people would mess up.
After this drawing, we had to make a full scale model of our chosen design. I decided at this point to pursue my other design, and as a result, I was asked to make a third small model, so I ripped apart the model on the left in the image above and redid it, improving it greatly (I got rid of many of the random hanging edges and added a few more loops of varying size).
After this I did a similar model in the larger scale, again improving it ever so slightly. the following image shows the small model that I made the drawing of, this new small model, and the large scale model, which measures a foot on each side:
In the background you can see some of the other students models.
We spent a great deal of time discussing the current state of our project, and I determined that I was pretty close to what I would consider a final design. I very much liked the cantilever aspect of the cube in the orientation pictured, and it offered an interesting shape when placed in other orientations. It was surprisingly stable as well. Many people had issues with stability on cubes that looked far more stable, but mine seemed to hold well for what it was. I accomplished this by making the supported side way more dense than the unsupported side, which not only balanced it out but allowed the composition to draw the eye across it, drawing it into the complexity from the simplicity. Other people seemed to like that aspect of this design as well.
Finally, after having built four different models (everyone else did 3), it was on to building the final. Using the remainder of the wood I had, plus a fair bit of extra wood, I slowly pieced together the final model. I took care to try and get things to line up as precisely as I could, even sanding down joints that perhaps didn't line up. As a result, this final build ended up taking about 7 hours to build, working late into the night. I specifically cut many of the pieces that would end up forming loops diagonally, allowing the loops to look far cleaner, as well as making them more stable (1.414 times the surface area to glue). My final wasn't perfect. I would of had to spend twice as much time to make it so, but it was a definite improvement over the previous iterations.
Here are a bunch of photographs that I had taken in a photography studio of this model. These pictures are why this blog took to long to come out, but they ended up looking pretty good.
Conclusion
After putting this all together over the course of a week and a half, I actually ended up enjoying this project. Sure, it was more difficult than the 100+1 was, but it was far more satisfying and a fair bit less tedious. It forced us to essentially look at the bare minimum when it comes to composition. The elements we used were only one dimensional in practice. There was really no such thing as obstruction, and generally, depth was hard to achieve. Considering every piece we used looked exactly the same, I am happy that I was able to accomplish the variations that I did in the pattern. Overall it came out pretty well.
Anyways, hope you all enjoyed this one. Next time we will add another dimension.
You all will have to let me know if you want to see some other things as well. I could do things like give an architectural tour of my campus, because it is rather impressive, with many big name architects designing buildings.I could also offer insight into other aspects of not only architecture school, but college in general (At least to the extent that I am aware, after half a semester here). Anyways, here's project number two:
Project #2: Line
So there are three dimensions of space, and they can be characterized as Line, Plane, and Volume in construction. The next three projects all tackle each of these individually. First up is line. We were talked by the end to create a cube out of lines, in the form of bass wood sticks. First up though were some basic line studies.
For these studies, we were tasked with taking a 4" x 4" area and with 5 lines, creating a meaningful composition. The lines could be of varying width, so long as they read as lines. They also had to remain parallel to the vertical and horizontal axis, so nothing diagonal. I found this actually pretty enjoyable. It was kind of satisfying to create these little quick drawings, and aesthetically, it somehow looked pretty good. The drawings almost gave off some strange art-deco vibe. For starters, we create 12 that weren't perfect, but accomplished the task. This is the result of that:
Note that I did in fact use a single diagonal line, as well as some cut lines, which also weren't allowed. While we were given these restrictions, it was also implied to try and push them... just to see what happens. I did just that in two of my examples.
Once we were done with the 12, we then had to choose the best 3 and up the quality. We drew this on expensive paper with expensive pens and markers, but it did look way better:
There are still some imperfections however. This is something that I aim to learn how to control over time.
Anyway, once we had completed this phase of the project, it was on to taking these concepts into the third dimension. We were tasked with using 3/16" bass wood square rods to try and put together two 6" x 6" x 6" study models. These models had to imply a complete cube without defining it, so you really couldn't just make a cube shaped frame and call it good. We also had to explore the interior of the cube, making pieces cut through the middle. So using a fair bit of wood a mini saw, and some wood glue, we pieced together two models over the course of two days. Here they are:
For me, I was quite happy with my compositions. Generally, these models were fairly sloppy. I will state firsthand that it is very difficult to do things like this with wood this small, and we did not have much time at all. It made no matter though, we simply needed to convey and idea here. I like now my model on the left more than the one on the right. I was exploring the idea of two parallel hoops that measured 6 inches on each side. Its an idea that I would run with for the end, but at the time I liked the right model more, so for a bit I decided to pursue it. This would hurt me in the end.
Next step was to draw one of our study models. I naturally chose the one on the right, and using micron pens on expensive paper, I put together an axonometric drawing. This is similar to an isometric drawing, except instead of basing angles on 30 and 60 degrees, its based on 45 degrees. This gives an emphasis on the top face. Why we went with this and not isometric I do not know, as we weren't supposed to favor any side over another. This was however my first time doing an axonometric drawing, so I'm grateful for that experience. Here it is:
(ignore the strange tan lines on my hand, there's a reason for those)
The drawing turned out alright. I messed up towards the center and drew a line where I shouldn't of, but this was a practice drawing to teach us the method. It was expected that people would mess up.
After this drawing, we had to make a full scale model of our chosen design. I decided at this point to pursue my other design, and as a result, I was asked to make a third small model, so I ripped apart the model on the left in the image above and redid it, improving it greatly (I got rid of many of the random hanging edges and added a few more loops of varying size).
After this I did a similar model in the larger scale, again improving it ever so slightly. the following image shows the small model that I made the drawing of, this new small model, and the large scale model, which measures a foot on each side:
In the background you can see some of the other students models.
We spent a great deal of time discussing the current state of our project, and I determined that I was pretty close to what I would consider a final design. I very much liked the cantilever aspect of the cube in the orientation pictured, and it offered an interesting shape when placed in other orientations. It was surprisingly stable as well. Many people had issues with stability on cubes that looked far more stable, but mine seemed to hold well for what it was. I accomplished this by making the supported side way more dense than the unsupported side, which not only balanced it out but allowed the composition to draw the eye across it, drawing it into the complexity from the simplicity. Other people seemed to like that aspect of this design as well.
Finally, after having built four different models (everyone else did 3), it was on to building the final. Using the remainder of the wood I had, plus a fair bit of extra wood, I slowly pieced together the final model. I took care to try and get things to line up as precisely as I could, even sanding down joints that perhaps didn't line up. As a result, this final build ended up taking about 7 hours to build, working late into the night. I specifically cut many of the pieces that would end up forming loops diagonally, allowing the loops to look far cleaner, as well as making them more stable (1.414 times the surface area to glue). My final wasn't perfect. I would of had to spend twice as much time to make it so, but it was a definite improvement over the previous iterations.
Here are a bunch of photographs that I had taken in a photography studio of this model. These pictures are why this blog took to long to come out, but they ended up looking pretty good.
Final Pictures
Conclusion
After putting this all together over the course of a week and a half, I actually ended up enjoying this project. Sure, it was more difficult than the 100+1 was, but it was far more satisfying and a fair bit less tedious. It forced us to essentially look at the bare minimum when it comes to composition. The elements we used were only one dimensional in practice. There was really no such thing as obstruction, and generally, depth was hard to achieve. Considering every piece we used looked exactly the same, I am happy that I was able to accomplish the variations that I did in the pattern. Overall it came out pretty well.
Anyways, hope you all enjoyed this one. Next time we will add another dimension.
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I also liked your lines drawing and the comments related to art-deco, since it is my favourite style. Unfortunately we don't have many real life building examples in my country. Needles to say, your lines also reminded me of the Broadway Typeface - also a personal favourite.
Great stuff!
I expect to see some hot 4-dimensional structures next time...
The pictures were fun. It's amazing the resources I have readily available to do that type of stuff. We just kind of walked to the photography studio and they handed us a camera and left us alone. That was fun. I am proud of those pictures considering it was my first time using an actual real camera lol.
Anyway, thank you.
Anyway, thanks man!