Monday 3: Today was a bank holiday, so no work placement, which worked out in my favor because I got to focus on the project, and was able to finish the Sketchup today. By finish I mean the building itself is done, the materials haven't been chosen, and the rooms have not furniture as yet. I'm very happy with the way the building came out, I love the design, and I could really imagine it full, with student, making their presence known in those cross corridor. Whilst modelling, I did tweak some of the design, and also add features I had overlooked, like the ground floor, roof, and lift to name a few. Seeing the building done, and being able to navigate around it, really reinforces the choice I made, choosing this design over the tree house. Maybe if the roles were switched I would be saying the same thing but I doubt it. Now I'm looking forward to modelling it, but I'm also quite anxious to do so, the design is fairly simple I think, but for someone who has solely modelled in Lego, the task to do it in wood is slightly daunting.
Geisel Library- William Leonard Pereira (1970)
Tuesday 4: Last Friday in school I had taken A2 paper, as the plan was to draw the net for the whole building, scan that in school and put that through for it to be laser cut. After starting the drawing, I noticed some measurements weren't that good, some lines weren't perfectly straight, so hand drawing the plan for it was off the table. I think it's imperative that the measurements are very accurate, therefore I will do all the drawing out of the pieces on the laser cutter software. So instead I took that A2 paper, trimmed it to be 56x36 cm as that is the dimensions of the laser cutter's platform, worked out that a total of 7 of those 56x36cm sheets would be the same as my 4 wood sheets, and started making a rough paper model. The scale that I went with is 1:1000 and is the scale I'll go with when doing the final model. So I carried on with that, with my main focus being the outside of the model. Once having finished the outside I came to the conclusion, that the focus of the maquette shouldn't be the outside but rather the inside, so when I get around to making the maquette I will build the core of the building, and the outside will be a single piece that you can take on and off.
Wednesday 5: Today I was in school, the plan for today was to take all the components of the building, break them up into 2D shapes, measure those out and draw that out on paper, noting how many of each I'll need. I didn't get much done apart from that today in school, I did however have a very pleasant time observing the clouds for a good portion of the lesson. Got home outlined the next blog posts I need to make, titled them, put them in the draft and called it a day really. Nothing else that is notable for the day.
United States Air Force Academy Cadet Chapel- Walter Netsch (1962)
Thursday 6: Got to school, and today I started drawing out the pieces of the maquette on the laser cutter software, it's called RDworks V8. I have to say it's an awful software, that really doesn't want to help it's user in anyway shape or form, but you get used to it quite quickly, and when you're just doing rectangles it is smooth sailing. Making triangles on the other hand is annoying, and needlessly wastes time, I don't know if that is because I'm not good with the software or if it's not a good software in itself. Anyway as stated previously, I've decide to build the inside first, and so I started on the ground floor, with the cross, with the circular meeting point. I'm astonishingly slow at doing this I have to say. I've come to face with the fact that a good model/ the kind of model I want will not be able to be made for the deadline, which is Wednesday for all practical work, but it would actually be Friday for the model, because I wouldn't have access to the laser cutter from Friday to Wednesday. So I'll still be doing the model it just won't be part of the work submitted on Friday the 14th, which is disappointing yes. I however only have myself to blame, I dragged a lot of aspects in the project to flesh it out, but I wouldn't change that, it's what makes the project good in my eyes. This project will have to be like the others, in that the final outcome will be a Sketchup model, however unlike others this Sketchup model will lead to a maquette, one I now have more time to make which I'm very pleased about.
Friday 7: Finished drawing out the last few pieces for the ground floor. Then I got all the wood boards inside the laser cutter and marked them so they would properly fit on the platform that the laser will go over. Once they were marked, I took them to one of my teachers who cut them down for me using a band saw. When that was done, it was laser cutting time. Before starting I had to move some of the pieces around in the software as they were out of bounds. Laser did his thing, cut all the pieces with a staggering precision, and a very nice smell of burning wood, good times. Now I have all the pieces for the ground floor, I just need glue to stick them together. I have also drawn out the floor for the next level. Things are moving forward. That was all for today, didn't do any work really when I got home.
RCC Headquarters- Foster + Partners (2021)
Saturday 8: Being that the Sketchup model is now the final outcome, the focus is shifted on that. Today I focused on making the model look like what it actually would, at the moment it's all grey and white and only is one storey. I imagined this design to be at least four storey, and the materials are concrete, wood, glass and metal. So that's what I did today, repeat the living quarters three times, and repeat the lift structure and stairs so that it would run through those four levels. The staircase took a bit longer than expected, because the one I have now is a 5m staircase, because it runs from the ground floor to the first floor, but from the first floor to the second the distance is shorter, 2m shorter, so I created a new staircase that would meet the demands and that was that. Now the model has all the materials, stairs and lift. The bedrooms, terrace, kitchen, living and launderette still need to be filled with the furniture, but that will prove quite a bit tedious because my computer won't be able to put up with rooms being filled with furniture, so I think I'll have to fill each of the rooms separately in their unique documents so that's operation of it's own. What this means however is that I won't be able to show the model with furnished rooms which is a bummer.
Sunday 9: Today I made a blog post on which design I chose and the whys. Although I've already discussed this in the journal I realize that reading these journal post can be repetitive and boring, and having to go through what I have to say daily just to get a glimpse of interesting information about the project is not ideal. So whenever there's a crucial point, decision or just important information regarding the project I tend to make a separate post about it, a post where all my blabbing on isn't present. So made that post, took the famous of photo of Muhammad Ali standing over knocked out Sonny Liston and edited the two designs I had been debating about on Muhammad and Sonny's head just to make a interesting cover for the blog post. Then I just got on with this journal, and I'll have it done and posted today, which is a small victory, I haven't had a lot of these journal post going out at the right time. The plan for the rest of the day is to work on furbishing the bedrooms and maybe if I work efficiently enough the kitchen.
The Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption- Pietro Belluschi and Pier-Luigi Nervi (1971)
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