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May 6, 2005

End of the Ritual Space Project

I don't know where my obsession with anthropomorphic buildings has come from, lately, but as I said, I've been designing this ritual space for architecture for the last few weeks. On Wednesday we had our crit (we have six more to get through today).

We had to do a series of drawings, a slice model, and a detailed model called a fragment.

My design for the stairs as I built them.

I blew the design drawing up to a 1/2" scale (the required scale for our detailed models), cut the pieces out, and pasted them to my piece of basswood. Then I went down to the shop and cut them out and sanded them.

I ended up with a bunch of little chunks, all carefully numbered so I could fit them back into place. I traced the overlaps onto them and arranged them on a copy for the blown-up drawing.

The rest of the day was spent gluing pieces together. With white glue, you can put a bit on, clamp it, and in five minutes you can undo the clamp and reuse it for another joint. I only have two of these nice small clamps -- I should get six or eight more, really. And some that open wider.

The one thing that didn't work so well in my design was the transition from classical staircase to organic staircase. I thought this would look less contrast-y, but oh, well. Of course my teacher noticed that right away during the crit.

The pieces of the staircase ready to be glued together. I waited to do that until they'd both had time to dry for a day, just so the pressure would not break the whole thing apart.

Also, I had some troubles with the twistier side of the staircase, so I wanted to give that extra time to dry and get strong.

For my slice model, I made some cast-plaster pieces to be the light fins on the south facade. This is my used formwork, which really just fell apart when I put plaster in it.

But the cast pieces came out fine.

Getting the slice model together was tricky. I used little wires to hold pieces in the air, where they would be supported by a structural member not visible in the slice. Everything is very delicate and wobbly.

Oh, and the finished staircase. At this point, by the way, it was about an hour before the crits started. I was calm, relaxed, and sure I would be done in time.

Voila!

A lot of you have never seen a crit, so this is what they are like. You pin your drawings up, set your models on the table, and explain your project and your process. The teacher asks you questions, classmates ask you questions, and you have to defend your design. It sounds much more stressful than it actually is; it's usually just wearing, because you have to be intellectually "on" for five hours with occasional ten-minute breaks.

It's much harder for the students who don't have much experience speaking in front of people, because they get stressed about it.

Posted by ayse on 05/06/05 at 10:10 PM