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May 13, 2005

Studio Goings-On

Um, so. We've been doing a lot of stuff in studio and professional practice. This leads to me just not posting much because there's enough going on that it seems like there's too much to post every day, but then again, at the end of the week there's an even huger pile of stuff to talk about. So I'm going to skip some stuff and you will have to trust me that it was not all that interesting, anyway.

We've done a bunch of studies of sun position using this little tool, called a Solar Transit. It seems to involve a lot of looking directly at the sun using a pointing device, which doesn't seem all that bright to me, but apparently architects do this a lot. So if you see an architect stumbling around blinking and walking into stuff, you know why.

This week we had to produce a detailed fragment of a building. I chose a detail from the windows of Notre Dame le Raincy, by Auguste Perret. I don't know much about Perret, but I was delighted by the photos of the church in history. Anyway, making a piece of cast concrete at 1/2" or 1" scale is not as easy as it sounds. Concrete is sized the way it is usually because it is not practical for it to be smaller.

This was my first attempt, which was pretty bad.

I refined my techniques, worked at a much larger scale (1" rather than 1/2"), and came up with this, which is much closer to the real thing.

Once we had our fragments, we were told to design a display/library space around them, and as storage for the school's collection of material samples and details. Our first job was to produce a series of study models, so I made seven or eight today (two are due next week, but more are better).

I had this idea for a dripping, undulating rhythm made from tiles falling in uneven rows from the ceiling, but they never seem to come out right or work with the fragment I have, which is actually kind of massive.

I finally did come up with an idea for holding the tiles apart with sticks, to let light in in a pattern opposite to that in the window fragment. I like this model best of the ones I've made.

The thing is, you need to keep making models, so you are certain you aren't missing a great idea by stopping with what you have. As I worked, I ended up with this, which kind of looks like a phone booth or something as prosaic. It's not working for me.

Posted by ayse on 05/13/05 at 11:14 PM