Assignment 3 - Progress Work (Site)

Progress Work:

The site is now a cliff.
I've decided to change it from a floating island as the arm, etc is just too constrictive! The island was not big enough and due to its size, began to inform the shape and form of the building. Everything was just so "wrong" about it.

As such, I've taken all (yes, ALL) the concepts and ported them into the next revision. There is NO loss in time and NO effort has been wasted. I have simply changed how it looks aesthetically but conceptually, it remains the same. Seeing as we're dealing with things on a completely higher level (eg: concepts of social interaction, relation to fashion) and not just "does it look good", it is not such a huge step to take.
The concepts ported over are as follows:

• Concept of using the site as part of architecture:
• The architecture is now more wholly integrated with the site. The architecture is intended to sit just off the surface with a very SLIM profile. This is because it is exclusive just for Moss. It has been designed specifically for Moss and no one else. Her house is truly her world and anyone outside of this needs to conform to its parameters. Therefore, for most parts of the house, only thin and lightweight visitors can walk/pass through. 
• I may even impose a weight limit (eg: a gangway can only support a 40kg person walking over it) to increase its exclusivity.
• Moving objects influencing the use of spaces:
• Dabbled with this in Assignment 1 but it didn't get "serious". For the Deyn project, the Blue Foam model was meant to be the door as as well as the lift to access different floors. Didn't end up pursuing this idea as the joins didn't work out well and served to undermine the entire model (since the model was all about joins)
• The original concept in this assignment (3) was to have a chunk of land levitating in space actually suspended by a moving arm that was able to "land" back into its original place. The design intention was for it to function also as a door or series of/labyrinth of walls to influence how the space is used depending on whether it was up or down. Eg: walls were intended to be cut into the underside of the floating island so when it came back down to earth, it would form spaces to an otherwise open space.
• END STATE: The concept is now being used in the same way. The moving item is now like a bit of timber chipped off the end of a plank and replaced again seamlessly. This is now the door and will probably be disguised by a lighthouse at the top. A bit kitsch but that's what we want since it is what is seen "on the surface" and to the uninitiated/not so special people to join Moss at her residence. ALSO, The damn thing needs a bloody handle so it's about ergonomics.
• Lights and electronics:
• Remain the same in implementation.
• Lights are present to support the party life style Moss lives and is able to play along with sound. Lights at any point can be switched to colours to harmonise with the sunset for example (eg: purple against a red/orange/yellow sunset or a light blue/pink for a sunrise).
• Colour psychology and harmony are inspired by the use of colours to influence the way humans think and feel. The below infographic demonstrates this quite well.

•  An example of where this is employed is on the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner planes. The plane uses the lights to help travellers adjust to new time zones thereby reducing jetlag.The LED lighting on this plane has also been marketed for a "branding/identity" usage, stating it can be changed to a client's corporate colours. Most of the colouring rely on colour diffusion/illuminance over surfaces.
• A demonstration can be seen here:

• Site
• Note: Modelling the site in real life and capturing it with 123D Catch has the advantage in not needing to be 1:1 scale as this can be achieved in sketchup. Any scaling in any of the three dimensions can be done with the scale tool in Sketchup to achieve desired effect.

• Blue Foam (subtractive method)
• Working with blue foam just hasn't produced the results intended. There are too many variables (heat, human error -eg: hand shaking, material behaving differently at different speeds, etc) to control and while any site in this world is never perfect, the blue foam hot wire cutter combination just cannot produce the imperfections that I need.
• Beautiful mistakes are made but are just not what I'm looking for at this point
• END STATE: Decision made to move to another material to achieve desired effect

• Clay (additive method)
• Working with clay provided a lot more control over where lumps and bumps should be.
• Forms were very easily made however the forms are now too smooth and there is too much control.
• There is little opportunity to make "happy mistakes" and the model has now in fact become too smooth. No randomness as seen in nature.
• END STATE: Decision made to move to another medium that could be very easily formed with tolerance and room to make irregularities.
• Foil
• Being a material that's never smooth once rolled out of its box, it was perfect!
• Surface imperfections were made by simply forming it to a desired overall shape and the ruffling sort of already came with it.
• The material was also able to be formed to have the excavation/cuts for the architecture to seek structure off. This was achieved by pressing the foil against a rounded table corner. 
• The method of forming the excavation/cuts was inspired by how a shirt is ironed. The shoulders and the back of the neck typically borrow the rounded edge to smooth out the material.
• While more successful than previous attempts, the foil failed in that it was too reflective and 123D Catch was not able to model the form well. The final model was quite broken in several places and melted into the below surface.
• END STATE: Find material with similar properties/qualities.

Capture from 123D Catch
• Paper
• Good old paper! Can't believe I didn't think of this earlier!
• Taking a page out of the Simpson's episode and a joke on Frank Gehry, I scrunched a piece of paper and voila! Exactly what I was looking for!
• It did take a little bit of adjustment but it's amazing how the simplest of methods just work.
• END STATE: Success!
• I AM THE BESTEST ARCHITECT IN THE WORLD!

Capture from 123D Catch