Art and Design: Group Project

We completed our first group project in my art and design seminar and presented it to the class on Friday. We were given a little over a month to complete the project and ours in particular took many interesting turns during the way. My group was initially interested in how urban surfaces develop over time and how layers of history are recorded on their surface. We were hoping to try and recreate this process and to get the community involved by building a wall of our own. We spent a good two weeks thinking about this wall and trying to find someone who would donate some real wall space so we could hang it. No luck - everyone was enthusiastic but too slow to commit. So we switched to posters. Thinking they would communicate the layering idea and that we could hang them anywhere we hand printed hundreds of posters and hung them around the city. The idea was to reclaim them and to them layer them into a wall of their own. As you might imagine, the posters were coming down far quicker than they were going up. So in the end, we took all of the extras that had not been hung and taped them all onto the wall that had inspired us in the first place. Ironically, in the end the project was less about the wall but more about our successes (very few) and failures (plenty) along the way. We documented much of the process and the presentation consisted mainly of a video that brought some much needed humor to the situation. I'll work on trying to upload it here (it is a bit long) so check back in a week or so. In the meantime, here are some pics of the final "wall."

Full-Scale Model

On Tuesday I picked up the full-scale model from the fabricators. Due to the thickness of the steel I had to outsource the bending. If the metal had been thinner, I could have bent it myself. However, even with the thick steel the model was quite flexible and was not going to work on its own.


So I spent Wednesday and Thursday reinforcing the egdes to give it some rigidity. I did this by tacking a one-inch piece of flat-stock all along both edges. Initially, I was afraid the added material would take away from the simple outline and clean form I was wanting. I was pleased in the end though and the reinforcement was enough to provide strength but not to eliminate all of the movement.



After adding the flat-stock, the model was extremely heavy (not that it was light beforehand...). So for the final version, I am going to make it out of a much thinner gauge steel. With the reinforced edge, the thickness of the sheet should not matter as much. Plus, I will be able to bend it myself and save some money! It is a little bit of a gamble though since I can't really be sure how the steel will behave until I make it at the real scale. Additionally, I am going to change some of the dimensions and angles so that it will work with people of all different sizes (not just people with small feet!). I don't have much time to finish it up (the final version is due on Thursday afternoon). Hopefully, I will be able to pick up the material later today and get started welding this evening.

Body Language

I am currently in the middle of the second assignment in my general studio class. The write up encouraged us to look at how our bodies work, how we interact with the built environment, etc. and to develop a piece that responded to what we learned from observation. Even as I write this in a row of folding chairs my feet are propped up on the chair in front of me. My furniture piece is therefore a response to the fact that I can't seem to sit in a chair without getting my feet off the ground in some way. My first attempt at a solution was a footstool of some kind. The stool would be table height (because I often use a table to hold my bent leg in position) with various notches or ledges built into the the structure that would serve as little toeholds.

I considered various ways of actually making this structure, from carving a frame-like structure to building it up out of layers of plywood. Speaking of making, this assignment carried the additional challenge of requiring us to work with a new material or process. For me this was not so hard since most everything is new but for some people in my class this was a bit constraining. The problem I encountered with the footstool idea in the end though was one of identity. It really was trying to be a solution for every time I sat down but practically I wasn't ever actually going to be able to really bring it with me wherever I sit. So I moved in a different direction. Now, I will be building some sort of chair/footstool combo with the idea that the chair part does not function properly unless the sitter's feet are supported by the adjoining footrest. I am planning on building the piece out of one 8' long piece of bent steel.

I am a little overwhelmed by the size and weight of the idea - just moving the material around will be difficult. Plus, the tricky issue here is how the material interacts with body weight so I will potentially have to do a number of full-scale tests. I built some proportionally correct models hoping that I could predict from them how the full-scale model would behave. Apparently steel doesn't work that way though so I will have to just go for it.

First Project Complete

...sort of.

Our project for studio was due on Thursday. All of the first-years were up most of the night putting the finishing touches on each of our pieces. I had to go home and work in my bed because I was so achy from standing at my bench for hours on end.

We pinned up models, drawings, and any other related process material that would supplement the finished project. We each had 15 minutes to present our project and to receive feedback. In general, the responses to everyone's work was positive. Even the "negative" comments are framed in the form of a question or watered-down a bit. This is quite different from my experience in architecture critiques. I suppose this might have more to do with the disciplines than anything else. Architecture has to work and there is a somewhat objective set of standards by which to judge. Our work in the furniture department verges close to art and the critique is more about the execution and consistency of the idea which can be much more subjective.

I worked for over 28 hours on the final piece. I had some significant setbacks early on and had to figure out another way to build my piece at the last minute. In the end, though, I was still only able to build half of the piece. Thankfully the design was repetitive and the other half would look exactly the same as the first so my review didn't suffer from lack of information.

Here are some images of my presentation and those of my classmates.