2326QCA Fabrication and Construction as Sculpture: ARTWORK( Group project )

header from the facebook group page

The following document covers the progress of the group project for Fabrication and Construction as Sculpture unit.

Project Leader :

Lisa McNamara

Deputy

Team Members

Zachary McCann

The creation of a facebook group was to assist us in colaborating out of the university setting. This was part of our preperation in the first week which also included our allocation of a shelf in the sculpture studio and selection of smaller pieces which were put aside on the shelf.

Facebook group:

Fabrication & Constuction

https://www.facebook.com/groups/242096369461402/

Project outline

The group project is a warm up exercise. There is no text on the project provided to refer to. It was a response to the Fabrication and Generation lecture and some of the ideas and theories presented. The lecture concluded by asking us to consider living structures. Using materials provided and sourced collaborate with your fellow students to experiment and explore the nature of the materials

Our approach
We could use timber, but we were allowed to use anything really.
We are satisfied with our project as it stands. We have in a formal sense rejected the use of mechanical and electrical tools (with a small exception to a single screw in each donut). We are exploring a very environmentally friendly and organic process. Relying on the use of our hands for tools and allowing freedom of the individual to explore shapes with cardboard . .

We are keeping a very open mind to how this project develops and from our experience listening to architects and designers discuss a client's brief it is not unusual for them to reject the brief or parts of it, in order to pursue a project that meets a more sustainable outcome etc.

Group research

The following research was made after week 1 class:

Christopher Alexander

He is the father of the Pattern Language movement in computer science, and A Pattern Language was perhaps the first complete book ever written in hypertext fashion.

An association of people from all walks of life with architects and builders. We are rebuilding our neighborhoods slowly rebuilding the earth. These tools allow anyone, and any group of people, to create beautiful, functional, meaningful places.

You can create a living world.

http://www.patternlanguage.com/newindex-ios.html

Christopher Alexander - Patterns in Architecture

The following presentation was recorded live in San Jose, California, October of 1996, at The 1996 ACM Conference on Object-Oriented Programs, Systems, Languages and Applications (OOPSLA).

A full transcript of this talk is available here: http://www.patternlanguage.com/archiv...

(Below)Brainstorming notes, week 1.

List of group members to the left

List of words to the right brainstorming to break down the direction we wanted to head in as a group.

After this brainstorming it was decided that Lisa Tristan Eyles and Tristan Griffin . . Eyles was going to bring cardboard and Griffin was going to bring some vine/plant. Lisa was going to bring some string, cord and paper.

What is Bio mimicry .

Biomimicry is an approach to innovation that seeks sustainable solutions to human challenges by emulating nature’s time-tested patterns and strategies.

http://biomimicry.org/what-is-biomimicry/#.Vtgzt0UmKJI

(ABOVE) Phoebe Washburn, an American installation artist, works primarily in wood and cardboard scraps to build what she calls "spontaneous architecture." Her work explores generative systems based on absurd patterns of production created by banal rules that she sets up when working on an installation.

http://inhabitat.com/phoebe-washburns-mind-boggling-installations-are-made-from-scrap-wood-cardboard/

(ABOVE) Stockholm-based illustrator, printmaker and artist Nina Lindgren designed and built a coardboard floating structure that resembles the futuristic urban dystopia of the 1927 silent film Metropolis. A series of cardboard elements are stacked together to create a hillside settlement. The artist even introduced internal lights in some of the tiny houses to make the installation appear more realistic and spatial.

( Even though we are not allowed to hang anything from the ceiling in the studio, we could build something and hang it in the interdisciplinary studio.)

Week 2

The session consisted of initial brainstorming to give our group a sense of direction.

We then went and sourced materials such as cardboad, paper, timber, string, leaves etc.

Then experiemented with those materials for approximately one(1) hour.

We then gathered together once more to check on our progress, and decisions were made as to which techniques were effective and met with our needs.

The group was then compartmentalised to focus on separate elements of the final artwork

ie:

large segment

cells

small objects

cones

(ABOVE) Mind mapping our structure

(ABOVE) this was the brainstorming for the donut segments that I worked on for this project.

The following are progress photos and experimentation(refer to captions).

Research for week 1
One other item for discussion is . .
Our structure have a name/title?
I was thinking "Organism" . . It's in keeping with our mindset for the project and works on so many levels. Apologies first as this is a link to Wikipedia, but I think the definitions embrace our ideas.

In biology, an organism is any contiguous living system, such as an animal, plant or bacterium. All known types of organisms are capable of some degree of response to stimuli, reproduction, growth and development and homeostasis. An organism consists of one or more cells; when it has one cell it is known as a unicellular organism; and when it has more than one it is known as a multicellular organism. Most unicellular organisms are of microscopic size and are thus classified as microorganisms. Humans are multicellular organisms composed of many trillions of cells grouped into specialized tissues and organs. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organism

My role this week was in experimenting and resolving the creation of the 'donuts'
This was achieved by cutting a cardboard box into equal thickness strips, breaking the internal structure of the cardboard by running it along the edge of the desk then joining the strips together. The next step was to roll the long length of cardboard into a roll, leaving a large hole in the center then wrapping paper around the outer layer. The cardboard and paper elements were then held together by drilling a 40mm screw through all the layers on the "under" side.