Semester 2

Another semester has come to an end, and with that again I felt that it would be good to share some random photos that did not make the cut into the blog from this semester. 

This first photo is one of many diagrams that I had to do for the house project. It was fun to do but it did not really help in the long run. It shows different paths that people can take through out the house. Blue is for service workers, orange for guest, and green for the private home owners.

This next diagram was an important one that the other student doing the Kaufmann and myself made right before spring break to agree on what the terrain will look like in our models.

To get great photos of my model, and Brian's we set up an area in Crown to photographer our models. This area was nothing more then two pieces of foam core and a desk lamp.

This photo is of my vacuum form from my materials lab class. I took a photo of it just because I was so pleased at how it came out because it is easy to leave wrinkles on the form.

This photo is from my own project. I bought a board of walnut and did not know what to do with it. I bought it because it was so cheap and I'd rather have it and then later decide what to make out of it.

I later decided that it should be used to make my first attempt at a coaster set idea that I had.

Another personal project of mine was my poplar bowl.

It was made from one piece of poplar cut and glued into four pieces.

The bowl itself I made on a wood lathe about a week after I glued the four pieces together.

Open House

At the end of every year, the College of Architecture holds its annual Open House in Crown Hall.

It is an event that showcases select works from students done during that current academic school year.

The works for the showcase are selected based off the premise of a project receiving at least an A-. More so, in reality it also depends on if the professor liked the project to begin with.

I was lucky enough to be asked for two works to be put into Open House. My model of the Kaufmann Desert House and my model from the Color Project. However, the color model was nowhere near good enough condition to be put on display, so it headed to the dumpster instead of Open House. It was great to have something in there my first year, and hopefully I will have models in there next year, but that's a long road from now.

Here are some photos from Open House night.

The End of Studio II

Another semester has come to an end, and it feels like rather a quick one (although the reality of it was anything but a quick semester). 

It has been about a month since the stress of the house project passed and our final project, F.E.N.C.E (an acronym whose meaning I cannot remember anymore), has now just been completed. 

It was a very hands-on project which involved designing and building a full scale fence that is at the same time a planter that provides practical use.  

Here I am, during our review, very happy and very tired after working constantly for a week to complete this project at full scale.

We were limited to a week due to the wood for the whole studio coming in late.

This project first involved understanding the site. Our site? A vacant plot of land once home to a greek house on campus next to Michigan Avenue. 

Chicago

The Downtown Area

Campus

The Site

The idea was to provide a garden that can be used by the university.

The goal also included making it rabbit proof but that requirement quickly went out the door.

Here is our model

Our (my partner Nathanael and myself) design is based off of the 4x4 post that hold the fence upright.

a 4x4 post has a measurement of 3.5"x3.5". We used that measurement as one unit. From there we made a variety of boxes, 1x1, 1x2, 2x1, 2x2, and an "L" box.

Construction had to be a quick process seeing as there was exactly one week to have everything built, placed and planted. 

For us, we had to dig a large ditch in-between the two already existing post to place our addition four into, along with 5 1/2 bags of concrete. 

To secure that all the post would be inline with each other

Once we had them screwed together then came the process of making sure they stood straight

Then next day was box assembly 

 Once they were all built they were ready to be attached to the posts, with the concrete dry and the remainder of the hole filled back in with dirt.

The end result was this, with plants included.

It might not have been my favorite project but it brought Studio II and my first year to an end.

Two Months with a House

Our longest project to date has just recently come to an end. It was a very long road. It consisted of late nights, early mornings, hours upon hours of drafting, and building, and an entire spring break of work.

The whole project, in the end, consisted of: plans, sections, elevations, a perspective, an axonometric, and a site plan. All of those had to be drafted by hand. Also, a component model, and designing, drafting, and building a model of an accessory building to be placed on the site of the house.

Drafting has been on going from the beginning to the very end of the project. Construction of the model took place over spring break. Every day, from the very start was filled with working on the model at home. I was able to do so because my there is a machine shop at our house. 

Planning for the model took place at school, on my desk covered in an architectural mess.

As always, I had two former study models with me

The whole project construction started with a stack of wood. Ten sheets of 1/8 inch basswood and ten of 1/16 inch. 

I traded in my workspace in Crown Hall for one at home, in the shop.

To make the process quicker I drew the floor plan on the sheet of MDF that would soon be the base of the whole site.

The first part of the house that was made was the servant's area of the house.

To assure that walls would be kept in place while the glue dried metal blocks and magnets were used.

Construction continued with all the walls being made

To raise the house above the rest of the site, a thin sheet of MDF was used to make a base for just the house.

Soon after that, the base was painted, and the pool was routed out.

The base was attached to the larger piece of MDF with contact cement and the pool was painted blue.

      

Planters for the house were made from basswood, sand, and scotch brite torn up.

Next holes were routed out for rocks, that came from the landscaping around our house, were made to represent the large boulders found on the actual site.

They were held in place with the help of epoxy.

After the rocks, came filling the pool with epoxy to represent the water. The blue of the paint and the slight yellow of the epoxy created the perfect pool water color.

Then came the glueing of the walls to the base.

The chimney was made from a piece of maple, milled on a milling machine.

The photo above was a sampler made up of the options for the grass, sand, and gravel for the model.

Once all was well and just the right stuff was picked, it was time to glue it all down.

One of the final steps was the roof.

The roof is made out of plastic, covered in sand paper(to give it texture) then finally spray painted white to resemble the real roof.

It all began to start to look just like the house.

In the end the final model was something I am very proud of.

In the end, all the hard work is worth it.

Here is another model from the project, from another studio section.

Here is the model by my friend, Brian, the same Brian who I worked on the cardboard chair and the site geometry projects.

He had Ed's Shed or "Sunken Shed" by David Adjaye.