London

4D models: we found some 1:400 figures and cars and sheets of aluminium with etched lines running across it - perfect for that we need for the exterior of the secc but we will have to check on scale and wether or not we can get away with it regardless of scale. We have made note of the product codes to check online for potential discounts or cheaper sources.

Saw several interesting models in the

design museum today. gave us some ideas regarding the finish of the model and how the main subject will meet and 'connect' (as in look like its supposed to be there astheticly) to the base.

Of perticular interest was the way in which 'water' covered areas met the edge of the baseboard. We will discuss this as a group tomorrow (See right).

Progress!

Today was productive.

• I scaled up the side elevation and plan whilst Ed printed the site plans.
• We had a few issues scaling up the drawings. Taking the 1:500 drawing back to 1:1 and then down to 1:400 gave us and overall length of 318.75mm. This was fine but in order to enlarge the 1:500 drawings up we needed a percentage which confused us all for a while. The percentage of increase must be 25% rather than the 20% we had calculated. This may seem reletively minor but it really set us back just because we couldnt make sense of it! (we still don't understand quite why it was 25% rather than the increase of 20% from the 1:500 drawings!)
• Once we had the site plan emeraled scaled it up to 1:400 and we began planning what exactly we wanted to include on the base board.
• We decided on overall dimentions of 330mm² at a height of 90mm at the 'high point' of the board and 60mm for the river level.
• Decided on construction of the baseboard and Ed cut out the peices.
• Me and Emerald made a sketch mock up of the model at scale 1:400 to use as a guide in constucting our model.

Overall a productive day. Next come issues with the finish look of the model on the baseboard.

Slow Progress

Having recieved no response from any of the emails and or phonecalls we made we have collectivly decided to start from scratch and focus our ideas onto idea 1.

To set it apart from a previous example on display in the studio we are going to scale up the model to 1:400 making it 319mm in length - considerably bigger than the previous example.

(I suggested a scale of 1:450 initially but Will reccomended that we round it up to 1:400 as that is a more commonly used scale)

This change of plan means that our reasons for the model must also change and will no longer be aimed at demonstating structural details but will focus on representing the building in relation to its immediate surroundings showing other details at equal scale.

We may also include parts of the surrounding buildings but will only replesent them in basic 'block' form.

This plan greatly reduces our need for detailed structural and floor layout plans and should mean we can now focus on getting the drawings right and finalising our concept.

Tomorrow we will begin planning the baseboard and hope to have it cut or partly constructed by the end of the day.

Thinking of change

Still no reply from any contacts we have made.

I emailed the BA Archetecture course leader who responed quickly but was of no help to our cause only suggesting the routes we have already taken.

Emerald contacted the Edinborough office of ARUP last night to try to track down the structural engineer who worked on the Clyde Auditorium (based in Edinborough). Aparently he is away on holiday.

Its looking like we need to steer this project in a new direction due to the lack of detailed plans.

Group decided on a deadline to start on a new outlook - Monday morning. If we have not managed to get plans by monday morning then we will go to 'plan B' and effectivly restart our design thinking.

Printed cross section and ground floor plans scaled to 1:150 (deciding that our initial plan for a scale of 1:100 was too big)
No response from either email.
Rang ARUP (consultants on SECC) and sent an email requesting structural plans.
Group agree to begin thinking in a new direction due to the possibility we won't be able to get plans soon enough.
Tutorial with Paul Johnson:
Agrees on idea 4 but on the condition we have better plans for reference.
For the purpose of this model (showing structural construction) we should work at our original scale of 1:100 (if we do stay with idea 4).

Group have discussed moving away from representing the whole building and on to showing larger scaled section of the building (going further down the explanitory/engineering route we looked at in AR project 2)

Also discussed adding a 'cut away' section to emphasise the structural detail - essentially to make our models focus more on the building 'skeleton' and how it works.
Further Ideas:

4. Entrance area with 'glass' front section and structural detail.
5. 'Slice' through of the building (showing an internal slice of the interior details?)
Emerald found a full ground floor plan of the Auditorium through the SECC events organisation page (needs to be scaled - Group still undecided!)
After disscussing plans further we have decided to scale our model to 1:100

Emailed Foster and Partners enquiring about getting hold of more detailed plans.

I briefly discussed our idea 4 with Will Strange who said (in brief):
May still be too detailed
Get fully Scaled drawings ASAP
Make sketch models from card or wood off cuts to demonstrate construction ideas

(Edward ill)

Group tutorial with Will:

Remember to collect Drawings ect for sketchbook/file research

Do research on similar models and print pictures used for reference as we disigned the model.


Me and emerald decided to create a former to make vacformed 'ribs' to support the outer skin of the model.
We made the formers out of plywood which we then bandsawed down and sanded the radius. This brough several problems with arcs not meeting. We got kicked out of the workshop before we could finish.

12th - 16th October

Project 2: Team task

This task took us a day of wasting time trying to find plans before we finally got started but it went well as soon as we did.
The task was to build a 1:20 scale model of one of the structeral 'trees' that makes up the Renault Building in Swindon (below).

Initially we couldnt get going sue to the lack of plans of any kind! So we brainstormed ideas and came up with a plan to make a corner section with part of the roof to show how it was constructed in relation the the structural elements. This seemed like a great idea until we actually got our head round the scale the day after and realised it would be nearly a meter high! Way too big for a now less than 4 day project. so we scaled down our ideas to projuce just a section of the structural tree. We decided to focus on the central joining mounts that held the 'arms' of each tree on the the mounts.
Will brought in a book on Tuesday specifically about the Renault Building with detailed plans which got the project flowing fast.
Once scaled correctly, me and emerald began to cut out pieces of the 'steel' I bars from styrene whilst Ed worked on lathing the main pole that was to hold the whole thing together,
Emerald worked on the mounting rings whilst I made the main flat sections with circular cut outs and drilled holes for mounting bolts.
Ed moved on to start making the base board when he had completed the main pole. We decided to make the top surface from backsprayed acrylic to reflect the view of the underside of the model. This was to emphasise the detail and make viewers aware of just how much there was.
The main arms came together quickly and as me and emerald assembled the parts Ed worked on illustraitor to make data files for the circular sections we had decided to get laser cut.
This eventually proved useless as none of us had used the laser cutter before and were under the impression we could be talked through what to do as we did it. This wasnt the case so we abandoned that idea and Emeraled found an acrylic tube that unbelievable fit the holes almost perfectly.

Ed cut out the rings that would form the upper and lower suppost rings but they needed to be cut down to individual sections which would take up more time and didnt get finished till the next day.

Emerald came up with the idea of hand drilling small holes into wooden dowel to allow us to moung copper wire in 'mounts' on the top and bottom on each support arm. These were stuck in the correct position on top and i cut out small sections of each one to be mounted on angles at the bottom. We primed all the parts that were completed and left them for the night.
The next day I finished sticking the mount support rings on and we primed the main pole and mounting brackets. Me and Ed then painted all of the parts in what was conveniently a ready mixed yellow. The model needed 3 coats before we decided it would be easier to stick it together and spray an overall coating to get everything covered at once.

Assembly proved to be difficult and we ended up slightly compromising on our original plan by mounting the arms against the mounting brackets rather than having then sticking up in the middle. This was unfortunate but we were running out of time and the finished product does the job very well regardless.

After one more whole coat with model was then left to dry as we didnt want to risk ruining the paint job if it didnt quite fit in the base. We hand sanded down the hole for the model in the base and then after about 30mins of drying time Ed got bored of waiting and just went for it - luckily it fit perfectly!
All in all a very succesful project.

7th -9th October

Project 1: Individual project task.

We were given the brief to create a concept model inspired by turmite mounds to be orientated on a north south axis with the bigger concrete covered end facing south. The idea was to have the south facing side largely covered with concrete to control the buildings temperature using an internal atrium that ran up inside the building largely inspired by the controlled heat in termite mounds (shown below).

After being given a pretty bizzar brief from a 3rd year achetect i set about coming up with a way of representing the concept model. Initially the 3 of us who had the same task talked about it and all came up with different ideas about it. Me and Edward wanted to make similar acrylic based models in layers to show floors but I wasnt sure about using styrene for floor plates , thinking that I would have trouble when it came to 'carving' the shope out of the bulk of material. Rob went for shaping the buildings from chemi wood and not including any acrylic to represent the windows but simply paining the finish to represtent where they were intended to be.

In the end me and Ed ended up doing pretty much the same design due to the amount of time it was taking us individually to complete one of the 3 towers needed.
On suggesting that we joined forces however our tutor Will said we had to do it seperatly. This proved to be very time consuming and quite wasteful as neither of us managed to get the 3 towers completed (only managing 2 each). However I went on the finish mine with a rather rushed baseboard (i should have just left it blank!)

Here's my finished (not how id like it!) model in the wooden baseboard made by Will Strange:

The basic design was to sandwhich acrylic and styrene together with dychlo and then carve out the shape of the 'mounds' using bothe machine and hand sanding. I then planned to either clad the 'concrete' sections with styrene.

The making process had many setbacks (the workshop being closed for most of the time didnt help!). By the deadline time the finish on the outside of the building hasnt even been started so it was presented 'as was' with just scrylic and styrene throughout.

This however turned out to have quite a nice effect when seen in the surrounding city scape baseboard and with light behind (the dychlo making interesting patterns with the light through the building). The prject certainly threw me back into the swing of things and jogged my memory to remember some of the skills I have learnt from the first year.

In the Beginning...

5th/6th October

AR Brief subject: 'SECC' building (actually named the Clyde Auditorium)

Group discussion to decide on key points to achieve:

• Scale of our model
• Type (e.g Site along with surroundings, cross section ect)
• Finish of the model

Initial Ideas:

1. Full building and Surroundings. (scale 1:500?)

2. Full building with 'cut away' outer shell.

3. Half building with a center split to reliel seating area. (Rest of ground floor and immediate surrounding area etched in to continue from the model cut off point)

Issues

• Having a 'cut away' section means alot of detail will have to be included and will require more detailed plans
• We only have plans for part of the building (Crucially the ground floor is missing aswell as front and back elevations)
• Plans of the site are proving useless and a guide to theoverall dimentions of the building due to the lines not even joining up at the edges!
• Group still undecided on all 3 initial key points.