Module 2 Design

Module 2 Design-Week 4

YuanYuan Ye(Ariel) Student No: 613901. Semester 1/2013. Group 2

Response to the reading

TED talks by Thomas Heatherwick:

One of the projects is the openning bridge which made of steel and timber.Instead of pay much attention on its design, it focuses on the way of function. The two sides of this bridge would kiss each other in a normal speed to create a spatial effect.

The most influencing project is seed cathedral, the UK pavilion in Shanghai Expo in 2010. Its amazing conception comes from the landscape of nature in city: trees and flower and then seeds. Heatherwick thought these tiny things could be made delicate through the idea that take 66000 seeds to cross precious optical hair to get through a box. In addition, there is nothing inside but just slience and cool temperature.

How Thomas Heatherwick uses design to create spatial effect is to combine the idea of fabrication, structure and aesthetics which in order to create a new system of construction.

Difference between Abstraction & Reduction:

Scheurer, F. and Stehling, H. (2011): Lost in Parameter Space? IAD: Architectural Design, Wiley, 81 (4), July.

Abstraction is to simplify the complexity of a model from reality and then create it as less information as possible. A model is an abstraction of reality.

However, reduction is in contrast to abstraction which means to find the opitimal way to transport the information of things rather than reduce the amount of information.

Relating to the article of Analytical Drawing written by Poling, its idea of creating the analytical drawing is similar to abstraction and reduction: the stages need to simplify, analyze and transform the actual structure of the object. Then use neat lines to contour the analytical drawing of the object.

Orthographic images of model

Front view

Top view

Followed by the first method in Appendix, I made the contour in respect to front view and top view of my clay model. After I finished the digitized model in rhino, I found that there are gaps between each part(the digitized model is separated by the contour lines), it means it's not a whole. And the grid are inside the model as well which is difficult to be developed with paneling tool. Then I found that I should loft the surface of the model in perspective view and swap the inside the surface to outside to set the grids outside the model.

My digitized model

This is the final digitized model followed by method 1 by using rhino. In this case, the grid is outside and we could look the surface which is smooth and no gaps inside the surface.

Digital model developed in paneling tool

Loft model

2D Brick

For 2D model(above), I watched the paneling tool tutorial to help me finish these models step by step. I used panel 2D grid to create the effect includes triangular, brick and wave. For 3D model(bottom), I tried to make a totally different model in terms of panel 3D custom command and panel offset border. I tried to use trapezoid in 3D custom pattern to make the model(the second one on the bottom).

The effect I want to achieve could be more tridimensional with specific and complex shapes within the whole digital model. Thus I like the custom 3D pattern best(the trapezoid one) because it's more tridimensional which consists of many trapezoid solid.

2D Triangular

3D Partition

2D Wave

3D Custom Pattern

3D Pyramid

Paneled lantern design 1 - 3D Partition

This digitized model consists of many different size of rectangles which are empty inside by using Panel 3D Grid command in paneling tool.

We could see there are many slight strips on the surface of my clay model and the space between them is like the shape of rectangle, thus how I get this idea is that I follow the surface of my clay model.

On the bottom are the prototypes, it contains 6 rectangle joined panels. The rectangle could be lapped. But in this case, the hole which inside the rectangles are too big and the contour lines are very thin, thus the final lantern might seemed very ‘empty’.

Design of paneled lantern- Offset Border

In this case, I considered that what if change the overall shape of my clay model. By using the Panel 3D Grid Pyramid command in paneling tool, the digitized model is formed by many pyramids. Then using offset border command the pyramid became empty. It is different from the clay model, I think the light effect will be good while getting through the hollow pyramids.

The underneath are my prototypes. I like the effect set by light which get through the hole inside the pyramids. If I change the stand position of the prototype or control the light in different distance, we could see the shadow it's different which is quite interesting!

Design of paneled lantern- Custom 3D Pattern

This digitized model formed by many trapezoid solids and it's more tridimensional. In relation to my clay model, I want to jump out of the general form of the clay model and instead by consisting of various shapes. In this model, we could see the relationship between each trapezoid which connect with each other.

Similar with the second model, there is a hole inside the overall shape but we could find that the contour lines of the pentagon are thick, thus when the light get through it the effect must be very tridimensional! This is my favourite design.

Precedents of light effects

On the left is Times Eureka Pavilion which designed with benchmark as the main elements. We could see the light effect gets through the benchmark, the shadow of the irregular shape projects on the ground which is quite beautiful! I want to design my final lantern similarly with this light effect, the light which gets through the pattern of my lantern could make a beautiful shadow.

On the left and right are Campus event space in Stuttgart. The light effect is different from Times Eureka Pavilion. The light is inside the pattern and also the lightness is different as well. I like this effect which seems quite comfortable!