Cara Brogno
ACTIVITY: COMPRESSION
Week 01
Compression: Type of force which exerts weight or pressure between objects. In an arch, the compression forces follow outwards to meet at ground level where gravity is a major pulling force, allowing the structure to maintain its shape.
Compression
Extension
This week’s activity involved constructing a tower structure as high as possible whilst considering aspects such as time and material efficiency, establishing a base shape, stability of the structure, consistency in placement and technique. A key concept was to experiment with compression force and shape in order to build upwards.
Material supplied: Small wooden rectangular prisms
Chosen Base Shape: Triangular with slightly rounded edges
Block Pattern selected:
Cara Brogno Process: After forming a solid base structure by layering our selected pattern, in order to save time and blocks, we decided to push the blocks slightly in towards the centre of the structure to build upwards with a slightly smaller form. To save time again we selected the strongest edge and two sides and began to build upwards.
Deconstruction: It was found that by removing sections from the bottoms of all three sides, that the structure was able to maintain its shape and support itself and create new load paths. The connection between the edges of the triangle was also particularly strong. One side wall proved to have weaker structural integrity as it didn’t maintain a continuous vertical line and this contributed to the tower falling when blocks were removed.
Analysis: Upon consideration, a more effective method would have been to begin with a smaller base as it would have been strong enough and been more efficient in terms of material and time. Maintaining the walls as vertical as possible is also key to improve strength during deconstruction.