Week 4 Journal_640888

Design - Week 4 Marta Elefterijadis

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This week we started to design one of our ideas for the second skin, based on the two systems of skin and bone and inflation.

In this particular rendering, we designed a series of panels that are linked together by a bone system, and can also inflate with the inclusion of wind or similar forces.

Virtual Environments - Sem2

Design - Week 4 Marta Elefterijadis

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Precedents --> basic structure of a half umbrella as shown in the pictures on the left; all are backed against a wall, which in the design may be replaced by the user’s back.

--> in order to angle the umbrella more towards the back of the user rather than sitting horizontally, can utilize a movable arm on a cantilever as can be seen to the left here (other possibility is a collar?).

--> another idea is to use a mechanism similar to this photography umbrella, and have the design resting on an arm that has been bent 90 ° as can be seen in this picture.

Virtual Environments - Sem2

Design - Week 4 Marta Elefterijadis

TED TALK - Thomas Heatherwick

Design is used to create various effects in form and look of a project over an elapsed period of time. For example, due to the fact that Thomas Heatherwick felt that opening a bridge from the middle was somewhat reminiscent of a footballer breaking his leg at the knee (i.e. “breaking something beautiful in half”), he decided to change the resulting form of an opening bridge. He took the form from opening in two halves to one whole structure that folded back on itself to form a wheel shape where each of the faces “ended up kissing”. In this way, he changed the structure’s feel and implication on the user through its differing form.

Another example is the representation of a certain object and its ability to bring about an altered environment both inside and outside, through touch and sight (in this case differing light and shade). The seed cathedral captured this concept well, as it was able to create a cool internal environment that reduces outside noise, yet still allows the viewer/user to see changes in light and shade from the outside world, through the optic fibers surrounding the structure.

Virtual Environments - Sem2

Scheurer & Stehling

Abstraction gives us a model of a proposed object which gives as little information as possible. It usually involves finding extreme cases and situations that each individual component of the object could be out through, in order to fix it and get it to the best and safest possible standard.

Reduction on the other hand is described as the “elimination of redundancies and optimization of descriptions and processes”. This simply means that a cleaner model is produced with no redundant repetition of detail.

Both these processes are very much like making a sketch model to then taking out certain parts/components and bettering them in order to come up with a final, refined model.

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Design - Week 4 Marta Elefterijadis

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Testing a person’s field of vision

Figure 1: The field of vision of each eye, where the total binocular vision is about 115 °.

Virtual Environments - Sem2

Source: http://www.forbestvision.com/binocular-vision/

Design - Week 4 Marta Elefterijadis

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Humans appear to have a roughly 180 degree field of vision, although in many cases it could be even less. This can be seen from the diagram to the left, as well as the panoramic image, taken to illustrate my own personal field of vision.

Again by looking at the diagram on the left, we can see that peripheral vision is not as strong as binocular vision, which is the middle field of vision where both eyes are operating to prduce the image before us. This field again has a very limited range.

Virtual Environments - Sem2