M4 shu fu (digital design fabrication)

DIGITAL DESIGN + FABRICATION SM1, 2016 SLEEPING POD SHU FU (743081) LYLE + 11

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M1 IDEATION M2 DESIGN M3 FABRICATION M4 REFLECTION

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IDEATION

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1.1 MEASUREMENT DRAWING

SECTION

T Rex skeleton wooden model is a 3D puzzle. Each piece of the puzzle is made of the same wood material and has the same thickness. So when the pieces were before assmbly, they are in one plane.

I two things are important in the measurement: the accurate shape of each piece and the location of each piece in the air. So I chose the scale of 1:1 since it was easy to trace the accurate shape form the wooden pieces and the model is fit to the A3 drawing.

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PLAN

For the measurement drawing, I traced the outline of the pieces which is vertically parallel to me and measured the length of the pieces which is vertically perpendicular to me. Then I draw them as the long stripe of 3mm width at the notches on the complete piece.

MEASUREMENT DETAIL

READING REFLECTION

Miralles has recommended “...emphasizing the tangents. Always give slightlly more importance to straight segment than to curved...” . Although the T-REX model pieces are unlike the croissant such irregular, the whole volume composed is very organic.

So I used this ‘tangent’ method for check th in-air locations.

How to Layout a Croissant -Emphasing the Tangent

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1.1 3D MODELLING PIECE TRACING

HEAD DETAIL

For 3D modelling, firstly I traced the shape of each piece on paper, and then scanned them to drew on Rhino. After that I make the curve into plane and then extruded them into solid pieces. Lastly I assembled them, depending on the location of notches of each piece and the measurement drawing to ensure the locations of pieces in the air.

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3D MODEL PERSPECTIVE VIEW

1.2 SYSTEM ANALYSIS & Volume

ASSEMBLY DETAIL

ORGANIC VOLUME BY T REX I found the factors influencing the volume that are mainly the outline of the pieces combination. Although the pieces are irregular shaped, organic smooth volume is able to be achieved by pieces assembly density. This meant the comfort is able to achieved. At this stage, I thought the gradually changing units would be the emphasis for the following design.

Although the shape of each piece is irregular, all the joints are using the same method, notches. Notch joint make two pieces insert vertically perpendicularly and double notches make the joint more tightly.

This simple regular joint allow the irregular pieces to combine tightly and to make up an organic volume.

READING REFLECTION

Sommer has mentioned in the readings that personal spaces is uneven around the body curve. Comparing closer directly in front, people are more likely to tolerate the strangers to be closer at sides.

This reminds me caring the particular part of the personal space would be more efficient than enclosing a whole person in a shell as I did in my sketch model.

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1.3 SKETCH DESIGN

Sketch Design # 1 - RIGID SHELL

Sketch Design # 2 - PROPING UP & FOLDING SLEEPING POD

Sketch Design # 3 - Hedgehog Covering

SKETCH DESIGN IDEAS During the sktch design, I took the technique of notch as the fundamental idea to develop. And also from the reading oabout personal space, the design was aimed to provide protect and defence.

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DESIGN

Team member: Songyuan Ma 9

2.1 Design development intro: For the sketch designs of both my team member`s and mine in the phase 1, the form of sleeping pod were all large pieces of work that could contain a person to lie on. From the feedback, we realized sleeping pod does not need to be an exact pod.

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So in this phase, we were investigating the relationships between sleeping postures and the dynamic personal space. Personal space is always changing within a floating extent, which is depending on what interactions people doing and what circumstances they are in. ie. In terms of sleeping: - When a person is sleeping on his bed, the whole bed and even the whole room is in his personal space.

- When a person is sleeping on a bus, his personal space shrinks to around the seat where he sits only.

We were also investigating what supporting comfort neet to achieve with different sleeping postures. Lying down should be the best posture for sleeing. But when it comes to public spaces, there are few people would likely to lie down to take a nap. More people would like to sit or lean on something to relax themselves.

AIMS FOR OUR DESIGN -To shrink the size of sleeping pod to make it portble -To provide safety and defence functions to satify the needs of personal space -To provide the comfort by this rigid technique

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AIM Comfort

Portable

Defence

Sketch 1 We decided the sitting posture as our designing base, as sitting is the most common posture for people to relax in a public area. For the normal sitting posture, we found that two parts need to be supported for comfort, the space around neck and the gap at the back of waist.

We also found another common siting-for-nap posture that people are more likely to do so. Putting the elbow on the desk to support the jaw. This posture nartually protect the exposed personal space in front of a body, which gives more senses of safety. Comparing with the front of a body, people are more likely to use the back to defense. This posture also prevent their face to be seen directly. We experimented these two postures, we thought the second one is more relaxing, so we deside this as our design start.

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2.2 Design proposal v.1

Sketch 1

Sketch 3

We tried to design something to replace the elbow to support the jaw, which bears the whole loads given by the head and neck. At this stage, we designed three parts, the part of supporting jaw in front of chest, the part of covering the back of head which is vulnerable during sleeping, and the eye patch part extending from head back to for shading functions.

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Front Elevation

Plan

Back Elevation

Side Elevation

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2.2 Digitization

We draw the curves on Rhino, and using “loft� to create the organic surface. The general outlook would be like this. But we thought that is too organic, which is not smooth enough for comfort. So we tried to improve it to be feasible for a real prototype to be make out.

Front

Perspective

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Top

READING REFLECTION At this stage, we basically did the model of “abstraction�, which did not contain much information, but did describe the properties of the object (Scheurer, 2011). This first version model has very multiple complex surfaces, and the surfaces were not smooth at all. We thought about the improvement for this solid model first and then to build it into assembly individual pieces with detailed data latter

1st Version of Digital Model

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2.3 Precident Research

Both of these two pavilions are using the section-profiling technique, but there is a gib difference between their structures.

C-Space pavilion has been built with the long continuous arched fibre glass pieces intersecting across with each other. The orientations of these pieces mainly can be divided into the horizontal and the vertical ones.

Swoosh Pavilion was constructed with a large quantity of short wooden pieces. The surface it created is more complex than C-Space and the surface is not such continuous than C-Space.

C-Space, Alan Dempsey and Alvin Huang

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Swoosh Pavillion

The technique we applied on our sleeping pod is the same one with CSpace. There are 3 reasons for choosing that. Firstly, the structure built with continuous pieces are more fixed and strong, which can be better to bear the loads given by head. Secondly, the surface made by the complete pieces is smoother, which can provide better comforts. Lastly, since the sleeping pod is unlike a building, it is a small portable object.

We don`t want top many spreading small pieces, which is too complicated for assembly and hard to do by hand.

2.4 Design proposal v.2 The second design proposal has the same concept with the first one. For this one, we took the octopus as our precedent. Although this one works very well for head protection, it is too heavy for head to wear during sleeping. For personal space protection, this one cannot extend to cover very well. And it is not flexible to wear as well. So we decided to continue with the first one.

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2.5 Prototype v.1+ Testing Effects READING REFLECTION For the prototype making, we did the improvements for the first version model, which is the “reduction”. Scheurer (2011) has explained reduction that “...is not about reducing the amount of information but rather about finding the optimal way to transport...”. We rebuild the eye patch part by reducing the controlling points to build the surface to be more smooth.

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The model testing was successful so that we continued with this model making processes, smoothing first and making into pieces.

We chose the two kinds of assembly pieces, the horizontal and the vertical, to form the volume we wanted. At this stage, using this method was just because we thought it was the simplest way to make out a volume. In latter assembly process, we found another great benefit from this method. In this method, most notches can be straight shaped, and the laser cutting machine only cut for straight notches. So actually, this is the best choice for us to make our model to be physical.

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FABRICATION

Team member: Songyuan Ma

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3.1 Fabrication intro In M2 prototype, the pieces by laser cutting mae a nice shape and strong structure. So we decided to do the whole design for the digital model first and then to cut by laser machine for assembly, which can achieve the best performance.

The digital working process will go through the eye patch, the helmet and lastly the front chest support.

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3.2 Design development 1 - Eye Patch Shadig

The sleeping eye patch was composed by perpendicularly intersected pieces as we thought the dense structure can shade the light. From M2, we found if the vertical pieces horizontally ROTATE little bit, it can works much better for light shading as the rotated surface prevent more light than the vertical one, and this also can be achieved by fewer pieces of lighter weight instead of dense structure.

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3.2 Design development 2 - Double Notch

Change the single notch into the DOUBLE NOTCH on both intersected pieces Notches on both sides make the structure more stable and strong. The Boolean command need to used twice to make this on the digital model. Each notch need to be only half depth of the intersection.

However, in the latter assembly process, there were soe errors occurred by the sloping cutting notches, which made the physical model cannot perfectly joint.

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3.2 Design development 3 - Reduction - Smoothing

We redo the head part, started from a sphere rather than loftting hand drawing curves. So we were able to build a smoother surface to fit the head. It turns to be more comfortable and also easier to cut into pieces latter.

M2 Version The former version of head solid was made by cure lofftin. It has irregular shape and complex surfaces.

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M3Version This regular one is rebuilt sphere (by 5 degree, 6 point) and then pulled the controlling points. This regular shape is also more flexible for different size of head.

- Smoothing

We used the same method to create smooth surface for the front chest supportig part. And two improvements were made.

- Cut the straight touching part into a cureved smooth one, to fit the body curve on the chest when user is sitting, which provides more comfort.

- Rebuild the base to be flat, which enable it to stand on the desk.

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3.4 Final Prototype development optimisation

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3.4 Final Dptimisation Design the CONNECTIONS between the 3 seperate parts for UNITY

Seperate Ones

Joint Ones

Extend from the head horizontal piece to join the eye patch horizontal piece working as a complete one piece, and then to hold the vertical eye patch pieces

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3.5 Final Dptimisation

Separate Ones

Joint Ones

Extend the vertical two pieces from the chest part to the head, to inerted onto the gaps on the waffles of the head. This unified the object.

But in the end of the physical model making, we gave up this improvement, and stay with the seperate helmet ad supporting base, because this connection cannot bear the loads given by the helmet. And actually, the separawe parts work better for people to wear, and more flexible for people to adjust for comforts.

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3.5 Final Digital Model Perspective Views

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Back Views

Top Views

Rigt Views

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3.6 Fabrication sequence & Assembly Drawing Step 1 - Laser Cutting READING REFLECTION The fabrication technique we used is laser-beam, which is a two-dimensional fabrication. The material we used is plywood of 3m thickness, which has less burn marks than MDF. Laser-cutters can cut material up to16mm and cost effectively (Kolarevic, 2003)

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Step 2 - Assembly the front chest supporting part To start with the chest waffle part, we assemble the 3 * 3 firtly, to make it stand by itself on the desk.

All the Y-axis vertical pieces were split into 2 parts, we started to assemble with the complete X-axis pieces and the upper Y-axis vertical pieces, and then inserted with the lower Y-axis vertical pieces

Complete X-axis vertical piece

Upper Y-axis vertical piece

Upper Y-axis vertical piece

Lower Y-axis vertical piece Complete X-axis vertical piece 33

READING REFLECTION The front chest supporting part unifies the skin and the structure that the whole envelope works as a supporting stem for head. Building envelope is increasing exploring this technique, “...embedding the structure into the skin, as in semi-monocoque and monocoque structures, in which the skin absorbs all or most of the stresses”(Kolarevic, 2003). I think this surface strategy is very interesting, which can create stunning looking but not just about out looking, also working for the structure. It is the great feature for the section-profiling technique.

Restaurat Georges: model of the monocoque shell for the “bar” volume. (Kolarevic, 2003)

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Complete X-axis horizontal piece

Complete X-axis horizontal piece Y-axis vertical arch of the back head

Y-axis vertical arch of the back head

We started from the center back Y-axis arches and the X-axis complete circle pieces, which give the stable structure first. we add signs at the intersection of the corresponding notches (ie. a to a , b to b)

Step 3 - Assemly the Helmet

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3.8 Competed Sleeping Pod - Helmet detail

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3.8 Competed Sleeping Pod - Supporting stem detail

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Reflection

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There are mainly two aspects that I have learned from this subject. One is about the digital design and the other one is about digital skill. Through these four modules, I got better understanding of the complicated structural techniques behind a stunning-looking thing, which helped us to make out our design in reality. My ability of using the designing software has improved greatly, such as Rhino, Indesign and Photoshop, which is a big step for my designing skill to be professional.

At the beginning of this subject, I did not know how to using the computer for designing at all. The process of thinking about a design for sleeping pod did not take too much time. The process of making it out was the biggest challenge for us. Firstly, it was the digital model. As our design is using the two dimensional fabrication technique, laser-cutting, the digital model was not just a expressive model, but a model has to be exactly same as the physical model with a large amount of accurate data. So basically our physical model was all depending on the digital model. Notch is the most troublesome thing to do during the digital modelling. Because we needed to consider the practicable assembly process, each notch has to be made with an appropriate length in order to achieve a strong structure and also the smoothing good looking.

Although we did very carefully for the connection notches making, the physical model still did not achieve such perfectly as the digital model. In Rhino, the solid pieces can be intersected at any angle and can float in the air very still without the influence of gravity. In reality, some notches cannot fit with each other very perfectly because in Rhino they are sloping intersected, while the laser cutting only can cut out straight notches. Also the two large pieces we improved in latter M3 design cannot hold the helmet and broke down, although it seemed no problems in Rhino. But actually this did not affect too much, because we think the separate helmet and supporting stem also works very well as a sleeping pod.

For the improvements we might could do is still about the notches, to refine the design and change the slopping touched notches into the straightly touching notches. We tried but we still cannot find a good ways to achieve that since the Rhino Boollean command only works for two touched pieces, which means the excavated notch only can be cur by the touching curved surface.

Despite the difficulty and the heavy long time workload, I was very enjoyed this subject s and very pleased with the outcome we have achieved.

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Reference Miralles, E, Pinos, C 1991, â&#x20AC;&#x153;How to lay out a croissantâ&#x20AC;? En Construccion pp. 240-241 Sommer, R 1969. Personal space : the behavioral basis of design Englewood Cliffs Prentice-Hall, c1969. pp. 26-27 Scheurer, F, Stehling, H 2011, Lost in Parameter Space? AD: Architectural Design, vol 81 pp. 70-79 Kolarevic, B 2003, Architecture in the Digital Age - Design and Manufacturing, Spon Press, London, pp. 31-43 T-rex dinosaur 2011, viewed by 3rd June 2016, < https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/ animals/dinosaur/head-t-rex-dinosaur >

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