Furnitecture Final Design

After completing my concepts for the blackpool rock idea I began to plan the final piece of furnitecture. As I had lots of ideas on what to do I thought I would do a design that was split into three segments. The first part was a sheltered seat, at the largest end of the sculputre. To cover the brief of it being a haptic design this section features a built in scent machine giving of peppermint smells as if you were actually in a rock factory.

The next segment, at the centre of the piece of furnitecture i decided to showcase how the rock could be twisted when still heated, with the outer layer of the sweet being flipped from one side to the other to act as a back rest.

Ther last segment, where the piece of rock gets the smallest spirals into the ground. This integrates the furnitecture into the surrounding landscape.

Blackpool Rock Furnitecture - the concept

From the 3 initial concepts I chose 'Blackpool Rock' to be my best idea offering lots of oppurtunities to create interesting shapes that can be used as seating and shelter. One of my first ideas to take this further was pulling back the outer layer so it can be used as a backrest to this seating.

During the process of being manufacvtured rock is stretched out from a large cylinder to a much smaller one, a size that can be eaten. To reflect this i had the idea that the piece of furnitecture starts of large and gets much smaller. The large end could potentially be used as a sheltered seat or a small concessions stand.

Taking inspirations from another one of my initial three concepts i though i may be able to include an iconic referance to roller coasters by including a loop de loop.

Furnitecture Continued...

After selecting Blackpool as my location I had a few ideas which i narrowed down to three initial concepts. The first being 'roller coaster' seating. Inspired by the drops and hills of the histroic roller coasters at Blackpool Pleasure Beach including the Big Dipper and the Grand National

The second concept I had was a collection of street funiture inspired by the manufacture of 'Blackpool Rock', taking advantatage of its malleable property when being stretched into small pieces. This can be used to create seats, bike racks, bollards and other unique and interesting shapes.

My final concept was 'waves'. For this furnitecture all of the objects are isnpired by the natural shape of waves. An idea I had was for s sheltered seat, to be potentially used as a bus stop shelter. Offering refuge from the often windy and rainy seafront weather

Starting my Furnitecture Project

To begin my furnitecture project the first thing i had to do was decide on where it should be located. I chose a few towns and cities I already knew alot about which was mainly places In Lancashire near to where I live, including Preston, Lancaster and Blackpool. From these locations i listed objects, words, and historical events associated to these places to see what gave me the mopst inspiration for the furnitecture project.

The place I got the most ideas in my head for was Blackpool so i decided to choose this as my location. From this I created a mind map to further explore things blackpool is known for which I can use as inspiration for concepts in the future. However, I still had to narrow down the exact location of the Furnitecture within Blackpool. Some ideas I thougb of was the Promenade, St Johns Square, or a Pier. These are all large public spaces that could be used. From these I thought the promenade would be the best due to the already exisitng art trail along it.

Design Precedent Final Design

Following on from my research and development for the design precedent I created a final and more deatiled plan of the Quad. Taking the main structure of the double spiral I filled the remaining areas with other nods to Goff's designs including use of water, seating suspended in the air aswell as using natural and recycled materials.

From this plan view I drew cross sections to make the plan easier to understand and show how the space is vertically defined.

Designer Precedent - Initial Ideas

After finishing my research I had lots of ideas that I began to sketch. At first I focused on coming up with a courtyard that had many ideas taken from Goff's architecture. This included organic shapes, sunken seating, spirals, and use of water. From this I worked further on one of the ideas I like the best; the spiral. Using the spiral I think I will be able to succesfully convey Goff's use of 'mystery'.

To create a symmetrical plan I had the idea of having two spiral that intertwine with pathways in between following this pattern that prevent users just going straight to where they want to go but instead forcing them to explore the courtyard.

After creating this basic layout for the plan I made a concept plan where I zones differant areas the paths would lead to, utilising the theme of rest, work and play.

Designer Precedent - Developing Ideas

For project D in my design module, in simple terms, we have been told to redesign the Francis Close Hall Library Quad using a famous designer as inspiration. After learning about Bruce Goff from a task in my lecture I decided to use him as my famous designer. Bruce Goff is an architect often compared to Frank Lloyd Wright. When I first saw his work, I was particularly impressed by how despite using modernist shapes he was able to successfully integrate his buildings into their surrounding environment by using natural and recycled materials. To better understand Goff and how I could use him as inspiration for the quad design. I made a mind map, exploring his designs, inspirations and anything interesting I found out about him.

From this I was able to develop what I think his philosophy is: embracing individuality, the continuous present and the mysterious. His quote “the most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious” is what made me develop this philosophy and gave me a lot of ideas on what to design. After this I made a collage of images of building by Goff to help me further understand and gain influence from his design style.

Fantasia Model Building

After completing my plans for my sculputre and space inspired by Paul McCartney, I then began building my model. For the modell I constructed it mainly using coloured card and thicker carboard. To ensure all the layers were strongly stuck together I used double sided tape. To blend the road with the field I coloured these parts using coloured pencils.

After creating the model, I think the sculpture and space were successful in representing major elements of Paul McCartney’s life and career, showing them in a way that is inspired by iconic items and places linked to him. It also shows what his music does for the listener, letting them escape from reality as well as the happiness it brings to his fans.

Planning a Model for McCartney

Having developed ideas for what the sculpture could look like I then drew more detailed sketches with plan and side views of the sculpture. Showing the exact shape it would take to help me with constructing the model. Here I also came up with the idea of having the arrows supported by a tree that represents McCartneys enviromentalism, specifically his vegetarianism.

After designing the sculpture I had to design a simple space for it to sit within. For this I decided to replicate the iconic Abbey Road zebra crossing and have these as the start point for the arrows to rise up out of. The road then blends into a green field, reflecting on McCartneys time living on a remote farm in Scotland.

My 3D Model

After looking over my two ideas for models i decided on the second. Partly due to already having some of the materials needed to construct it aswell as thinking it would be a much more aesthetically pleasing design to look at, with how simple the design is, in a basic sense just being stacked horiztontal planes. After this decsion I went about building my model starting with a thick of white A4 card to be the base aswell as the backdrop to the main part of the model. I cut lots of parallelogram shaped pieces of coloured card utilising a set square to keep the angle at 30°. From this I began layering the coloured card using thin cardboard to sperate the layers. I mostly followed the shape I had set out to build, being a skewed plus shape. I didn't completely follow my original design instead changing it where I though I could improve the way the model looked.

I am actually alot more pleased with how the model turned out than I though I would be with it succesfully appearing to have much greater depth than it actually does. Also I think that the way the layers are stacked is hidden very well making the horizontal planes appear as if they actually are floating.

Fantasia Initial Development

For my next project, called fantasia, I have to creat a model for celebrity I decide. I chose Paul McCartney as my celebrity because I am a big fan of his music having listened to a huge number of his songs and albums. To begin I listed key infomation about mccartney including his favourite colour, music and place as well has his personal philosophy. The I created a mind map to brainstorm ideas I can develop in addition to themes I can explore based on his life and his work.

From here I started to sketch my initial ideas for the potential sculpture. At first i thought about making a bird flying, however I quickly changed to the idea of using arrows, like the ones on the back of his famous psychedelic piano. The arrows pointing into the sky to represent the escapism from reality you can get from listening to his music. However, I also wanted combine some of the most prominent themes of his songs, love and happiness. From this I thought the arrow could be pointing towards a love heart and that the bright colours of the arrow could show happiness.

Sequential Journey Sketching and Poster

After walking around Cheltenham, i had a large collection of images to choose from. I had to narrow these down to just 7 or 8. I chose the images of spaces that showed a specific quality or were a certain kind of space such as green space or an urban area. With the 7 images I chose I then printed them of to trace the main structure of the trace in pen, missing out the detail and focusing on the key strucural elements.

I also created a map showing the route I took. On the map I put numbered markers as to where the photos were taken as well as the direction they were pointing.

To finish Project B2 I made a poster of the sequential journey, compiling my sketches along with the photos and the map, to present my work.

2D to 3D model Ideas

As part of my Design Module 1 i have been tasked with developing a 3D model with inspiration from my 2D source. For me that is Nicholas Dubreuille's simple geometric artwork featured below.

I have explored the composition of this within my sketchbook which i have previously uploaded to this blog. Aswell i have looked at other very similar pieces by Dubreuille for further inspiration. My first idea is using rectangluar translucent vertical 2D planes spread across a horizontal plane randomly, combining to create one overall shape when you look at it from the side. This overall shape will change hugely depending on where you look at the model from. Aswell the colour will change due to differant shades combining.

The second design I have developed is much similar to the original 2D artwork, featuring a smilar cross shape and utilising vertical planes consisting of opaque rectangles skewed at around 30°. This should hopefully give the impression the model actually has a lot more depth than it actually does and should give the illusion of floating planes. Aswell, the shadows cast by the planes will give a good sense of depth to the model. I could achieve this using just cardboard and coloured card. I think using bright contrasting colours will be helpfull in seperating the layers.

Developing ideas for a 3D model

In a previous blog I wrote about deconstructing a piece of simple geometric art I found into just the components that it is made of. From this I have been developing ideas for how to make my own 3D model inspired by this. To help with this task I deconstructed another similar piece by the artist Nicholas Dubreuille.

I explored this peice by breaking it down into its basic 3D and 2D shape and noticed it was very similar to the last piece I deconstructed, its basic form being a plus shape conisitng of 2 overlapping rectangles. However, I also noticed that In this piece Dubreuille had focused overlaping translucent coloured planes more to give the illusion of it being 3D whilst in the first piece i explored the shadows on the artwork were a greater influence on the illusion that piece was 3D.

So from this some ideas for my 3D model I could potentially include is; using both translucent and opaque horzizontal planes in layers, trying to give the impression of a 3D cross shape, and also creating a model very similar to this but one that is actually 3D using cardboard to create layers and depth. In my next blog I will develop all these ideas further using ideas I have gained from both pieces to sketch potential models I can make.

Walking around Cheltenham

For the spatial analysis segment of my design project module I was tasked with creating a poster for a sequential jorney around cheltenham. For our first lecture on this we went on a led walk around cheltenham to understand better what we had to do. On this walk we explored the composition of spaces and how they could be broken down into just simple horizontal and vertical planes. Doing this allows you to see the spacial value of an are much better. After having the lecture I went out to start my own sequential journey. I chose to walk along route one, taking photos of any space i found interesting. I was looking particularly for spaces with a certain quality suxh as being long and linear, or enclosed, or spaces defined by their verticality. Below are some of the photos I took.

I will then take these images and use them to creat simple sketches breaking down the spacesa into their simplest form of just vertical and horizontal spaces.

Creating my own geometric art

In lesson I was tasked with creating my own 2D geometric composition utilising two sheets of grids I was given, with one or two rectangles on each for a starting point.. Being a landscape architecture student rather than focusing just on the simple task I was given, I immediately began overthinking what shapes I should draw, imaging the space as a house and a garden. However, along with half the class, I was reminded this was not the correct way to approach the task as at this point we are just trying to develop are skills at composing geometric shapes and thinking of our designs as landscapes would come later in the project.

Empty grid sheet

With this information I went back to my flat to try again, this time understanding the brief better. As well, I had inspiration from the artist I have deconstructed (see the previous blog), giving me a better understanding of the kind of piece I was aiming to create. From this I aimed to create a simple composition of overlapping rectangles. From this I would then remove lines from some squares where they overlapped and kept them on others. Also I used shading to add layers to my composition.

Exercise 2

I completed exercise 1 first, trying my best to forget about where the shapes and just see what i could make from random shapes leading to a very simplistic composition. This is in contrast to exercise 2 where I thought more about where the shapes would go leading to a more intricate and layered design with some symmetry and greater balance. After finishing exercise 2 I feel more confident in creating this type of abstract geometric artwork as I think this is an improvement since the first exercise.