ARC140 Structure - Exploration of how 'things' work - WEEK 2
This week as a group we continued developing the proposal. We realised that the outdoor classroom we had chosen to develop was not wide enough for students to have enough space to learn and study comfortably. We were afraid it would make them feel 'claustrophobic' and uncomfortable.
We decided that the concept of the structure that could be easily assembled and disassembled worked well, but started looking at different shapes which could be applied to the design to make it more open and spacious without changing its original concept too drastically.
TRAPEZIUMS
After various tests we decided to go for a trapezium shape which could be extended and attached to other trapezium shapes. This would widen the space enough to provide the ideal learning space for students.
FLOORING
We decided that the flooring would be made of marine plywood, placed directly on the grass.
ROOF
We decided that we could continue to use the inspired roof scales and curved shape of the roof (inspired by the back of a dinosaur) despite changing the shape of the structure.
The 'tiles' have a pentagon shape with a slit which allows them to easily slide onto the beams .
CANVAS ROOF EXTENSIONS
To increase the feeling of being close to nature we agreed that it would be good to have the children sit on the grass as well as the plywood. We decided this could be achieved by adding canvas extensions to the roof.
We looked at the the best way to add these extensions and felt that the easiest would be to surround the trapezium with wooden beams and have the canvas extensions run from the trapezium roof to the beams (see images below).
DIMENSIONS
During the week we started to have concerns regarding the dimensions. To overcome this we decided that a digital software version of the design would be necessary. As I am the member of the team with the greatest experience using Blender I was tasked with this. By inputting the measurements I was able to determine any changes we needed to make to make the design 'workable'.
This then allowed us to develop a small scale physical model.