Research Scaffholds + Parametric architecture

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3D printing

Here is our first 3D printed component, the single pulley of our cable car mechanism. Manu mage the nice wooden parts of the pulley in the workshop- everything is coming together very well! 

The size of the 3D printed object is quite large, and the finish is quite rough. Therefore we are considering making our cable car pod small in comparison, so it is the mechanism that is the main part of our design, similar to how in some forms of architecture, e.g. brutalism, it is the structure that is mostly expressed.

Here's our second 3D cut piece, a double pulley. 

Unfortunately, our final 3D cut piece, a hook, did not work. It was too small, and hence very delicate so it broke shortly after being printed. We were informed by Franca that this piece was really too small. We have learnt for next time!

Lantern modification 2

We decided to try modifying our lantern by cutting holes in them and filling them with a lighter, clearer material. This would create windows in our lantern that would then create an experience for the travellers.

3D Printing

Here are photos of the 3D printing that we have done so far. We have one more piece that is still being printed, it will be ready by tomorrow.

The single pulley printed perfectly. The sizes are exactly as we wanted and the file came out just like the 3DS Max 3D model.

Unfortunately, there was an issue with the double pulley. Due to the fact that objects on 3DS Max do not snap (or if they do, we are unaware of this!) and that we working at such a small scale, we did not notice that their must have been a tiny gap between our pieces. Anyway, the consequence of this is that we ended up with 3 separate rings as opposed to a nice double pulley! We now need to consider what we are going to do; whether we can think of a way to join these pieces without using glue (which is forbidden for this design project) or if we just need to fix the file and get this reprinted. Obviously we will have to spend extra for this and 3D printing can be quite pricey... lesson learnt, double, triple, and quadruple check your files!!!

 Here are our three rings all separate!

This is essentially what the pulley would have looked like, if we hadn't had the error with our files!

Hopefully our third piece, which was given to be printed at the same time as these pieces but that is taking a bit longer to print, will be fine!

Waiheke inspired hotel-roof and textures

Here is the finished Waiheke inspired hotel. The roof mimics the design of the plant room roof, and the textures, most of which are edited from photographs of real materials, are mostly organic, for example there are various types of wood used.

I still need to figure out how to make the sides of the plant room, but it is quite late (2am) and I need to be in studio early tomorrow morning so I think it's about time I tried to get some sleep. 

A world within a world- this hotel appears open, and yet it is confined. This is once more playing with the communal living vs. isolation dichotomy.

The texture on the elevator also resembles the texture on the floor of the plant room.

Laundry areas

There are three laundry areas, hidden away between elevators yet still open to the rest of the hotel and easily accessible.

Kitchen and Dining

I have added a kitchen and dining area in our Waiheke inspired, city site hotel. Since the island has a much more relaxed atmosphere, I thought it made more sense if guests were able to cook for themselves, rather than having the constructed experience of being served. Since we also want to keep things very open I simply placed kitchen and dining areas in the middle of the hotel, so that it is easily accessible at all times, but it also has plenty of space to manoeuvre around. The fact that there are 6 chairs around each table and that each room only has capacity for 2 means that guests will get to know each other throughout the dining experience. This plays into the whole communal living vs. isolation dichotomy that we are so interested in exploring in regards to hotels.

Safety railings

I have added railings to all the room levels for our Waiheke inspired, city site hotel.

Waiheke inspired hotel reception

I've made a reception area at the front of the hotel. Since we want this hotel to have a very open feel to it, I think it's best that the reception is not closed away in a room of its own. I chose a jagged looking desk with lots of corners as this complemented the honeycomb columns. I also imported the Honeycomb stairs to our hotel file. Next we need to consider where we want any other sorts of rooms or areas, and how we want them placed. We also need to start working on our own textures.

Waiheke inspired hotel

We have combined Andy's exterior and my interior to create our overall hotel design. I also elevated everything and added a base. We still need to finish the plant room, add our Honeycomb stairs and a roof, and consider whether we want any other forms of rooms.

I am feeling so much more confident with ArchiCAD now, though!

3DS Max hook

The first on the 3 objects we wish to have 3D printed: a double hook which will clip onto one of our pulleys and also the top string for support.
This looks simple, but I had never modelled on 3DS Max before so it took a bit of figuring out! It's quite fun once you get the hang of it though.
We're hoping to hand this file into the digital fabrication workshop tomorrow, hopefully everything will be OK!

Cable cars

For our second vehicle, we are looking at creating some sort of manually operated cable car spanning between our city site and Waiheke island. Since escape is such a fundamental concept for our hotel designs, we came up with the thought 'how far are you willing to go to escape?' If the site is viewed as dystopian, then the traveller has to exert effort to reach the utopia. Therefore we want our cable car like vehicle to be manually operated, perhaps with a pulley system of some sort.