Friday, November 26, 2010





since its black friday. some nice barcelona chairs in the pfizer. desirable.

division of labor

presentation is a component of project that tends to get overlooked. presentation can be a very powerful communication tool as it controls how a product can be conveyed. A good idea can be ruined by a poor presentation, whereas a poor idea can be lead with guidance from a good presentation. The only reason I know this is true is from juries in architectural education though their reactions to poor presentations can be extreme and somewhat along a Max Shtein reaction. Not that we shouldn't have those standards.

We've been keeping a Google Doc of the final report, but as of late it hasn't been updated. My original intent for the final report document was so that as a group, we wouldn't need to recover six weeks of decision making and rewrite out all of our thoughts. We do have bullet points more or less.

Google presentations have been useful, I originally created it not wanting to keep gigabytes of PDFs for presentations on my external. But ultimately, by keeping the presentations public, any other missing information can be added onto the presentation. At times, we end up finishing our prototypes before midnight, and forming a presentation is doable. But for the other cases where nights have gone late, especially for components like Arduino or other areas that I have no background in, its simply easier to come back the next day to see if anything should be reordered in the presentation.

On a side note, Google Presentation connects with YouTube so now my account is filed with SmartSurfaces: armeriazero.  I've only uploaded videos which were put into the presentation but hopefully the rest will get on soon.

......happy thanksgiving. belated.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

week 1 brainstorming


brainstorning notes from this past monday
  • FORM: tube worm, venus flytrap,  function: shy or friendly!, react to other tubes and/or people, potentiometer and actuator
    • degrees of freedom:
      • fabric = infinite degrees of freedom
      • maybe need only one or two motors -- corkscrew form to push up fabric, or fabric takes on form
    • construction material: fabric for plume (http://www.wikihow.com/Gather-Fabric-into-Ruffles, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lk36V9uVdA&feature=related),
      aluminium tubes/TP Roll
      spring book binding tube
  • ARRAY: clusters vs single units, the combination of both
  • GOALS next week: creating more degrees of freedom, fiber optic photoresistor,
  • RULES FOR INTERACTION: The individual tubes can respond to:
    • light
    • sound (or music, talking)
    • proximity (of people to object)
    • movement (of people or other tubes)
    • magnetism
    • touch
    • temperature
    • moisture
    • Responses can change with time:
      • e.g. the tubes can be very shy at first, then slowly acclimate to their environment throughout the course of the day.  The rules can change on a random, predefined cycle, or a cycle based on the environment.

Monday, October 18, 2010

inspiration

these are interesting considering movements from car to bike traffic circulation. i just saw some bike station in chicago a few weeks ago, but i don't remember seeing any last year. they have a similar system in france where you can bike to work and drop off your bike at various rental stations. a healthier and cheaper transport mode. maybe for our last project, we should make a mode of transport which makes the user look like an animal, biomimicry residing in human movement. that would cause quite a spectacle.



or maybe help a more practical end...

post - precedents & laughs

http://ffffound.com/image/172b44f5fc0a8884fbdfe8d8f5aea336d4775d12
I was trying to make a prototype like this for the very first project, but this one's craft is much better. It shows the positive/negative waves coming out of a surface. A multifaceted single surface


"paperCAD" aka pepakura


Above: ‘Domage a Corbu, grand confort, sans confort’ 
by Stefan Zwicky at Demisch Danant gallery.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

presentation 10/14



love doing presentation.


TBEdit
for the final project, we need to define mission/goals, SWOT analysis. here is my two cents:


mission
to create a positive inter/trans-disciplinary community
vision
we want to create a common ground, common language
values
expect respect. our disciplines have different values
goals and expectations
finish your work. specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-based


Strength - generating ideas, innovative
Weakness - inefficiency, lack of direction
Opportunities - specialization,
Threats - time scheduling, priorities


Team Structure

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

efffffffffffffffff

we have a problem here. my group is composed of very idealistic people and we can't decide on anything! i think it'd be fun to do some personality test and find out that either we're all incoherent with each other, or that we are all of the same independent personality category.

i'm INTJ just to put it out there... i know, independent.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries: Ensuring the Future of Food



a story. to change lifestyle. and save the world...........hm

i saw this video during studio presentations at the beginning of the year by one of the UG3 faculty. pretty neat. the original intention was to show a way of graphic representation, but it works efficiently overall as a presentation. short and sweet mini points

presentation

presentation style: so we've been told in architecture to present the final model first, and then go back to refer to the process of getting there.

here's a rough run through of points i think we should hit:

  • intro: a solution to urban gardening is having a mini garden outside your window
    • cost efficient - growing vegetables cost less than going to the grocery store
      • cost of growing and transporting produce from other countries is expensive. by growing food outside your window, this will reduce air pollution and gasoline cost.
      • less traffic on weekends when everybody is going to the grocery shopping to stock up
      • effective use of space - form is designed to the human scale (mention dimensions...)
    • fresh vegetables taste better than commercially mass produced items
    • self sufficient -
      • hydroponic & water collection system
      • managing temperature & humidity
      • ventilation 
    • NOT obtrusive. If it is close to a neighboring window, then the object provides passive lighting--due to the angle of the sun, it provides shade during the high summer suns while allowing low winter sun rays inside to the neighbor below! as a result, the sun's rays will heat the room less in the summer and more in the winter by comparison.
    • takes time to garden BUT the times used will be much more effective and rewarding than other household hobbies (watching tv, internet, driving around to grocery store waiting in traffic, etc.)
  • how our solution fulfills requirements:
    • shapes cover curved surfaces
    • exposes
  •  DESIGN 1: pentagonal hexecontahedron
    • designed to enclose something
    • pentagons to make curved surface
  •  DESIGN 2: pentagonal tesselations & folding panel system
    • these techniques become the basis for ventilation and sunlight system
    • more polygons for curved surface
  • DESIGN 3: modification of form with working water system
    • shapes form curve at selected points to reduce potential material waste, and reduce unusable space
  • DESIGN 4: final design
    • improved aesthetics of design 3

post comments on missing points/arguments

Sunday, September 26, 2010

restructuring

email threads are fun. amuck. not sure if team roles were ever really discussed in our group, and maybe that's what we need. we're not working in specialized fields but everyone on everything so far it seems like.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

weeks of images [photojournal]






 


the beginning half was from assignment 1. the latter half was brainstorming (row 1), and three prototypes. the first was from jason, mimicking a plant whose name i don't remember. second, i made a surface which wasn't functioning but if it did, the folding motion would be similar to chris' surface. the string would pull on those polygonal shapes and the rest of the wall surface would crinkle along the folds due to the tension between material. lastly, chris, same mechanism but different form.

an issue. our models are still 2D, we're just been using the given thickness of the chipboard. i was thinking of laser cutting all of my pieces instead of just scoring the folds but the idea wouldn't have been made in time.

why is this an elective studio when karl clearly knows us arch students have a main (more important, time consuming, one man team) one? just killing me. softly

notes

instead of leaving notes in my sketchbook, a list of ideas from the 10:30a meeting. RECAP:

urban farming is the function.

greater than creating a piece of technology to improve the condition of our lives

http://freshome.com/2009/05/08/planter-wall-tiles-by-maruja-fuentes/
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://design-milk.com/images/2010/07/insitu-wall-planter-1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://design-milk.com/insitu-wall-planters/&usg=__pc1AVgzuTRWRKdZ0ehZpUnazko8=&h=343&w=500&sz=37&hl=en&start=80&zoom=1&tbnid=CkufOgdfYv_x0M:&tbnh=147&tbnw=196&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dplanter%2Bwall%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26sa%3DX%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26biw%3D1392%26bih%3D793%26tbs%3Disch:10%2C1925&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=132&vpy=389&dur=839&hovh=186&hovw=271&tx=128&ty=99&ei=NoaXTPvvI8KC8gb47_3QBw&oei=HYaXTMOcC4L-4Aady-zqAw&esq=4&page=4&ndsp=28&ved=1t:429,r:7,s:80&biw=1392&bih=793
Insitu Wall Planters is an Australian company who has designed a vertical container wall planter that comes in five different sizes and black or white powder-coated steel. Pots not included.


http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/la/gardening/modern-diy-outdoor-planter-093540



patrick blanc

Friday, September 10, 2010

Shapes Exposed

I've never blogged before. This is a test.
But these thoughts are real.

Working with other disciplines can be funny, all of us have different routes around brainstorming. As a student from the architecture field, it was interesting to see how words were defined in a concrete or abstract manner. I've heard that architects or just people in the architectural field have trouble communicating their ideas to the public because our knowledge doesn't have a strong base in general education (or simply because the jargon is obscure, and assimilating into the study as first years UG1 was hard enough). It makes me wonder if one year is enough to make a poor soul speak gibberish.

The project was given 3 constraints. I don't remember them, but it's vaguely: 1. Surface, 2. Exposed, 3. Shapes which together form a curved surface.

Since Surface wasn't written on a piece of paper, that clue was ignored. Basically, surface. It's useful.

Exposed. Exposed was the revealing of something, presumably an object. It could also be the revealing of another side of the same object. But it could also be that the object has multiple sides/facades each revealed in a different manner, something like the analogy of peeling away the layers of an onion--each layer reveals the next layer, and there is more to come. In that sense, exposing is no longer an immediate surprise in those certain dreams where suddenly you have no clothes on, but a gradual change (I don't think an example is necessary here). Is being exposed necessarily a threat? The connotations of exposed makes the action seem dangerous, but exposed can be a good thing as well. Openess, flowers expose themselves when the sun is out so that other life may survive. And other things...

Shapes...are geometrical. Polygons. What kind of polygons? Hexagon, pentagon, four-sided figures. Shapes can also be in 3D, infinite possibilities. A model needs x, y, and z.