Tamaki Campus.

On Sunday we moved all of our materials to Tamaki Campus and began to make the first module of our structure! Below are some photographs from todays work:

All our bamboo sorted into sizes

First module almost completed!

We added the vertical pieces of the second module and they slotted in perfectly with the bamboo wedges we created. They moved very little which was really fantastic.

Katy fixing the second modules vertical piece on top of the first module's vertical piece.



Close-up of the lashings for the cross-bracing above the first module.

Phillipino diagonal lashing. Used to bind the horizontal pieces of the first module's inner structure.

The lashings done on these corners were particularily tricky as it was difficult to get the rope under and over each piece of bamboo. We used Japanese Box lashings for hese bindings.



This was the most exciting part of the day: fitting the floor pieces in! we laid them out to test how strong they

are when we stand on them. They proved to be very strong and not a single one buckled or broke from our weight.

Painting the Bamboo Black.

Over the weekend just gone we have successfully been able to paint all of our pieces of cut and sanded bamboo black! The weather was perfect :) Below are some photographs of the days activities:

The Set out ready for spraying.



 Spraying in Progress.

 Watching paint dry..

All the bamboo painted!

Close up.

End of week update

This week has been very busy! We have cut all our bamboo to size and have painted all of it black. We have recieved our glow sticks and will be picking up our material tomorrow. This material will be used to create darker amd more lighter areas in our strcuture by layering. We had to complete our safety plan this week. This had to include how we intend to transport our structure to the exhibition space and how we plan to erect it. We also had to think about the hazards of our project and how we will go about minimizing these hazards.

Hazards include:

Tripping : We have a 20cm step up onto our structure. We plan to bring this to everybody's attention if they wish to enter our structure.

High heels: High heels may be dangerous to wear in our strcuture as the floor is made of bamboo and will be slightly uneven. Flat shoes are a must.

Offset : To make the structure possible the bamboo has an offset to allow for binding. This is not unusual for bamboo structures but may catch people by surprise if the walk close to the structure.

Binding: The structure will be bound using traditional techniques.Cable ties will be used to further support the binding and keep the bamboo from splitting.

Bracing: The structure has a significant number of cross bracings to avoid warping.

We think we will use a flatbed deck trailer to transport our structure. The trailer is 4m  in length and 2.2m wide! This will be a perfect fit for our modules.

Progress

Over the past week we have been trying our best to collect all the bamboo we need. We spent two days (Wednesday and Friday) cutting down bamboo and we now have everything. We have also started to cut our bamboo to size and have started painting it. This will take quite a while but once all the pieces are cut and painted black we will assemble the structure. This may only take a day per module. There are 4 large modules and one smaller module. This may take half a day. We are in the process of ordering our glowsticks. We have three weeks until the exhibition.We have many late nights ahead of us.

Cutting Bamboo

We were very lucky as it was a beautiful sunny day when we went to cut down our bamboo from Sonya's garden.  We were lucky in that we were able to take as much as we wanted. So far we have spent two days cutting down bamboo and will possible need one more day to cut more down. We had to trim and cut the bamboo into shorter pieces and we also started to sand the bamboo.

Last week we began experimenting further with how we could connect the bamboo. We think a connection like this would make the structure much stronger and would decrease the amount of space the bamboo would take up (as when you bind the bamboo you double the space the bamboo takes up as the bamboo overlaps). We think this would be good for the outer structure as this will be the supporting structure and will need to be strong.

We also started to bind around the connection. This will give the strcuture a more beautiful sense of detail. It will also give the bamboo more strength around the diameter and stop it from splitting. Though in our final structure the bamboo will be black!

Binding the bamboo for the Prototype.

Below are some photographs of binding techniques that we have tried out.

Philipino Lashing

Japanese Square Lashing

Combination of Japanese and Philipino Lashing

Sanding the Bamboo.

This week we managed to acquire free Bamboo from a lovely lady called Sonia. Over the last few days we have been busily sanding down the entire lot of bamboo so that we can spray them black.

Problems we have encountered.

Last week we managed to aquire some bamboo to use for our prototype. we painted it with black acryllic paint over the weekend, but we found that the paint just chipped off the surface of the bamboo when it dried!
We had to sand all of the paint off and further sand down the bamboo to remove the smoothe surface of the bamboo. Luckily the second time we applied the paint onto the bamboo it did not chip off!

Without the surface sanded down.

After sanding!

We also experimented binding the bamboo pieces together which worked really well. We have had a few problems however where the horizontal bamboo pieces are slipping so we are going to have to put our heads together and figure out a way of preventing the slipping.

Thinking About Binding

We are looking at different types of lashing. The trippod lashing may work for the corners of the glowstick boxes and the bamboo boxes.

Tripod Lashing

Diagonal Lashing

Japanese Box Lashing

Materials and Development

Today we found a suitable mesh material that could possibly be used for our final structure. We have also found bamboo and a suitable twine to bind our bamboo with. We have a large quantity of glowsticks that we can use for our prototype! We have been developing our structure and have designed it to be more modular making it easier for us to construct on the day. We are planning to have about five modules of our bamboo structure that can slot together easily and quickly.

We have also reconsidered the idea of using a pully system. The ropes may slip off the pullys and if the pullys are 8m high then it will be impossible for us to fix it if this were to happen on the night. We have decided to use rings instead. We will thread the rope through the ring and the rope will have no chance of slipping out. We are currently looking into binding.

Developing Our Measurements

Today we spent some time figuring out our final measurments. We made a few changes to the plan of our structure in order to make it easier for people to enter.

More Inspirational Images

More 1:10 Scale Models

We have made some changes to the inner structure to make it more systematic, whilst at the same time keeping it visually intersting as the inner boxes change shape, direction and size. The crosses allude to the idea of puppetry. The crosses also connect back to our story with "beams propping up other beams".

New Inspiration

After seeing our tutor we have come across new ideas to consider regarding our inner structure. We have yet to explore this but will be working on it over the next week.

Details

Cross section detail of our structure with a pulley system moving glowing boxes.

New restrictions!

This week we have found out that the maximum area at ground level that our structure can take up is 2m by 2m. Therefore we have had to reconsider the shape of the inner structure and the outer structure and the relationship between the two. We have also been designing and developing the experience one would undergo when entering and exiting our Skyrise. We want our structure to still be very interactive despite our new restrictions. We would like the inner structure to be shaped like a diamond in order to draw people inside and create a more interesting entry point. The diamond shape also alludes to the vortex movement of the stars mentioned in our story. The diamond  is in contrast to the square outer struture. The new restrictions have also required us to reconsider the size of the cavity as we want to be able to have at least three people in our structure at one point. the size of the cavity will also determine the size of our glowing boxes.

Models.

This week we have been creating models to explore different ways we can structure our sky-rise. We experimented with many different materials, manipulating them to convey our idea.