So here we are more than half way through the semester and it’s Fall Break. So what have we accomplished so far?
When we started or design for Marion Square many of us had never designed a project that was going to be built. So considering that, is was going to be obvious that we were going to overlook some things.
One particular part of the project this case is very true. The steam box it a relatively simple idea. Boil water, take the steam, contain it, and stick some pieces of bamboo in it. Well as we found out that is not the case.
We first started with a wooden fire to boil our water. Sure it works to a certain extent, but we found out very quickly that getting the water to boil took a while, and the heat from the fire wasn’t consistant enough to steam the bamboo pieces effectively. Also our chamber made out of pvc pipe, could not take the indirect heat rising up from the fire, so it began to deform.
So we had to take a step back and make design adjustments. Now our design is much more effective. Here is a few pics of the new design.
As you see the new design has some important upgrades. We no longer use a wood burning fire, now we have a propane burner. It keeps a consistant heat and boils the water much more quickly. Also we have replaced the pvc chamber with a metal one. This prevents deformation in case of indirect heat coming from the burner.
So we learned some things, very important things. I believe we can use what we learned from this stream box design and apply it to our design at Marion Square, albeit not directly. The idea that our first concepts of design for the projects are rarely the optimum ones, and that we must test and learn so we can create the most effective design suitable for the project.