Know Your Material
As designers, we often get into the habit of conceptualizing ideas that are…. well, ideal. So when it comes to the process of grounding them in reality, many of us tend to get a little frustrated. It is easy to say “just hand it off to the engineers and let them see our vision through” but here in Studio V, that falls to us… along with everything else.
So with the days leading up to this past Friday being filled with structural designing, we were left with the need to blow off some steam. What better way to do that and also get a better understanding of what we’re actually working with structurally than to learn how to weld? Pastre gave us a tutorial on the basics along with some brief hands on experience so that we can better understand steel as a material. This was also a way to prepare us with a basic skill set that will help in our prototyping and fabrication processes to come later in the semester. Exposure to a trade such as this is one of the many advantages to being a member of Studio V.
Yes, But Does it Stand?
So burning a pile of metal sounds like we just spend our days playing with fire and destroying the wood shop here, but actually this past weekend has had some crucial work being produced. After meeting with structural engineer John Moore last Wednesday, we have been working diligently on framing tactics for our community deck at Farmfield and sculptural seating at Coburg.
As we reconvene today, each team hopes to compose a final structural strategy that we will transcribe into construction documents that we will “complete”, red-line, then actually complete before we have our spring break.
Quick turn around yes, but we’re in high spirits here. We’ll see how much longer that lasts.