Friday, April 25, 2008

Models and Mock-Ups and Steel

Paul, Margot and Jason working on the model. It's 1/2" scale - same size as midterm.

The model team is trucking along and it is looking awesome so far. They are re-using the MDF base from the mid-term model and then laser cutting basswood and grey chip for almost everything. I think it is going to look super hot when it is all put together and there is a bunch of lush green stuff everywhere.



Paul, assembling. I think the model is going to be great.

Johnny and I finished up the 3D model today and he started pumping out some test shots for the Rendering team to choose from. We'll do lighting and simple materials in 3D max and then the Photoshop crew will bring the shots to life. That process worked well for the mid-term so hopefully it goes smoothly again. The model looks pretty good - its a simplified version of the project of course, but it will work just fine as a base for renderings. We also found out today that we get to have the glass-corner for our presentation which is fantastic cus it will make the entire show run much more smoothly than being in the lobby. We can still use the whole hallway for out Construction Document set, and we'll use the front wall of the room for HUGE renderings (like 4 or 5, 4'x10' prints kind of huge) - then the long wall will be for Mid-term and process stuff, all the models and drawings from the proposals as we moved from 14 individual, to 7 pairs, to 3 groups, to 1 class wide scheme. What a crazy process, there will so much work up on that wall that is overwhelming just thinking about it.

And of course we'll have the 1/2" scale model and the 5 full-scale construction mock-ups. I did a bunch of drawings for Johnny and I's piece today - tomorrow I'll be building forms and pouring concrete while he puts together steel brackets and other fun stuff. The main one we are working on will be about 9 ft. high all together, and it will have our roof-connecction detail, the W beam, the column bracket and column, as well as walls of both the greenhouse and the kitchen hanging off the column. Ohh, and kitchen countertops too. Its going to be so cool. All in all, should be quite a show.
A little model of our full-scale mock up. Kitchen, Greenhouse Steel and Roof all coming together. Yikes.

I was a little worried about getting the steel for this mock-up (Who's gonna sell you a 2' chunk of W18x35?) But Johnny traded a 6 of oat sodas to an associate of his for the steel, so now we've got everything in the studio - its just a matter of putting everything together.

We also got our first set of numbers from Harriet today (Structural Engineer) and I'll be damned if my spreadsheet wasn't right on the money! Well, almost. But to be fair - I was assuming some pretty conservative values for loads (as in, assuming they were always higher than they probly needed to be) and so several of the members are much lighter than I had sized them. So that is good. But the details she sent really just don't work at all for bunch of reasons. So hopefully she will have time to meet with us for a few minutes after class so we can talk about fasteners and joint options. Good to know we were all operating in the same universe though and that we weren't way off base with our numbers.

God, each day feels like a week at this point. Big concrete day tomorrow - and who knows what else. Can't wait.

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