Final Piece

Here is the final mdf construction. After constructing most of this I realised I had used a similar design to Calatrava in his winery; after seeing a side view of the building I realised that all of the protruding cuboids are straight lines, lines which rotate as they are repeated along the front of the building. This is almost exactly what I have done, I have taken a line of fixed length and rotated slightly in each profile. Giving the effect of a laterally curved surface.
I am very pleased with the way this has turned out. I avoided major complications by avoiding the ‘central spine’ construction and opting for the more elegant ‘acrylic support’ option. These are small plexiglass clips that fit onto the bottom part of the pieces (my aim was, after all, to keep the focus of the piece on the trapezoidal cross-sections). I think I have taken elements from Calatrava’s winery and integrated them successfully into a flowing form. I think Thomas Heatherwick’s beach café and the way he had used ‘slices’ to provide the basis for a curved form also influenced me. On reflection, my ideas have developed a long way from the earlier studies and experimentation; consequently I have covered quite a broad range of media and looked at about eight artists. I also feel this diversity has increased my awareness of sculptural forms has broadened my knowledge.

Sculpture from Calatrava’s Winery

I wanted to explore the way Calatrava had created his winery so I tried to imitate the protrusions using sliced ends of board. Because of the thickness of board I used, steeper edges along the profile guide cause larger gaps between protrusions creating empty space that is Calatrava has avoided.

Straws

This maquette is made of about 250 coloured straws stuck into a piece of board. Once again, I am creating an inferred surface, this time through the use of points in space. The translucent nature of the straws also gives the piece a sense of volume. I can relate this work to a piece by Thomas Heatherwick who suspended balls of glass on high tensile wires to create a representation of lead flowing through water.

Final Piece 2

I have decided to go for this design. The image should give an idea of the scale of the piece. Using a central spine option has the advantage of being very rigid, though I will have to damage my trapezoidal cross-sections. I would prefer to use small clips, possibly laser-cut, with tolerance fittings. However, I predict that I will need about 80, this could consume a lot of material and take a long time to cut.

Plaster

Here are some of my earlier experiments with plaster. I started by filling a takeaway box and I mixed in some blue paint, this didn’t mix properly, but gave me a nice marbled effect. From my experiments I also discovered that plaster mixed with paint also causes the drying process to take a lot longer but it seems to solidify to the same degree. I learnt this when I accidentally fractured a light blue slab before it had had a chance to fully solidify.

Final piece ideas

I want to make a large sliceform using cross-sections similar to some of my earlier experiments. I intend to use balsa wood pieces cut using a laser and mount them onto a central supporting spine. This work was largely influenced by Calatraca and his use of many individual profiles to create a single form. Pictured are some ideas for the sliceforms.

A hand

Again, more experimentation, this time with a hand. I started by gluing polystyrene pieces to the plate without any idea what I would create. The hand evolved subconsciously from an idea I had had in a previous project.

More Experiments

I have been doing lots of experimenting lately and thought I should post the reslts. First, here is the final result of a plaster casting I made. During its creation I mixed in small pieces of metal wire and polystyrene foam. I finished by cutting the 'brick' I had made into slices to observe the behaviour of the plaster around the objects.