Exhibition

well i managed to pull it off and exhibit my work on time and it looks great!    :) :) :)

here it is:

Questionnaire Results

after showing my final design ideas and model to 34 individuals, i then asked these two question:
Q1, Do you think that this design can be considered to be a 'Sustainable' design? Y/N
Q2, Does this House look as like a modern ans stylish piece of architecture? Y/N

the results from this questionnaire were as follows:
Q1, 26 said Yes and 8 said No
Q2, 29 said Yes and 5 said No

so overall, i did achieve what i set out to do. so my project was a huge success.
:) :) :)

Reflection - FMP

OMG this is my last day of making and i am having big big big problems with the final part of my model (the solar dome) i just can not cut all the pentagons to the exact shape and size. even if one of them is slightly off, then the whole dome will not work. after many attempts of cutting out of MDF, i thought that i might be able to use foamboard however, this too was a huge disaster.

with only hours to go befor the workshop closes for the holidays, i decided that it was time for plan B. which was to vacume form clay doam and cover it with the solar pannel pattern that i have already created and printed off.

unfortunately i ran out of time so i am going to have to cover the dome at home during the holidays with is ok.

UPDATE:
the solar dome looks fine and here it is:

Feed back

from presentation:

Reflection - FMP

well todays presentation went very well. a got a very good reaction to my short animations and got some possitive coments from fellow class mates. however, the best thing about today has got to be that we had the afternoon free to continue working on our models. :)
so i finaly got every thing painted white just the way i wanted and then Jo sugested that i could use some resin in my river section to give it a bit of a shine so it actually looks time water. so i did a test piece and decided to go with the idea. so i painted the river area a light blue and then poured and painted on the resin and left it to set. unfortunately i am going to have to wait untill the morning to see if it has worked the way i wanted it to. fingers crossed it should look fantastic.

Reflection - FMP

i realy need to get a move on as this is the lat day of making because all next week we are giving our presentations so i am going to have very little time to get work done. i am already making use of extra sesions and coming in to college on my days off.
well any ways, after a bit of adgusting with some extra sanding, the building finaly fits in its place. so i glued all the piece in place and once they were dry, i screwed my building down into its place and filled up the hole. after waiting for the filler to dry, i sanded it down and preped the whole model for painting. in the mean time, i cut out a load of semi circles to stick to the garden wall to represent a tyre wall.

 i then sprayed my whole model white which lead to a disaster!
because i had sanded all my pieces, when i sprayed the model, it came out all fury. so what i am going to have to do is come in AGAIN on my day off and sand it all down and paint it by hand and then sand that down and then spray the model again!

Disaster!!!

Reflection - FMP

what a bussy day! well my first job of the day was to cut the remaining layers that were missing. i then cut out the river part into them and then sanded the new layers. and then in the afternoon, i managed to cut my big block of MDF into the shape of my house. and made sure that it fits into the cut out area that i had made for it to sit into.
what i then did was cut down some flexi-ply so it wraps all the way round my house and then cut all my windows and doors into this strip of flexble wood.
i had two main problems when it came to making my house. the first one was that i couldnt get the flexi-ply to stay stuck to the house around the tight corners. my solution to this was to use small nails to keep the wood inplace untill the glue dried and then remove the nails. the second problem wasthat the strip of flexy ply snaped as i bent it around the tight corner especially as it was so thin. my only solution to this was to just cary on and attach the stip in two seperate pieces.

Reflection - FMP

i managed to cut out the sections for my house to fit into. and i then glued together many layes of MDF to get a large block. once all the glue is dry and the block is solid, i will start to cut out my house design. however i havnt yet finished with my layers because i discovered that i am still short by about 10 layers so i am going to have to cut and shape them the next time i am in the workshop.

the vast majority of todays time went on sanding my pieces. i decided that i should sand the edges of each piece to make it look slightly better and so that my final model is a higher standard and quality to my test model. unfortunately for me, the only way of getting the job done was to sand each and every piece (30 something) by hand. and man are my arm aching :(

but on the plus side, the model does look a lot better with the edges sanded. :)

Reflection - FMP

my jod for today was to work out and then cut out the river section form every piece i have so far. and because each piece is different it is very easy to get mixed up with which piece goes where. to over come this problem, i decided to number every piece as i cut it out so i know exacly which piece goes where.
i did make a few mistakes with the first few pieces by cutting the river out in the wrong place or to the wrong sive or shpe. but i soon got the hang of it and managed to master my technique.

i also needed to cut out the spaces for where my house is going to slot into my design but i couldent do this because i havnt made my house yet. so my solution was to make a quick simple model out of styrofoam and use that as a guide until i actually get round to making the actual MDF house.

Reflection - FMP

wohoo!!! the making stage of my project has well and truly started. i started of with a have a huge pile of MDF strips all ready to be cut into shape.

i then cut all the strips into the same curved shape.

and this is what i have managed to achieve today.

Bank Holliday

yay its a bank holliday AGAIN! :) :) :)

this is a good time to just reflect on my work so far and to just catch up with some sketch book work.

Reflection - FMP

I'm making a slow but steady start to making my final. so far iv got one piece of wood with some scribbles on it :)
not exactly the most proactive day, but a day of planing. i really need to crack on with making!

Bank Holliday

yay its a bank holliday and i am going to spend the day resting
:) :) :)

this is a good time to just reflect on my work so far and to just catch up with some sketch book work.

Reflection - FMP

i felt as though i could now move on and practice my modeling skills using the actual material that i would use for my final which is wood. and here it is....

each piece of this model is seperate and no two are the same. as you can see from the images below...

however, after seeing this wonderful piece, my tutor (Kate) said that it didnt look like an architectural piece. and looked more like a fine art sculpture. and her advice was to add something to the building its self so it looks more like an every day building.

so i did. i started designing new roof structures with balconies and what not and then i came up with this....

this new roof consists of an all glass room at the top which opens up to the roof with a safety rail going all the way round.

Reflection - FMP

this is my idea for a 'solar dome' it is a free standing structure that will capture sun light from every possible angle. each piece is a seperate solar panel that are all linked up togerther and then the energy is fed back to the house. and not only will it produce energy, it will also act as a sculptural piece down by the river.

looking back at my design today, i thought that it wasnt as good as i wanted and knew that i could do alot better. so i set out to improve my design. and what i did was to rotate the actual building on the hill so that it was coming out from the hill rather than going inside it. here is a quick foam model of my new idea....

i then also tried this new design using the steped technique and it turned out fabulous. :) i love it. this is a much better and much improved design and i am now going to stick to it and develop it a bit more. my models are also getting better and i am starting to get the hang of how to make them.