DOWEL JOINT (SOLID PINE WOOD)

I had already done a solid wood house as a previous model in the project. I wanted to re develop this particular model and in a sense dissect it. So what i have done is used dowels to separate the house into two sections. This gives the model character and interest. the fact you can't see the joint makes it more aesthetically pleasing, its a sense of secrecy. something thats hidden but you can see inside the structure if you please.

GRASS & ICE

INSPIRATION FROM REINFORCED CONCRETE IN ARCHITECTURE

A famous architect ho worked with reinfocred concrete in his villa savoye was le corbusier.

The notion for this house model came from construction techniques.I am intrigues by how simple hings such as steel rods can re in force concrete in buildings and structural work of large scale. I had previously made a house from ice and wanted to apply strength to its structure in a way that is both physically and aesthetically beneficial. Grass was something that i thought would work whilst looking great at the same time.

Here is the finished result...

THE PROCESS
1) i used my gellflex mold as a way of creating the house shape/form. It worked before with clay and water so applying grass as a strength method should work too. The grass blades came from my back garden and were simply wedged into the mold with slight pressure and force.

2) As soon as i had enough grass in my mold i applied water to the content. When put in cold temperatures the molecular structure of the water will change drastically ultimately transforming the water from a liquid to a solid (ice). The time taken for this process can vary but i found that after 3 hrs in the freezer it was strong enough to hold as a solid house form        ")

WIREFRAME ELASTIC BAND

HOUSE ANALYSIS

The house looks great with the bands acting as additional strength to the structure. the afferent colours on the second layer give the house more interest and essentially a character about it.

PROBLEM HIGHLIGHTED

I had already done a wooden dowel wireframe model but unfortunately it snapped in one of the dowels. As a result i wanted to re complete the same model again using more glue and applying an additional two dowels to each side for strength. As a way of obtaining a model with multi materials i decided to apply elastic bands for both aesthetics and strength function. the initial notion was that the band would maintain and essentially hold the structure together with tightness (obviously this did not work successfully).
THE BANDS
YELLOW - thin, 6cm diameter flat
PINK/PURPLE - slightly thicker in both width and height diameter, stronger, elasticity 


Whats shocking to see is how the elastic bands have changed the form of the wooden dowel frame. I left the structure standing for the weekend and found out recently after that the joints on the wireframe model had broken due to the elastic pressure of the bands. 
BRITTLE JOINTS
I want to explain in depth why the joints ultamately failed the house model. 
Firstly its down to the process method of actually joining each individual wood dowel together. Because i used glue (hot glue gun) there wasn't enough strength in the joint. Although it looks like i have covered the joint completely in glue in-fact most of it has just set on the wood (doesn't have any effect on the strength of the joint). 

The bands are trying their hardest to return to their original shape which is understandably less than that on the house model. This results in a elastic energy which pulls/bends the frame of the wooden structure inwards to its core. Whats happened here is two of the joints have been unable to cope with this force and turned the house inwards to a more deconstructionist model. it looks more intriguing but unfortunately isn't what was required in terms of meeting the dimension criteria.

ICE

I had always wanted to create an ice mini hose model. I initially thought that it would come out transparent and not translucent. this meant that the final outcome wasn't as clean or sharp as intended. however in the first photo it seems to be floating?

'THE PROCESS WAS SIMPLE'
I used a gel flex mold and filled it with water. the whole process for it to set to a solid took around 3 hrs and the result was great. didn't take too much effort to remove from the mold.

THE ICE EFFECT
I wanted to shine a light through the structure in order to obtain a 'light effect'. However this was during the day so it was too light to capture the shot. I went into my room and darkened it but it didn't give off the same effect.  

CANDLE WAX

Originally i would have used this material as a cast in a mold. I already had the mold ready but unfortunately didn't have the wax at my house. 

Tools
kitchen knife
plastic ruler

THE PROCESS HAD ITS PROS AND CONS...
The only way it was possible to create the house form was to carve from my mums candle. The candle i used was lime scented and cylindrical shaped. I didn't think that the fact it was cylindrical shaped would affect the process, however i soon found that i was wrong. 

1) The first step was to mark onto the face of the candle the 'area of cut'. i did this by positioning my ruler against the candle and scoring the surface at 8cm (the chosen dimensions for the house models). From this it was simply a case of removing the excess wax (unneeded). 
2)With the length sorted out i just needed to repeat the process for the other sizes of the roof and front/back elevations. 

THE MATERIAL
What i thought the candle would be made from turned out to be completely different. You see, i assumed the whole candle was made from pure 100% green wax. So i went into carving with the idea that it would be simple and easy to do. You can just see from the pictures below that the candle is in fact a mixture of hard and soft wax, i assume for the purposes of burning.

When carving from the candle, i found that 'chunks' were removed instead of small bits of wax. this meant that it was noticeably more difficult to carve my house model. This problem is apparent in the aesthetics of my house as you can see...
       
        1) the roof is slanted
        2) the base isn't flat
If i was to make a wax house next time i would make use of my gellflex mold to obtain a more accurate result (closest to the given dimensions).

WHAT IS MODEL MAKING

Model making is using materials to produce miniature replicas or copies of something. In architecture for instance models are made as a way of understanding scale and structure. It is vital that the relative proportions of the desired object is kept the same.

Many architects have used this technique of visualizing buildings in their work. Architects such as Le corbusier, Frank Ghery and Frank lloyd wright are my most influencal.

LE CORBUSIER. VILLA SAVOYE MODEL 1928
This photo shows le corbusier alongside his villa savoye model. It was unclear online as to the material he used but im presuming its either card or thin wood such as plywood. The model of the house is to scale and enables the architect to analyse and evaluate the building before any real construction takes place.

 FRANK GHERY

 FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT

list of possible architectural model materials.
card stock
balsa wood
basswood
taskboard
foam
foamboard
plywood
paper
chipboard 
cardboard
aluminium wire
steel sheets
PVC

Ways of creating.
3D printer
band saw
hot wire
laser cutter
scalpal with steel rule
scissors
folding
bending
tearing/wripping

List of joining processes.
Super glue
Hot glue gun
welding
sellotape
double back tape
tak

WIREFRAME

Whats interesting about the wire-frame model is that the material is continuous, it's all follows one line. This in itself makes the model unique and effective in it's concept. 

The construction approach
-this originally started out as a single piece of wire. The joints are made possibly by simply using my hands. As a way of obtaining near enough precise dimensions i rested the wire against a ruler and marked a pencil stroke where i needed to bend. 

The model itself doesn't look too great in terms of its precision. Due to the materials properties it becomes extremely difficult to obtain a straight edge. When holding the wire I actually realised that I was affecting the edge without wanting to. Also the bends themselves are not 'sharp'. By this I mean that te corners are bent rather than perpendicular. They aren't sudden turns that you would see on some of my other models such as the paper and foam houses. As a result to this it is a lot harder to measure the dimensions of the model as you won't know where an edge actually ends.