Pathways, Edges and Boundaries

For this project I was part of the Oasis group. After putting together a lengthy presentation about parking lot behavior and downsizing a 24 hour video to one hour and nineteen minutes, we finally got down and dirty with concrete. We came up with some ideas (many were rather literal, surprisingly). 

We originally desired to put furniture on our "island", however, after the class critique we all decided that furniture was out of the picture. We had also thought about putting a bird bath, but the class also ruled out water. After cutting out a bunch of inspiration pictures, as well as making some drawings and creating a 3D model, we decided to get going with out idea. 

The fourth picture is an example of one of the first pieces I casted. I cast concrete in a cardboard box, unaware that it had a dip in the bottom. When I took it out, It looked like that. It was a mistake, but I kind of liked it because it made me think of other possible textures, and it somewhat corresponded with the parking lot behind the oasis (the sidewalk between cars). 

Our group had decided to create a pathway mixing circles and squares, so we collected shoeboxes and carpet rolls and cut them to size. We got right to work with casting. We tried sawdust and woodshavings as aggregates, but eventually we ended up resulting to pearlite. 

After casting in many different shapes and sizes, we ran into a rather large speed bump. Yes, we had been  casting like crazy, but we got too far away from our original idea. We then had to regroup and come up with a new arrangement for these shapes. We got rid of the columns altogether and decided to create an edge rather than a pathway, though I suppose you could say that our idea creates an implied pathway. we decided to replace the continuation of the columns with the continuation of the edge. 

Though we had come up with a new idea, our exhibit model had already been made, so we will note in our presentation that modifications have already been made. That's design, right? As a part of the model group, I created our pathway and cut out several circles and squares to scale. After all our models we're finished, the exhibit group got together and took some time to plan out a strategic exhibit. We painted the panels, and then moved the three of them around several times to see where they looked good. Originally, we wanted to set them up so that they directed people walking into the building towards iarc. However, that setup did not favor a friendly presentation. Instead, we decided to create something like a box, and got rid of one panel. We hung all the drawings on the panels, as well as process pictures and throw-up sheets. On the main wall we have site plans, as well as the "table" (if you will) for the model. We also included seating for those favored guests.