Improving the pyramids

Since I decided to make pyramid containers for the foam I needed to think of materials I am going to use. I thought if I would use paper or something else it would go with my brief as pyramids are geometric shapes and that is just opposite from natural shapes. Therefore I was thinking how could I make the pyramids look more natural from the outside without changing their qualities. I came up with idea of making them out of transparent plastic. I believe it was a good decision as it allowed me to preserve the qualities and sharp edges of pyramids and demonstrate the foam inside. The transparent container allows to blend straight and geometric forms with very natural ones.
I took about 7 experiments to figure out how to actually put the foam inside the pyramids that it would leave some space as well. First ones did look that great but the later ones worked out quite well. They do look quite weird but very intriguing at the same time. This is my final outcome but I believe it is still very experimental. It is quite good and exciting and I feel quite happy about it because I managed to bring nature/natural forms into architecture in a not straight forward way. However I wish a had an extra week or two to experiment more with these pyramids, maybe try out some different materials or processes. I believe I could make a lot more experiments and development work with them.

Constructing portable buildings

I got the idea of portable buildings. Now I just need to join all my research, experiments and this idea together. I decided to make small units that could be used on their own or joined together to create big spaces. I got this idea from shipping containers used for temporary shops.

Since I had a clear idea what I want to make I just needed to decided how. I knew that I want to use the expanding foam inside little spaces as it would create natural shapes and relate to all my research. 

I started experimenting and drawing plans how to construct units that could be joined together.

The primary idea was to get big irregular piece of expanding foam and cut it into smaller bits. I made a little experiment and realised that it is very hard to join irregular shapes.

Therefore, I decided to use geometrical shape as a container to keep the irregular foam inside. I was drawing all the different shapes looking how could I join them together. I wanted to be able to join shapes in as many different ways as possible. I found out that pyramids can be joined in quite a few ways. So I started making test models so see how can I actually join them.

I tested quite a few nets, sizes and shapes of pyramids as I needed to know which ones are the most efficient. Then I started cutting them and adapting nets to achieve the shapes with open corners or sides. The first outcomes were quite unsuccessful and uneven. I corrected my mistakes though and made changes to the nets as well. The other improved models were quite good and I decided to change materials. Once I did all the experimentations with different types of pyramids I had all the nets ready for mass production.

Looking for a site

In order to push my experiments forward and develop them into a concept/ final model I was looking for a site. The primar idea was to find a very natural empty site outside London. However I did not know any sites like that and I couldn't find anything online that I could go and visit it. I decided to go to Hyde Park as it is natural and green. I planned to do some research and experiments with the park. I applied same processes as I did to my foam, polystyrene and sponge experiments. I hoped that this will develop some ideas how to join the park with my experiments. However, it was very unsuccessful, as I could not link my experiments to the park. It just did seem right. If I had a site from the beginning I would have based all my experiments development on it and the project would have different outcomes.

As I could not find a site I had to find another solution how to develop my ideas further. I came up with an idea of portable, temporary buildings. This allowed me not to chose any particular site but have as many sites as I want. This also allows me to experiment more and since my project was very experimental I believe it is a right decision. 

Since last entry, quite a lot of things happend. Firstly, I developed the digging idea. I have used little very simple models to explore the space created by digging.I have tried out various materials such as sponge and polystyrene. I believe that the whole process was quite successful. Just by sort of excavating tunnels in my models I created quite interesting and very natural and unique looking spaces. I really liked all the tiny spaces and I can see them as private apartments or public spaces such  as galleries or cafes. Material wise I believe polystyrene was the most interesting and successful material to work with. Due to little balls in the polystyrene the excavation process can't be controlled that much therefore it becomes more natural. Sponge worked quite well but I believe it is too soft for this particular process.
To put my spaces into context I drew little sketches showing people walking in them. However, I believe I should have photoshoped them into an actual spaces. Model people could have been handy as well. These action would give my models scale and context. It would be easier for other to understand what this is ment to be.

Snarkitecture and topographic landscapes

This mirror by Snarkitecture has a shape that looks like 3 dimensional topographic map. I thinks it is very inspirational. I believe I could use a topographic map of the area to get shapes for my designs. All the lines are based on actual natural landscape. This would be a not literal way to bring nature into architecture. As the building would be based on natural landscape shapes from the topographic map.

I got some examples of topographic maps:

Snarkitecture

The dig project

I have just found these works by Snarkitecture. These concepts relate to my project. It is a good piece of research as it about digging and carving into the materials. Sort of making little caves and spaces (relating back to ancient caves). Inhabiting the inside of the architecture foam. At the moment, I am looking at the same things. I was looking at the expanding foam and how could it be inhabited from the inside. All the processes I undertook (slicing, cutting) works towards the idea. The idea of how to open this little space inside this piece of foam (or something else) and how to turn it into a building, how to make it inhabitable. 

It might seem that all this work is running away from my proposal (Nature into architecture) but I guess it is just a different approach to the subject. All the shapes are very natural and all the ideas link back to the very natural lifestyle. I believe for the final outcome the materials used will be natural as well. 

Richard Chai shop design

The extra

expanding foam development

Trying to control the foam

I tired to control the foam whilst it's expanding. I try to use other objects to shape the foam. I chose rather strickt and geometrical shapes. Ideally I should have achieved a very clean form out of the expanding foam. It should have created the contract between clean lines of a shape and all the bubbles and holes in the foam. However, I was not successful in actually controlling the foam. It still went all over the edges and lost its strickt shape. I could cut it to make all the lines straight but I believe it would work better on bigger pieces of foam. If I had more foam I would have more freedom to form it without braking it.

Colouring the foam

I have played with colour on Photoshop first. I decided to do so as the natural glossy yellow colour of the foam it is not very nice. I makes the foam look either like the bread or really grose and sticky. All the experiments on Photoshop proved that coloured foam looks much more interesting and more applying. Therefore, I decided to pain the actual pieces.

However the actual colouring wasn't as successful as the one on Photoshop. Firstly, I should have used spray paint as I wasn't able to reach all the holes and gaps with the brush. All the results do look better in pictures. In pictures I am quite satisfied with the results because I can't see unpainted bits. The colours do look quite engaging in pictures as well. However in real life I am not so keen neither about the colours not about the final outcomes. I believe the result would have been better if I chose different colours and used spray paint.