Carter Nelson: Assignment 04

Candace and I CNC-milled two models of our project 1b furniture solution. The first is a prototype of the joint, sliding system, and the second is a scale model that represents the aesthetic and functional attributes of the full model. We created a bunk that offers privacy, storage, and a control over interaction and that interacts with the user.

Assignment 4: Chandler Archbell & Brian Bollens

For our furniture piece, we designed a bunk system that was suspended from the northeast side of our bath house.  Due to this exposure, our bunkers woke up to a wonderful view of saco lake and Crawford Notch.  However, in the case that they did not want the sun to wake them up, or they just hated seeing nature from their own bed, we designed a shutter to close off the window.  In our connection detail, we focused on how the door meets the rest of the bed enclosure.  First of all, we designed to door to be flush with the wall when it was opened and closed, making the whole enclosure appear seamless to its inhabitant.  We also cut out a curve in the ceiling of the bunk that accentuated the door's movement.

We only mocked up the top corner of the bunk systems.  We used reclaimed particle board desktops because plywood is so overrated.  This is the door in its closed position.

Good morning Brian!

The door seamlessly meets the wall, while its movement is articulated by a simple curve.

After we made our first mock up, we realized that the door did not remain flush with the inner walls once it was moved to its closed position.  Because our seamless idea was only true half the time, we needed to further develop our joint.

I see the seam!

This was our new design.  It involved cutting a slight arch out of the side walls.  Our door got a 45º cut so that there was only one, seamless point of contact.

We did our research.  The ideal hinge was a Rockwell SOSS invisible hinge.  It becomes embedded into the wood, and it is perfectly flush with the wall when closed.

Assignment 4 | Mark and Kirk

In our initial considerations for our furniture we focused on how it could act as a dynamic piece that connected spaces together. At first we thought the furniture might wind its way throughout all the programmatic elements in our baths and become a kind of vine off of which useful programmatic elements grow.

In the end we boiled down this connection and unity into having one function - we ended up choosing sleeping - that the furniture could unify, and went off from there. At first we focused on how the units would relate to each other in terms of privacy and screening. This led to an exploration of openings based on views, privacy, and air flow.

For our final prototype we mocked up a corner joint connection where the various planes of the sleeping unit come together.

In the fabrication of our module we tried to think of what the CNC router can and can't do. This is why in our connector pieces there is a kind of tabbing - it's the only way to get a ninety-degree fit while accounting for the rounded cut. We had two kinds of connector pieces: a ninety-degree joint, and a 45-degree joint.

We CNCed out of MDF because, frankly, it was cheaper than buying plywood. If we were to actually build our building and hence all of the bed units along with it, we would use a nice, light birch plywood. The one problem we ran into was that the connector pieces were not completely friction fit, so that in order to show the piece as "assembled" we had to put pieces of double-sided tape on each side of the connector. This speaks to the fact that if we were to fully build our unit it would have to have a very high level of craft to friction fit, and that it might be much more robust if the connection joints were also attached to the panels using hardware.

Assignment | Candace Ju & Carter Nelson

For our furniture component to the bath house project, we decided to create an insert that would serve as a privacy screen/capsule for the sleeping alcoves in the lodge space. We wanted to use the warmth of the wood to bring some comfort to the otherwise cold hard CMU block construction. Our initial prototype looked like this, and we used it to explore different shading and sun conditions in the sleeping space.

For our final review we wanted to show both the form that we had developed and also the sliding screen mechanism that would enhance the hikers ability to control the level of privacy within the lodge. We made a 1/4" = 1'-0" model of the form for the model, and as well as a full scale (in thickness) model of the joint. The quarter scale model used birch plywood, as we saw the actual piece being made of finished plywood. The full scale mock up of the joint was created in order to show the connection detail and the dynamic nature of  the insert.

Finally, here is a video of the joint doing its thang, sliding back and forth and such on a nifty rather aluminum channel.

My apologies for the delay in the post- Thanks for your time!

Assignment 4: Garrett Rauck and Matt Porter

Our design for studio project 1b hinges on the utilization of the mudroom as a central, communal space for socialization between the hikers and bathers, catalyzing conversation and encouraging ethnographic discovery. At the center of the space sits a fire to provide warmth and attract conversation. Due to these conditions and the importance of the mudroom/fire, we chose to study our chimney as our furniture piece. Another concept we were exploring in the bath house project is the effect of parallax as it relates to circulation. This idea came through in the way we detailed our furniture.


Theoretically constructed of heavy timber, the chimney vertically penetrates the aluminum roofing to establish it's presence within the subterranean mudroom as well as along the trail above. Slats of timber are cut into trapezoidal shapes and then bowed to ultimately form a hollow truncated cone for steam ventilation (for our detail, we used MDF and CNC-ed the bow rather than physically bending it). As shown below, steel 'fins' are attach to either side of each slat, allowing each module to be attached using nut and bolt connection. The gap between modules originates from the decision that this chimney would be suspended above the fire by tension cables running to the circular concrete wall around the mudroom. The lines suggested by the tension cables, which radiate out from the chimney/fire, created a set of geometry for us along which we could articulate reveals on the chimney, across the aluminum roofing and down into the interior spaces as well. This articulation of detail beginsthe experience of parallax that we are trying to achieve, creating rhythm as you circulate around the chimney, through the mudroom, as well as around the mudroom. 

Assignment 4: Kris Li and Ana Mernik

We wanted to make a furniture piece that would explore something other than ergonomics. The bathhouse project has a lot of experiential qualities to it: the way that the colors and textures of the CMU block, wood, and concrete slabs connect physically but have different emotional responses in people; the reflective qualities of water and the lake; and the general way people approach this man-made thing after having been in the wilderness for days.

As a response, we made a lighting fixture. We placed it between the kitchen area and the living spaces, above the table. The shapes were to mirror the plan of our building - overlapping rectangles distinguishing between functions of the space. This wooden piece of furniture would do the same. The face looking towards the kitchen are would have stronger light while the sleeping quarters would receive low, diffused light. We would do this by manipulating the sides of the lighting fixture so the side towards the kitchen is wider and more open by manipulating the cloth covering so that the side towards the bedrooms is double-layered.

In addition, we were careful in constructing the joint between these sheets of wood. We again wanted the furniture to mirror the whole building, so we wanted some simplicity in the way the shapes overlap and connect. In our bathhouse, we have a wooden plinth, wooden walls, and a wooden canopy, but the facades are all held up by a concrete (plinth) or steel (walls and canopy) structure. We wanted to reflect this in the furniture so we hid the structure behind the cloth material.

We made prototypes for both the shape and construction of the fixture, to experiment with different sheet material, stability when increasing the size, and number and kid of rods needed. We found that some cloth material (as opposed to paper or plastic) would work best because of its flexibility and range in thread density. We also found that it was difficult to match rod sizes to drills available. We also explored bolting the fixture to the ceiling or suspending it.

Stay tuned for Wednesday's final review to see the final product!:)

Assignment 4: Liz Dolinar and Kayla Quinn

Our joint began as a part of the roof structure for the inner lodge portion of our bathhouse. The main focus of our lodge is on looking up at the stars through the perforated roof while laying on the bunks. Although the joint is no longer found in our project, the intent of the roof is still to draw your eyes upward. We began with a grid of overlapping pieces that would create an interesting geometry of hexagons. This stacking and repeating of the pattern of 3 different pieces (of various curvature) allowed for the depth of the roof structure. The individual wood strips fit together by a system of notching and are then connected together by screws (which cannot be seen from below the roof).

 

Module laid out in Rhino; CNC cut sheet (2-sided) with pocketed notches and "tabs"

Geometry/roof diagrams

Our design process began first with the geometry and figuring out the 3 piece "module" that would allow the pattern to continue along the entire roof. We had originally intended the material to be wood with some sort of glass screen to protect the occupants of the room and complete the enclosure (the roof has since changed to poured concrete with glass inset into the openings). Our CNC process began with preparing our Rhino model, which was fairly painless. The challenge came when an unidentified mistake was made and the router took 4 passes and still didn't cut all the way through. A lesson was definitely learned: always leave extra room to account for inaccuracies in RhinoCAM time estimates. The CNCed notches came out well, except for a few rounded corners (we used the smallest bit to minimize this problem). The process of assembling the modules was somewhat confusing (we completely forgot to add labels to the pieces while CNCing), but all of the pieces fit together. It was assembled backwards so that none of the screws are visible, in order to create a more seamless look that focuses on sky and stars, not screws. The intention of our joint was to help support one of our major design concepts, rather than draw attention to the joint itself.

 

Final stacked and screwed assembly

Assignment 4 - Madhura & Charmaine

Initial Rhino render

For our furniture piece, we decided to make a unit of sheet material that would then be multiplied in various iterations to form a bigger structure. This structure would eventually become a cladding on the walls of the living space, and the protruding parts of the unit would become the structure that holds the mattresses. 

For this project, we explored how every unit could be connected to its adjoining unit.

We made a physical model to better understand the strength of this individual pieces at their weakest points i.e. where the form curves and has the most force put ton it, because of the mattresses and the people. We changed some of our geometry based on our observations from laser cutting the pieces in 1/16" basswood. [some of them broke at the curves because they were very thin at these points)

Aluminium bars go through the L-brackets, that make the angle stronger, to sustain the weight of the mattress and the person sleeping on it.

Once we had our Rhino file, we made three router paths. The first one was the 2-axis horizontal roughing to cut out the area that needed to be shaped as a curved surface. To get this curved surface, we made a 3-axis parallel finishing path. In the end, we made a profiling path to cut outside all the lines to get the desired pieces.