STUDIO ARC300: THIRD YEAR DESIGN
University of Kansas, School of Architecture and Urban Design
Nils Gore, Assistant Professor

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Melissa Brown

Setting the Rules/ Thinking “Out of the Box”

In my first attempts at making cardboard in to three various, interesting cubes, it became apparent that I naturally set a few guidelines or rules for myself to determine what the end result would look like. The rules changed along the way as I modified the design I chose to develop further. I started with 18 6x12 pieces folded across the middle, resulting in two 6x6 squares attached at one side.

The first cube made by these pieces had 4 squares on each face, each overlapping the one next to it so that four planes were created per face. This factor became my first rule, the idea of four planes. The main problem with the first attempt was how to join the different sides of the cube, for one piece always interacted with another plane besides its own. The spaces in between the sides of the cube were very inconsistent.

My second box was a little more systematic in its construction, but I still had not finalized the design process to make it so that all gaps were minimal.

My third box had more rules than the previous ones. Each side had not only four planes, but each piece interacted with another side in the exact same way as every corresponding piece did. To explain this more simply, piece number 1 on each of the six faces was turned the same way. The design was a lot more precise as more rules were developped, yet I am not yet satisfied.

If I were to do yet another box, I would design it so that there would be a distinction between each of the four planes created by the pieces on each side.

Whirligigs: What Is the Big Picture?
When I told people that I was making a whirligig, the main response was, "Isn't that just like a pinwheel?" It turns out that the seemingly simple addition of a few gears and extra parts can transform a pin wheel concept into a complex system. In this system, room is created for skill, design, and craft as well as mistakes and uncertainty. Pye labels the two concepts as workmanship of certainty and workmanship of risk to explain the quality of the result of a project. In my case, workmanship is easily discussed.

It was easy to conjure up an image in my mind of what my whirligig, Lucy, was going to look like. Even after I struggled to design a system to make the darn thing wave at us, the process of making the final product was an entirely different experience. In this project, I was both the designer AND the workman. The risk involved here is that some elements became lost in the transition between concept and end product: I was limited by my knowledge of how exactly the materials I used would work. Certain compromises in my construction process had to be made, which leads me to say that I have a great deal more "risk" involved than "certainty" as far as my workmanship goes. In a way this couldn't have been helped. The concept for my whirligig was to take random pieces of hardware and make a moving sculpture, so part of the "risk" was the mystery of inventing systems that suited my desired ideas. I really had no idea if the skirt would be strong enough to turn the gears or if the whole piece would be too top

Problems were solved in the project, and lessons were learned. Instead of just eyeing the placement of the spokes on the gears, I made a jig out of pegboard and measured out the angles to make it exactly even. Without perfect evenness, the gears don't rotate correctly or all of the time. Also, I was successful in precise placement of the parts. There needed to be certainty in this area to achieve smooth movement of the parts and so that the "ah-ha" would occure. Pye discusses an "immensely various range of qualities" created by the workmanship of risk. In application to my porject, this theory is expressed. I made the large gears precisely, but who would have known that the night before the project was due, my Lucy would fall over on me; I had to remake the gears. This time the gears were not as sturdy and did not work as well. Aside from all of the troubles and trauma, the general idea was expressed; all of the parts that I chose to use serve their purpose, and the gears somehow work.