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

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Nathan Freise

While making my boxes, I ran into many construction problems. In my earlier designs I played with the idea of tectonics, yet I had no specific laws to guide their production. Thus, my boxes seemed to be not fully articulated. These problems were solved, however, by laying down simple rules that controlled the design.

My final design idea integrates the idea of tectonics with the idea of line and form. The main rule guiding my design was that the line must be the focal point of the box and that it must cut through every side of the box. Tectonically, it was challenging to cut a line on every face of the box and still maintain structural integrity. Keeping the line away from the edges of the box helped to keep the box stable. In order to create a line that smoothly travels around a boxes sides, it is easiest to start with one large piece of cardboard with six equal sized squares rather than 6 separate pieces (Figure 1). This method of production allows the line’s path to be easily mapped and cut out, as opposed to joining six individual sides that aren’t necessarily equal in dimension. When folding the cardboard into the box shape, be careful to have the edges meet flush in order to not create distracting shadows. To draw more attention to the line, I neglected cutting parts of the line and used cardboard pieces of the

Overall, I was very amazed and almost relieved to see how a smarter, simpler method of production made the construction of my box easier, and the final character of the product smoother more ideal.

In the first stage of making my whirligig, I began drawing out random moving parts that had only one design specification: lightness. Since I knew that no one else would have to read these drawings, I left them very simple and not very specific as far as the construction process goes.

As Pye states, "no designer can make a bad workmen produce good workmanship." This is because the communication between the designer and the workman is limited; therefore the workman interprets the designer’s plans in his own way, which may not be the way the designer intends. However, when the designer is also the workman, the communication barrier no longer exists. The workman is free to modify anything in the design that he feels needs changing during the construction. In my project for example, I originally planned on crimping the brass propeller blades to the music wire. However, when I actually went to make it, I found it near impossible to crimp the brass tight enough to the wire where it would stay place; but since I had the advantage of being both the workman and the designer, I was free to modify the design to make the construction easier and stronger. Thus, I soldered the brass to the wire instead of crimping it. Since I embody both the designer and workman I was able to alter the design witho

Pye also discusses the differences between the ‘workmanship of risk’ and the ‘workmanship of certainty’. In my project, the moving wings of my butterflies required four 90-degree angle bends in one strand of music wire. Bending the wire became a difficult task since it was already attached to a tube of aluminum. This is where I discovered Pye’s idea of ‘the workmanship of risk’. Each bend in the wire had to be perfect or I would have to start over, and therefore it became a risk. In this ‘uncertain’ process of risk I scrapped about 5 butterfly designs that seemed feasible in the design stage but were improbable when I actually went to bend the wire as mentioned above. Through this rigorous process of redesigning and reworking I finally came to a design that allowed me to bend the wire consistently, thus stumbling upon ‘workmanship of certainty’. Once I discovered this ‘certain’ method of workmanship, I was able to create my second butterfly quickly and without any setbacks.

Overall, I learned that many of Pye’s theories of workmanship helped me arrive at the light character I was hoping to achieve. Being both the designer and the workman allowed me to change the design at anytime during the construction process without effecting the final character. And moving through the stages of ‘workmanship of risk’ to ‘workmanship of certainty’ helped me work out the bugs in my design that hindered the final construction.