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

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Ashley Whitham

Cardboard Box

Cardboard can commonly be thought of as a simple material. a material that is often looked over or discarded. this is immediately realized when in order to find a sufficient amount of cardboard for your box the best place to look is in a garbage dumpster. although cardboard is thrown away it remains a usable, stable material. Its uses are unmatched, and it is important in everyday life. cardboard is a material that can be thrown away and still have the same qualities as it did new.

After finding this appreciation for cardboard the new challenge is now to take its qualities and possible qualities together and create a one foot cube box. You must create a series of boxes each one building on the other. To start off with, to capture the mind set of my box you must first think of the edges, the corners of the box. How they meat, whether they touch, can they change. Change brings out an interesting concept. cardboard changes uses constantly the same box can be stored, sent, wrapped up, broken down, trashed, taken from the trash and used again, the cycle could theoretically be endless. this somewhat amazing quality of cardboard immediately becomes a challenge. How can these qualities physically be present and apparent in a single box? Furthermore, ho
w can something be flexible enough to amorphisize, change shape, change function, be the same box and still remain solid. How can the same pieces take-on another shape with out changing theirs? This could possibly combine with the idea that the edges remain undefined so that they physically show that the box is not strict, but open to change.

In order to attempt to achieve this overall flexibility a system is necessary. In search for a system, further qualities of the cardboard must be explored. One obvious quality of cardboard is the corrugation. does the corrugation need to run a certain direction in order to provide strength? Placing the corrugation vertically is eventually the best choice. You must also explore how things fit together, how sliding in and out of each other can join them. And by this transition reach the goal of never having a definite edge. sliding becomes an overall strength in the desired flexibility. Using a T and a U shaped piece slid together for example could create solid walls that move. Something stable with many functions. The flexibility is captured in a system of these shapes. A simple system, like the material, so that the outside appears to be flat, horizontal rectangles stacked in a vertical way. While on the contrary, the inside walls consist of two vertical rectangles with the same dimensions. These walls don’t reveal the T and U shape, which gives the box an illusive quality that also comes out in its ability to move.

The new challenge is now to refine the movement with out restricting the transformation of the box. The options of transformation appear limitless at this point. the pieces allow the box to successfully change shape, interior and the concentration of the corners. This mobility seems to capture the original essence of a transitional box that may have an endless cycle. Also the pieces can be taken apart and flattened like a normal cardboard box, so transportation becomes an asset. Although these are desired qualities they also provide the downfall of the box. The frustration becomes about having to restrict something in order to stabilize the box, which at this moment is without a top or bottom, it appears as an open four-sided box. However, a horizontal piece seems to be a necessity. Possibly a right edge laced at opposing corners or a system of tracts. Over all the box is a continuing challenge, like the life of an ordinary cardboard box.

To whirl, to move, revolve, turn around, spin rapidly, a state of dizziness. The beginning of my whirligig stemmed from this definition. It became imperitive to create something that appeared confusing, or created a state of dizziness. Also the simple but very complex idea of a windmill or a childs pinwheel added to the design. Another ideal of my whirligig was the ideal of something forming or breaking with the touch of the wind. Taking from these ideas my whirligig became something that could appear as a whole but not act together. The study of angles that cought the wind was essentially the most crucial step in the design process. Ultimately the desire that every other arm of the whirligig would rotate in opposite directions and at different rates is the main character of the design. This mystifying character was built with certainty however the end result was continually a risk through out the process.

To begin with the materials of my whirligig were carefully chosen to enhance its goal of confusion. As the designer and builder of this project I looked for materials that I had experience with and also that I could experiment with. Included in the materials was the use of frosted plexiglass for the diamond wind catchers. The transluscentness of this material adds to the concept by being solid enough to be an obvious material but when it spins in the wind, in the outdoor sunlight it optimistically would appear light enough to not be distinguished as seperate diamonds but rather as a single blurr of an object. The fins on these diamonds which are located on the backside of them, are a clear plexiglass. I chose for these fins to remain clear because they are the main structure of the individual wind catchers. This is because they connect the diamond to the brass holding it together, and they also are placed to cut the wind keeping it from catching the opposite arms at the same time, which would result in no movement. Also the stability of these plexiglass pieces worked for the transitional ability of keeping an exact form while not being to heavy. It is also flexible enought to have a slight contraction with the wind. The other material used was brass, it was chosen because of the dimensions that it is available in. Also as the producer, I found that brass was easily saudered.

The certainty of each of these materials was simply found through studying them, and learning the materials. The risk of each of the materials was reduced by developing jigs throughout the building process. For example the most usefull jig built was created to hold the brass at exact right angles when the pieces were saudered together, the jig also freed the producers hands for saudering purposes. For the wind catchers or fins a connection that did not involve glue was designed (See top image at right).

This simple elimination of glue reduced the risk of workmanship. By creating the slits first in the brass, this allowed me to know the exact location of each of the diamonds, and to measure this out ahead of time. Glueing something directly to the brass is much more inprecise because it could slip around and the markings could rub off or tarnish the final by being permenant. By connecting the two plexiglass pieces by the notch design secured right angles for each of the fins. Varying angles would have lead to different wind resistance. Another elimation of risk was taken in the step of not making the individual arms have a definate angle until after the final assemblage. This was crucial because the fins pass in and out of eachother so close that the exact angles of each piece could only be known after they were on the model.

After eliminating many of the risks in the design process the idea of risk carried out the quality of the whirligig. The question of knowing whether or not it would actually work was never final. The variable of the wind combined with the uncertainty of the direction of the fins and the rate of each member was constantly a risk in the design. With the fins passing in and out of eachother, with the wind, many factors and unknown factors come in to play. For example the wind turbulance created between the fins, or the rotation of the central axis, each could cause the individual members to act differently. Also the unpredictable rate of speed is due to risk. This confusion and spontanaity however, is the character of my whirligig.

Because many of these obstacles remain unanswered, it could be seen as bad workmanship, the fact that there is no definate answers leads to downfalls. The final although it captured a state of confusion, did not capture the desired rotations. It does rotate at different rates, however the clockwise and counterclockwise movement is completely random. Overall the increase and decrease of certainty and risk was up and down in the design process. As the process continued the risk of the actuall desired movement increased with each element added, while the certainty increased with certain elements eliminated, and vice versa. In this process however I feel the desired confusion was reached, by being built with certainty but being entirely based around risk.