Material Modelling

WORKSHOP ONE:
MATERIAL MODELING
with MIMI TONG & KRIS BIRD

For rotation one of this workshop, the major assessment piece was to construct a scaled model of a familiar existing space and then transforming it radically using one or more different methods.

I decided to pick my living room. My living room is in the north face of the house (pictured below)

As you can see, the living room has two small long rectangular shaped windows that barely lets any sunlight through. The problem with this is that in winter, the living room get extremely cold because of the lack of heat and light that is allowed to come through.

In an attempt to solve this issue, I built a 1:50 model out of grey box board to better understand and to be able the analyse the space of the object more definitively.

Front View

Back view

Top View

Side View

After constructing the model, I began to play around with it and see what transformations could be posible. I started off be selectively removing walls and part of walls, but then to be able to capture maximimum sunlight into the space, I decided to remove the front and front-side walls of the space completely.

I then chose a method shown by a presentation given by the tutors, Mimi and Kris, to use linear wrapping as my dominant method of transformation. I experimented with a few types of different materials to use, such as different thicknesses of cardboard and foam board and have finally decided on balsa.

I took the technique and started to experiment with my model. (Pictured below)

I had thought that the use of plain and typical linear wrapping to be a bit boring, so I decided to keep the linear format as the roof, but more randomly and spatially placed balsa as the wall frames. In between the balsa posts will then be placed with clear acetate to represent the use of glass in real life. However, for the purpose of this model in emphasising the light transperancy theme, the acetate will be representative only and not placed inside the model.

The final product is as shown below

New Front View

New Side View

New Top View

To make things into more realistic perspective, below shows how the new transformation would impact on the house.

To better present and to communicate our model, we also had to creat a photo montage. I kept my theme of light and linear wrapping as the main design and layout for my montage.

Material Modelling was very interesting to me in the sense that I did not realise how striking and effective a 3D model can be, as compared to an image, in terms of communicating a space. I realised that a model really gives the viewer a sense of spatiality and more of an understanding of that space. The creation of a model also helped and aided my design process as it allowed me to be more creative. It was definitely easier for me to have made my final creation as a model compared to actually drawing it. I have found this workshop very useful, and I do believe that it has changed my way of understanding the importance of models in the world of architecture.