theCASTLE: Week 13

Week 13 dawned bright and early and we all arrived at the workshop again with some of the group not knowing what was decided in the previous weeks class. Luckily it was not too hard to explain and we divided into supposedly even groups to work on both the test rig and a 1:5 model. Hannah, Gabby and I chose to work on the little model and we were initially led on a merry dance by Ian, who wouldn’t tell us the probable size of the timber we were going to use so we had to sit in the office and ring around suppliers and look at websites until we could come up with our own informed decision. Appearing in the light again we told Ian we had made a decision “70 x 35mm EcoAsh Ian” and we received handshakes, a laugh and were told “well, only took you 1 ½ hours!” -yeah thanks for your help Ian. Thanks a lot.






From there we set about cutting some pieces of wood exactly to scale to make the model, this of course took a lot of time and it was only after we finished that Robin showed us the special magnetic saw aid thing that helps you cut small pieces of wood. Thanks once again. Finally we had some scale timber and were going to set about getting drill bits and pins to make the construction method look realistic, but Andrew Maynard turned up and suggested that rather than waste time with that why not just hot glue the model together. For what seemed like the tenth time that morning we headed off on a different direction now gluing the frames into a stud type construction that we thought would easily be put together and manufactured at Student Works. When it came to cladding we got very excited because we found some white plastic sheet that we were allowed to cut up, modelling the extremely pliable plastic material Robin had been telling us about. Andrew pointed out that the plastic is really not good with heat, even direct sunshine and it pops and cracks and deforms as soon as it gets hot. The test rig itself at this time was being taken over by the male population of the class and turned into some kind of wishful thinking cubby house. Rafters and roof battens were put onto the roof and some very structural looking mezzanines were constructed and looked to hold several people climbing around on them. The overall look of the Castle now was becoming more of a Balinese home with huge extending eaves made from drapey hessian, which I think distracts from the pure aesthetic of the portal frames, that explain our ideas of customisation and manufacture very succinctly. But it did look like everyone was enjoying themselves and Andrew was flitting about with a pen in his hand drawing on whatever surface was available to describe his thoughts on what we should do for this or how we could try that.

At afternoon end everyone looked exhausted and it looked as thought the whole semester was threatening to finish through everyone getting tired and going home, but we pulled it together and did hear what Andrew and the other tutors thought. The main thing that was stressed was ‘don’t worry, you have achieved a lot’, which is what I pretty much wanted to hear. The journey of going through the group work and design process was tedious, repetitious at times, frustrating and incomprehensible, but we wanted to know that what we had done was meaningful and was going to help the disadvantaged youth of Launceston in some form, and provide an exploration of small housing. We had quite a few suggestions on the running of the unit, but we also identified that our unwilling-ness to put forward definite suggestions at times made everything go a lot slower. Andrew suggested that an in-between had to be reached in group work, where it wasn’t bogged down by diplomacy, but wasn’t run by dictators that say ‘it’s my way or the highway’ either. It has been almost epic in effort, but I think that we have put forward a really interesting model, and if we could get a CAD monkey to model up some combinations of Castles and create a web page or something to show how you could choose a Castle in the future, through the personalisation and customisation through manufacturing, we have definitely proposed a winning idea. It’s won in my books anyway!