Design Brief:
This project consisted of thinking of public spaces and how the public interact with the space.
I could design a new public space or redesign a space that already exists to make it better.
The space I would create could either be ‘Active’; getting people moving.
Or ‘Calm’; getting people to stop and reflect.
Connectivity was another thing I was to think about wether it be social, community or digital. Would my design change the way that people interact with each other.
Initial Thought:
From the brief I started to chose my options of what I wanted my space to be.
I chose to redesign an already established public space because then I would already know how people interact with the space and I would know how to make it better.
I wanted my space to be ‘Calm’ because it would be a new challenge for me as a lot of previous projects have been fun and lively. I wanted to test myself to see if I could think differently.
I didn’t know what type of connectivity it would be until I figured out where it would go and what it would be.
Where would it go?
Since moving to Dundee the place I am most familiar with is the Union, this made my decision of where to put it easier.
The Union is also at the centre of campus so there is always people around the area.
The main people at the Union is students so I wanted my space to be somewhere they can go when they come across a problem and don’t know how to solve it.
Within the space I wanted something they could look at or interact with that could help them solve their problems.
Initial Idea:
The idea of having a problem and confused thoughts made me think of things rotating, I wanted to incorporate that idea into my piece.
Thought about separate parts rotating on different axis’s to remind the students that there is more than one way to look at things.
They may just have to look at the problem from a different angle.
The standard shape would be circles as they can rotate within each other.
I wanted as many circles as I could get as it would symbolise the more options the student have.
Making this was difficult as I had to make sure all the circles were in proportion to each other with the same thickness and gap between.
Tried different shapes; triangles and squiggly circle.
Triangles
straight away I knew that it would be better if all sides were the same size.
There would be less rotating parts due to the edges.
The model shows that this shape doesn’t work because the inside ones hit the wont bigger than it. For this to work the sizes of the triangles would have to change drastically.
Squiggly circle
This idea was to better represent the student confused thoughts.
The parts would intwine and move around each other.
The problem with this design was I couldn’t think of a way to make them move.
I chose to keep the overall shape as a circle as it gets the movement of all the parts correctly.
Development:
Now since I had the shape sorted I moved onto think about the size of the piece.
Smaller one = small size reasonable size to move by hand, will need a stand
Large one = as tall as a person, makes it a large art piece, will need help rotating
Small one on a post = could then be placed inside
Small ones hanging from trees = make it a decoration, lightweight
All of the above sizes would allow for the piece to have multiple on one place, it would look like a farm.
The ideas I liked the best were the large one and the small ones on the post or tree.
The large one will have a bold impact whereas the small ones will have a more delicate feel.
This then made me think about the materials that could be used for either.
The large one with need a strong material so likely metal
Whereas the smaller ones could just be made from wire which is lightweight.
Decided to go with the large one as it will have a bigger impact.
I wouldn’t have multiple large ones because they would take away the majority of the grass area and I don’t want to do that.
Due to such a large size I decided to look at adding a base/stand to add more stability.
Tried with one stand but due to the weight it would have to have a large width, the model shows that its not very appealing to look at and if somebody was to look at it from the side they wouldn’t know what it was.
Decided to try with two stands the same shape as the one stand.
Forget that it would sit at an angle not flat.
Couldn’t make the stands as one piece had to make it in parts, this was hard as I didn’t know the correct angle to cut it at.
Having two stands is better as the weight is shared between the two sides.
Final Piece:
For my final piece I tried to make sure all the measurements were correctly to scale.
This caused problems because I kept getting confused with the units; they were being scaled down in mm but the model was being made as that number in cm (12mm(scale) 12cm(model))
Thinking about the size and weight I thought it would be hard to move the separate circles so I decided to add a wheel on the side to get the circles started moving.
From my rough model I found out that the tooth picks would go through the cardboard at an angle because of the waves in the layers of cardboard.
I tried cutting parts of the layers to creat a wider space, this would allow me to place the toothpicks in straight.
Due to the wider space the the toothpicks had more space to move and come loose so I covered them in masking tape to make them thicker.
I also had to extend the toothpick on the outer circle on one side so the wheel could be attached.
I chose to make my piece large in size, when it was just sitting on the ground it would have been an equal height to an average sized person but with the added stand it is now going to be taller.
To make it seem more decorative i thought about adding LED’s or laser lights on the inside of the circles.
This would create different patterns of colour when the circles are spun.
Evaluation:
I am happy with how my space has come out.
I am pleased that I was able to get it moving.
If I was going to do this task again I wouldn’t worry as much about the scale and getting all my measurements correct.
I would also like to develop this idea more and see what else I could do with it.