New Semester/ New Website!

I'm pleased to announce that we are gearing up for the Spring 2009 semester UdB worshop. The project will be to design and construct a nomadic (traveling + temporary) canopy shared between two clients that address the parameters of two(+) sites.

check back with us at the beginning of the semester! And Be sure to Check out the BAC Studio Lottery on Thursday, January 15th in Casseri Hall.

Peace Park Opening!

Folks,

I've just uploaded some photos from yesterday's party (left side of the page - click on the celebration album or click here)! Thanks to everyone who came out, and to the students, neighbors, and volunteers who helped make it all happen!

tuesday night mockup

getting ready for the big show on Saturday!

Fredrick Douglass Peace Park Opening Celebration!

Folks,
Here's the schedule for this weekend's events! Please see the toolbar to the left for a downloadable map/directions. Can't wait to see you all on those benches!

2:00 PM - beginning festivities

2:00 PM Tuffus Zimbabwe Funk

4:00 PM Speeches

5:00 PM More Live Music

7:30 PM film: Fredrick Douglass

8:30 PM film: Coming to America


BBQ begins AT 2PM, and is a $5 plate donation to the project and to the park

Update!

Y'all,
We had a great weekend capped off by a BBQ contest (three way tie!) Charles, Jason and Lisa began polishing the bench tops and we have 90% of the form-work removed. Next week we'll pour the cement slab for the stage, fit the canopies for the posts, and do some work on the box crates. For now, check out the photo album (starting here) for some delicious food and a pretty solid outing with the benches in use!

How To: form-work removal

Folks,
Lisa has put together a great guide for removing the 'void' form-works embedded in the benches. This should be reviewed by everyone before this weekend, and will serve as a guide to the process for anyone who wants to get some extra work done this week! Thanks Lisa!

Please see the guide located on the sidebar under student materials

Concrete Photos (by lisa!)

Everyone - thanks for a great day on friday! I've posted (half) of Lisa's photos into the blog's album for all to marvel!
they start here in the album

BOX thoughts

Team- please brainstorm for 10 minutes today as to what we can do with the boxes, and what materials, brushes, or applications you'd like to try Sunday for removing the pain etc.

keep in mind that one possible end solution will be to red paint directly the milk crate - which we tested at the end of the day last Sunday - and we'll take a look at this weekend.

please post your thoughts as a comment below

06.22.08 workflow

sunday 11-6: KS + AP + BG + JC + LG + ...

BOXES
01 stripping with two options:
01.1 acetone nail polish remover
02.2 brillo pads or eq.

02 remove plastic crates from wood sheathing
03 paint interior with final coat with roller

FORMWORK
04 finish coring and inserting security cable sleeves

CANOPIES
05 verify on-site measurement
06 verify sleeve locations

STENCIL (thursday)
07 laser-cut remaining frisket panels


i'm out of town this weekend, disperse my chicken stipend amongst yourselves

South End Garden Tour

http://southendgardentour.org/index.html

SELROSLT is sponsering this garden tour -June 21st. $16 in advance, $20 the day of. I am going to see if we can get in on this - maybe have people tour the site and we might be able to make a presentation/ask for donations.

Is anyone interested in doing this?

Thursday/Weekend Workflow

wed.28
1.01 Lisa will be fabricating stencils for the memory concrete at the BAC
1.02 6:30pm Wes to visit site and confirm post location/collar sizes

thurs.29 - 6:30pm [becca, charles, janine, andrew confirmed]
2.01 Sew/Grommet Canopies. Reinforce corners and Bias tape
2.02 Complete one + canopy and take away to be brought to site

sat.31 - 11am - 6pm [kyle, charles confirmed]
3.01 Kyle to pick up ply strips and blocking from BAC/materials prior to site
3.02 Site Work:attach sandwiches to BenchC, install runners/plumb
BenchA, install pipe security line for Bench B. Confirm boxcrate completion.

sun.01 - 12am -6pm [kyle, charles confirmed]
4.01 Kyle to pick up all remaining materials at the BAC before 5pm
4.02 Site Work: Install pipe line in Bench B and C, Level bench C, Attach
cleats throughout. Calculate additional plywood required.

action items:
5.01 Wes - post detail drawings and coordination with John by friday morning
5.02 Andrew/Lisa to develop formwork drawings for stage slab
5.03 All- bring volunteers!

to purchase:
liquid nail for forms
rent pasload nailer for Sunday

please confirm your availability for the weekend/other thoughts by commenting below!

by the way..

..we're still on for tomorrow! the plan remains 10a-5p

71 degrees and sunny, 85% chance of deep-fried goodness

graphic standards..

..who'd've thought?!?
(btw, that's from an office copy that older than me and kyle...)

an added treat, pics from last week, our 'last week'
home early on a thursday!

cg

Design Proposal Uploaded!

All-
A newly added pdf of our complete design proposal can be found on the PUBLIC sidebar. It contains renderings of the design as well as assembly diagrams and the memory concrete proposal.
cheers,
K

EDCO Grant Awarded

I'd like to share with the team and all of our BAC volunteers that the BAC designBUILD program has been awarded this year's EDCO grant for Spring 2009's building materials and course development!

box knock-out

is anyone available over the next two days (tues/wed) to spend some quality time with the yet-to-be-sanded-and/or-mudded white boxes in the studio. after taking a few to the site on thursday, the team noticed that they could use a little more love before starting with the red coats.

i'm available to pitch in the evenings (7:30-on)

i think we're getting to the end of what we can do in the studio (janine - maybe an update on the sails?) so it's bye-bye basement, hello awkward tan lines!

formwork session 01

images from today's site work are here

general concerns include:
1 overall size
2 rebar tolerance
3 base leveling
4 silhouette elegance

among others.

if you haven't yet, please make an effort to see before thursday's class

ideas for ways to break down the scale of the top concrete surface:
eisenman's memorial in berlin
lewis tsurumaki lewis' ini ani cafe in nyc

true, maybe not the most comfortable thing to sit on for hours, but if you've got a choice between concrete and lush grass on a nice day...

it's a bird, it's a plane..

it's the formwork to bench B!!

furthermore, it's not too late to call your mother today, to tell her all the great work you did!

pics later tonite

cg

05.11.08 sunday work

i'll meet y'all at the studio at noon to help andrew and becca load up sandwiches and eqpt to take to the site.

our plan is to cut formwork walls from the 3/4" stock on site and affix ply-sandwiches, caulking joints. also, we'll test mockup for the buttress, esp. how to secure to the ground

12p--4:30p, based on building hours. would someone volunteer to store equipment (two bags, power tools) for the night to extend our work hours?

lunch is provided

Plywood

We need 15 sheets of 3/4" plywood for the formwork, this is not including any 1/2" plywood for the sandwiches.

For the sandwiches: we need 23 standard sandwiches, so that's 46 slices of bread, each of which is 9" x 21 1/2"

We also need sandwiches for the double-boxes (6):
12 slices of bread @ 20 1/2" x 21 1/2"
new foam wings (6 ea.): a = 20 1/2" x 15 3/4"
b = 19 1/2" x 15 3/4"
c = 18 1/2" x 15 3/4"

And a sandwich for the sail-storage bin (1):
2 slices of bread @ 37 1/2" x 21 1/2"
new foam wing (1): a = 21 1/2" x 15 3/4"
b = 35 1/2" x 15 3/4"
c = 19 1/2" x 15 3/4"

wk17 sat/sun schedule, 05/10-11

sat 05.10
9a-1p, bac studio/woodshop
andrew + becca + janine + cg

00 piece 'd', inner support wood stud, was cut in class thursday. 38(?) total
01 andrew will pick up foam wings from ian's yard and bring to bac
02 ply bread to be cut from 2'x4' 1/2" handy panels
.01 becca, please verify dimensions and quantity for this piece ('e'?). incorporate into formwork dwgs
.02 becca, also, please ver. number of panels req'd. i believe we have 10 sheets at the studio
03 sandwich formwork boxes to be assembled. andrew/becca please confirm quantity and/or any exceptional sizes to be made
04 lisa, can you confirm what needs to be done to finish prepping the boxes to take to site? janine can complete these on saturday
.01 what was the latest on the dremel finish? do we need to purchase a new sanding bit?
.02 cg to pick up more cans of ready patch, tarps


sun 05.11
12p-5p, on-site
andrew + becca + wes + cg + ...

00 bring mat'ls on site:
.01 two bags of tools/eqpt from studio, esp. circ saw, jig saw, paint gun, screw guns
.02 primer & paint
.03 drawing set
.04 primed crate-boxes
.05 sandwiches
01 crates to be primed with plastic primer, first coat of red paint
02 sidewalls of formwork to be cut from 3/4" stock on site per becca's formwork drawings

week 17 action list

folks- the action list for week17 can be downloaded from the sidebar. We still need drawing submissions by Lisa and Andrew. A reminder that I will be away this Thursday until Monday. Charles and I will meet tonight to discuss the schedule and our progress last week.

Hello

Thanks to Kyle for the invite. I love what you all are doing this semester.

I saw Kyle's presentation at the BAC this week and it rocked. Much excitement in the room. It should keep living on and I am so glad that it is.

Mason Pritchett and I taught the class last semester (spring '07) and will contribute to the blog as well. Hopefully offering support and advice to future design/build projects within the BAC. In the next week or so, I will be providing images from the last design/build workshop so that more people can see what we built last year.

Happy building!

Concrete Calculations

a very good resource for verifying our concrete quantities. Concrete.com Calculator

CD's submission

Team- please review the revised CD set list under the Student Materials Sidebar.

it's time to corral our nomadic construction set. The first submission was incomplete, and while the drawings have evolved nicely with the design, they remain decentralized and inconsistently available for discussion. Please submit the following (no matter its current state!) formatted by Friday evening 6pm via email. Dedicate 45 minutes to organizing your team's fundamental working drawings, schedules, and presentation drawings - and lets see what we get.

CD submission format (each sheet):
- a 24x36 PDF with title block and sheet number, and drawings labeled with scale present.
* all files named: 080501CDs_drawing number_yourfirstname.pdf

Rebar!

Hey all-
I've had a great time helping out so far on your project, thank you all for letting me in on some of the build! It's great to see how well you all work together, and how enthusiastic the community members are that are supporting this process. It's recently become clear to me that this sort of atmosphere does not happen by chance, and you all contribute to making it a great learning and working environment that's open to letting outsiders be part of the process. (It's an added plus to see the project coming together each week. Oh, and learning how to tie rebar was also cool. ) Keep it up, and see you this weekend!
-dan

Form-Active Tension Systems/Membranes

Hey guys_

My name is Evan, i'm a colleague of Kyle's and an MSc candidate in the Emergent Technologies and Design Programme at the AA School of Architecture. I've been doing a bit of work with form-active tension systems and hope I can pose a few questions for you to think about while developing your membrane structure:

1. Material behavior - How does the material chosen behave when stressed? For a form-active tension system to work, the surface should be effectively at zero tension - all forces in the system are spread evenly throughout, and the surface is free of folds, creases, etc. The behavior of a membrane system is specific to its parameters, especially the material of the membrane. The only way to find this out is by physical experimentation. And keep in mind, material does not scale linearly, so you want to play with membranes at a comfortable scale, but test the material system 1:1.

2. Connecting the membrane to a compressive member - I assume the membrane is being anchored by posts somehow, but how do the two components meet? Your drawings show a bungee cord connection, but how does the elasticity of the cord affect the overall tension in the system? How do two elastic materials co-exist in a system where stresses are carefully calculated? How can you keep the system at minimal tension if you cannot calibrate the vectors of forces at the connections?

3. I would urge you all to push the configuration of the system. Membranes are extremely interesting, and there isn't a great deal of work out there being done with them. Why connect four corners to four points? What would happen if two membranes connect to each other? how does that point get negotiated in space, and how can that inform the vector forces at other connection points? There is a huge amount of research that can be done on form-active tension systems, and it could be very valuable to experiment with these systems.

You should take a look at Frei Otto's work [books IL23, IL24, IL25]. He has done extensive research in form-finding, including minimal tension surfaces. It could inform your work and give you a good starting point to push your research. Also look at the numerous stadia built with membrane roofs, the work of Heinz Isler, and the recent installation at the Frac Center in Orlean by Ocean North. I've also added a few images of work being done in the EmTech programme with form-active tension systems and how they may be applied [they led to a cable-net bridge construction in patagonia, chile] to get you guys started.




Feel free to contact me with any questions at evanlgreenberg@gmail.com

Good luck!

best_
evan

Rebar

The rebar forms look great! I'm sorry that I missed this past weekend but i'm looking forward to the next workday. When days and times have been decided, i can send out a mass email. Thanks for all your hard work!

-Drew

Research Presentation

Attached you'll find the presentation I gave on our course this evening. Please feel comfortable commenting or questioning!

download here

cheers,
Kyle

Welcome to our blog!

Hello folks-
Welcome to the workshop blog. Primarily, the role of this blog is to coordinate the various components of our project through focused threads, and to serve as the medium for week updates and action lists.

Additionally, We will upload photos, presentations, and relevant studio materials here. Please begin by posting comments to this thread with suggestions re: the layout or material you'd like to see on the blog.