Monthly Archives: November 2014
Design Week 2014 – Day 4 Modelling
We spent day 4 trying to complete the the final model at a scale of 1:50. The structure was very time consuming due to the different angles. We also had some trouble getting the right heights which we only discovered once we had constructed both the floor plans and rooms.
We used foam board for the wall construction balsa wood, foam board, bubble wrap, and white plastic bags to resemble the structure. We ended up having to raise the external structure on the model so that it fitted over the rooms.
Any business is only as good as the people working there
I feel fortunate to have been able to work alongside George and Marcela all of this week. None of us had spent time together prior to the project but I think we’ve gotten along grandly as a little team.
Marcela is definitely an architect in her thinking and were it not for her vision we would have ended up with a big circus tent. Today she has diligently been constructing most of the internal rooms, quietly getting on with it – which takes some patience and determination after 8 hours cutting foam board!
George had been terrific, taking on the outer shell construction with gusto and imagination, maintaining a great work rate the last 2 days despite clearly getting a bit fed up at times with setbacks and obstacles in it’s completion.
And then Meriam and Noushak are back with us tomorrow. Their ideas on Monday helped very much, they did good work on Weds and tomorrow we’ve a big ask for them to help ensure we meet the deadline – but if their efforts so far are indicative – they should manage it all in their stride.
collapsible walls
The internal walls that will divide the different rooms inside the tent will be collapsible walls. Which are walls made with a diamond structure and can be stretched out to the desired length.
Linden and myself found a type of these walls in Cockroft, a wall that can be stretched out to cover the whole entrance or be pulled back to allow people to walk to the staircase.
The students from Hazelwick school made a prototype of the wall in a 1:20 scale to show how the wall would work. On the final model there will be 1:50 walls, but these walls will be firm, only to show how the walls will look like.
– Ine Ringlund
Collapsible Military Shelters
Act as a pop-up structure and is used on field hospitals. Easy to transport and fast to be erected.
Drawings & reflection
Due to our modelling having taken longer than expected – with a pressurised session due for tomorrow morning as we race towards the deadline – I find myself at home, up late, working on content for the poster that supports our design.
Knowing that George is home working on the floorplan and technical data, and Marcela working up our precedence studies and concepts, I have the overall sketches, performance schematic, room sizes and infrastructure plan to complete, to add to our poster design tomorrow morning when we meet.
I’ve added a couple of designs also for our flat pack furniture – needed to maximise shipping container space – plus a quick logo for our building – the Life Shell.
Could this last minute work have been avoided? If we were to do this again next week then I’m certain we’d structure our weeks schedule more strictly.
We probably spent a touch too long on design and planning, although slightly conflicting information from our lecturers had us scratching our heads, lack of thought for how we’d actually build the model resulted in time that could have been used more efficiently, and leaving the poster till the end all were roadbumps as we’ve travelled through the week.
The team has worked well I think, although there was a difference of opinion at the design decision stage, a good compromise was worked out and I must say I’m pleased with our structure design which has a lot more performance positives than I saw originally – where at the start of the week I was more for a conventional ‘boring’ approach that simply fulfilled functional requirements.
Inflatable Structures Benefits
1. Faster and cheap to deploy than metal framed structures
2. Small storage space required
3. Weigh less than alternatives
4. Cheaper and easier to transport from location to location
5. Support extreme conditions (seasonal usage)
6. Provide more usable spaces
7. Superior natural light, thermal and acoustic insulation
8. Possible to custom the design
9. Minimal labor required
10. Take less time to deploy
Constructing the final model
Next step in making the final model was to work out the grid that the poles needed to be placed in. Both to make sure that the tent is structural stable, but also to prevent that the poles are places in a room in a way that will prevent movement though the structure.
The wooden boxes seen in the picture, is the curie boxes and the container.
Linden then covered half of the tent structure with fabric. We left half of the structure open so that you can see the room layout and the internal walls
– Ine Ringlund
Life Cube inspires design
A little late in the week, but this is the Life Cube which has been something to draw a little inspiration from.
An emergency shelter deployable that packs into a tiny box, and erects in 5 minutes with room for 5 people.
Carrying it’s own air supply it is ideal for first response and emergency deployment applications.
Researching fabric structures this week I have been amazed at what’s possible and already in production thanks to innovation.
Many inflatable deployables are used already by industry, military and aerospace. The military field hospitals and surgeries particularly are extremely well designed and pertinent precedent studies that have informed our project.
The thermal properties, lightweight space saving aspect and minimum material production value certainly give this form of construction good credentials.
I’ve seen innovative uses also such as covers for loft extension/roof work in place of scaffold, and wind breaks for house protection use in areas prone to hurricanes.
This is a structural form that we’ve not touched upon through university lectures in any detail but seems to me to have huge potential, with likely more attention paid to it in the very near future (particularly due to it’s flexibility and green credentials).
Constructing the final model – mass production
The morning started with mass production of different components needed for the final model. Making the poles and the fences were a time consuming process, but is needed to make the final structure.
For the tent we used the method we had tried out on Wednesday, which was wooden pieces with pins on top. And by wrapping thread around the pins and stretching the thread from pole to pole, it created enough tension for the structure to stand up. 
For the walls we made firm structures, that is easy to make, but will not function as it will on a bigger scale. So the walls are just to show how it will look like. (We have a bigger model that is on a 1:20 scale which works as the wall would work in real life.)
After numb and sore fingers from cutting with a scalpel and glue over most of our clothes we constructed most of the fences needed in the model.
– Ine Ringlund