LAB Submission: Individual Work

Rather than suggesting a concrete jungle is where higher housing density is heading, here colour and lushness can be found even as this demand is met. The key element is the meadow, which could have been a piece of the wilderness, extracted and placed as a sanctuary in this urban setting. The meadow is protected from its surroundings by the building itself, which wraps like a wall of mountains sheltering a valley at its feet. Drawing from New Zealand home ideals, a key focus is creating an indoor-outdoor connection, enhanced by the flowing of the wildflowers into the living spaces below. A combination of both shared and individual spaces is explored, as a resolution in meeting an increasing demand for space.

Plans

 

Planting plan

Sections

Reworked collages

 





Final Day: the Bells

The verdict was that the 'clapper' would be placed on a hook outside and immediately next to the bell. The bell itself would stay still on its own rigid hook, but the clapper would move and hit against it as the see-saw moves up and down. It took a couple of trials to get the bell and clapper in the right place for each see-saw. The bells are very important to our design as they add a playful element to the see-saw, and in a sense reward the users in their co-operation in working together to make the bell ring.

Assembling Everything Together

The powder coated pivots were collected first thing in the morning, and the results were great.

 

To secure the doormats to the grass we stitched in each corner.

 





The first fully assembled see-saw (minus the bell)

 

The bell issue:

• It was a bit of a struggle to get the bells working. We tried out many different variations. The main thought was that the piece within the bell was not large enough, so thus had to move too far in order to hit the side of the bell and make a noise. Firstly we thought that a possible way to solve this was by having the central piece on string rather than stiff wire, so that this could move more easily. This did not work- it still did not ring, and it also was too difficult to attach the bell to the underside of the see-saw without the string being broken by the screw driver.
• Next we tried making the central piece larger- making a mockup out of spare nails- again this was unsuccessful.

• Another idea was that the bell could be placed on a smooth rail, so that when the see-saw goes up and down it would slide along and the force of this swinging would be enough to cause it to ring when it hit each end.

In the meanwhile, there was an issue with the third see-saw. This particular piece of wood was incredibly hard unlike the others, and so it snapped multiple screws and drills as the pivot was attached. Thankfully it worked in the end.

 

 

Three working see-saws:

 

Prepping for Powder Coating



We finished off the pivots first thing in the morning, in order to get it powder coated in time to be picked up the same day.

 

In the Workshop

Our Pivots are in the process of being tacked together, which is incredibly exciting to see. We spent alot of time in the workshop today drilling holes in our wood for the cabinet handles. M4 screws worked for most of the handles, with the exclusion of the ones from trademe which require something a little longer. It was incredibly important that we did not make any mistakes with the drilling, as having the wood in perfect condition was very important to us.

Fully Prepped Wood

The Oil

After numerous base coats and coats of gloss, we finally removed the tape. Thankfully there was barely any bleeding at all. We had a slight issue in the workshop where the newspaper we laid the finished paintwork on discoloured our hard work. It didn't take too much paint to fix it luckily, and so we were able to begin oiling without too much delay. Danish Oil was the chosen type to use. Hannah was responsible for the oiling, as we were informed it would be best to have one person doing the oiling as it would help to ensure that they would all be continuous with one another.

 We thought it was important to first do a test, to see how far the oil would spread and sink in upon application- just in case the oil would lift off the paintwork and undo our many coats of hard work.

Selecting the Doormat

The options

 

 

The favourites

 



Another Coat

Applying the First Coat of Paint

We applied our first coat of paint to the wood today. We spent a while carefully choosing tape which we trusted enough not to allow the paint to bleed through. After taping up the edges we applied the first coat with paintbrushes. For the next coat we are keen to use rollers as we believe this will give us a more even finish. In the meanwhile we will sand down the paint after this coat to ensure it is smooth.



Sewing the Cushions

I brought along my mother's sewing machine today and we sewed a couple of cushions- the lips and circular sandwich seem to be the easiest at this stage. We bought some rope to form the rib of the band cushion. At this stage the band cushion trial was quite unsuccessful as the hole left for the rope to be pushed through was ever-so-slightly too narrow, which meant the rope was only able to be pushed in about 10cm before becoming too difficult.

Test

With an almost-complete cushion, two sets of door handles and a strip of grass, we laid out all the parts to mock-up a first see-saw. Although it is hard to get a proper idea with the scrap-wood pivot at this stage, all seems to be going together nicely at the moment. Once we get a completed pivot we will be able to try it out properly without fear of the pivot falling over. Our cushions do need some serious plumping up, but I'm sure this will be fixed when we replace the stuffing with actual wool as opposed to a plastic bag.