Knots

Over the weekend, I went back into the matrices to come up with a design strategy.  I decided that my “buoy” thing would be some sort of device or design that would accommodate the different interactions of the user groups.  It was difficult to come up with what each user group should have in a device.  I mean, doesn’t everyone want shade and electricity?  Anyway, here is the new design matrix as it stands right now.  I think that it needs to delineate the grid pattern more- either by using a dot instead of blocks or by actually putting a grid on it.  And of course it needs words.

The site:

So after that I worked on the design.  Using the thoughts about the different variations of sails on a yacht – stormy weather, normal weather, windy weather – and about the connecting these areas of the swamp that are in my site, Kristi has urged me to go into this in layers.  The first layer is the part that is a completely designed experience, then it goes into pieces of a designed experience, then to “its possible to go here, but I’m not going to tell you what to do” part.  The materials will be deliberate – something light, something floatable, something that will weather.  I’m thinking that my previous models have already told me the materials:  string (rope), wire (steel, steel cable), wood (logs, boards), and whatever that paper represents… maybe a plastic or something.  The string has been a really big part of the process for this project, so I really want to feature it in the design as either the material of rope or the cabling that is used for sails now.  Thinking about rope, I have come to “tether and fray”.  And then of course I looked at knots.

The Carrick Bend has been my favorite so far because is used to join two ropes together, much like joining the two ecologies together and joining user groups together.  I have thought that this can be a sort of layout for how the design begins, then gettting further and further away as the rope “frays” at the ends.

In this part, I need to keep in mind the original beginnings to this project which are the traces that have been left on the land.  What new trace am I adding and how long will it take?  What does it do to the original traces and the swamp itself?

We’re running now!

Overlap – Overlay

overlap-

1.  to lap over; extend over and cover part of; imbricate

2. to cover and extend beyond

3. to coincide in part with; have in common with

4. to correspond in character or function

5. to have one or more elements in common

6. a representation of common ground between theories or phenomena

7. the property of partial coincidence in time

8. A part or portion of a structure that extends or projects over another

9. A suturing of one layer of tissue above or under another to provide additional strength.

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I started this post last week and then the computer went crazy and then life went crazy.  So where was I?  I’m working on concept to design.  Hopefully the last stage.  As you can see, the concept is overlap – overlay.  Last episode, I was working on these little hand-held models in the style of the larger model.  Some of them turned out pretty cool. 

     

Anyway, so back to overlap…  a while back, I had written about overlap in my sketchbook.  It was an interesting definition that I wouldn’t normally think of…  overlap, in yacht racing, is when one boat is going to overtake the other, the lead boat must fall back in order to pass on the other side.  I think this struck me as I was certainly surprised to see those huge yachts parked in the swamp when I was on the boat trip way back when.  It has also occurred to me that in some abstract sort of way, the modeling through this reminds me of sails and rigging.  So I decided to run with this a little and see if I can’t build on it.  So I looked at sail configurations, sail plans and yacht race configurations.

    

The lines created by the masts, the varying areas and the overlapping of the different sails really does remind me of my watercolor sketches and of the lines created in the swamp.  I’m not exactly sure how this is going to work in but I’m chewing on it a little.  If nothing else it has led to these beautiful sail plans which I really like the style of the drawing.  Simple linework, but highly detailed.  I think that this style could be something to take for the final drawings.  And this has in turn brought me to the yacht race configurations, which are usually based around a system of buoys.

So, buoys.  I have been thinking about device, ability to be placed in different areas and the fact that much of the swamp is boat access, especially in the area of my site.  Perhaps they are buoy-esque…  this is where I am…  thinking about buoys.  Here’s some pics I’ve found to demonstrate their characteristics and potential.

  

We’ll see what happens with this.

Expose the site

Composite map of traces using my lovely watercolor thingies in illustrator.

Is this really all that I have to show for today?  Really?  There must be something else.  I suppose that I did take this thing into some of the diagrams to see if it told me anything.  I think there is good reason for my selection of the piece of the site on the pass.  Divided by the highway, there are two different forest ecologies, a line between marsh and swamp, a bridge between the two lakes.  Not to mention the multiple traces of human-made connections (stole that from Overlay). 

Some other things I picked out while reading:  bridging different spaces, connect the concrete and the ephemeral spaces, elucidate the connections between human-made and natural formations, walking in a familiar place is revelatory of the cycles – changes, the rhythm of walking – specificity doubling back to generality.

“One does not impose, but rather expose the site…” – Robert Smithson

The last part of the project according to the project statements is to identify spaces, volumes, dimensions associated with cycling.  (Does bi-cycling count?)  Where does the impact diminish and disappear?  The intervention = space to enter the swamp, a destination, a passage between.

“I feel right at home in this stunning monochrome alone in my way.” – Ani, current line as I’m typing…  seems fitting somehow.

Checking in

The getting-closer-to-finished user matrix:

And I decided to try KBen’s suggestion of inverting everything (even the already inverted inverts…heh)…  they are perty.

  

an old section… drawing… whatever.

New piece of really ridiculously long section (224 inches long x 8 inches high) that doesn’t tell me squat:

Seriously, this section actually melted my screen.  Feel like I am just re-working the same thing over and over.  I have no idea what to introduce here.  I think I’ve been doing the same thing for so long that I’ve lost all interest in even thinking about it.  Either that or the melty illustrator screen has infected my brain and it is getting melty too.  Maybe I’ll find something in a dream… 

New Swamp Stuff…

Well, new things are afoot.  Although I haven’t yet decided how to finish them… or if they need some extra tweaking.

New User Matrix – the icons should probably be smaller and perhaps something else, but I’m leaving it for now:

New diagrams – I decided to re-do the whole thing.  Scanning and sizing the old ones looked pretty dumb and would probably take longer than just doing it over.  I stayed with B&W for now… might change later.  I haven’t decided about the composite maps yet which will probably go on the bottom:

Matrix of traces…  Even though it is by far not done, I still love how they look.  Since right now it’s just basically two sets of the same information, I will end up having to get rid of part of it, but I’m working on how to give it hierarchy…  :

Next on the list… detailed and scaled map, sections… decisions.  But I switch to the rep animation for now…  working on the lighting and motion of the various devices.  

And what the hell is wrong with this internet connection…  tempermental, it is.

Swamp visit – take 3

Swamp Matrix… take one

This is the first one printed out.  I love the way it looks, but I think that it is a little unclear.  At first I had made swatches out of my sketches and used those… they worked well for areas with more area, but the thin ones didn’t read well.  I might try to go back to that…  I don’t know.  I think the drawings sitting next to them get the idea across but they look a little hokey and they don’t line up without interrupting the matrix lines.  And I have no idea where to put any labels or words.  It doesn’t need much, but it’s kind of nice without it…  you know, pretty and unintelligible.

I added labels to the previous wax diagrams and it helped a lot.  I would have put a pic up, but for some reason the studio creeped me out tonight and I had to run away.  Fast.  Something was just off…

Anyway, I have to think about whether I want to re-do those other ones or not… wouldn’t want to be “schizo-phranic”.  I have to start thinking about what I want to do with the design phase.  For some reason, I really want to extend huge nets off of the highway so people can jump into them and roll through/over the swamp.  Is that weird?

Freak out

Have you ever had that feeling that you have no idea what you are doing?  So, we had this site with no measurements except what we can glean from Google or the incomplete Atlas files.  We have “sketches” not sections… “drawings” not plans… “totems” not models… 

Now I’m trying to do these line drawings which elucidate why I think the spaces work the way they do… and they’re supposed to have some sort of justification and I just can’t think of it. I know it was there somewhere but it got lost in the shuffle…  I made those elaborate lines from the post a few back and now I just can’t figure for the life of me where I pulled them from… (likely, some insomnia fog)

Now I just want to get it over with and I can’t move forward cuz I have no idea what I’m doing.  Put in a damn zip line and call it done, I say.  Who doesn’t like zip lines?  I am so ready to call it quits on this project. 

Stick a fork in me.

Addendum:  If it feels too technical, it probably is.  Go back to expressive…  Go back to where it made sense.

Basic Lines

Now I need to make a matrix-ish thing about the heirarchies, how they interact with each other… a sort of flow chart I guess.

And a user matrix.  Together these two things should tell me where things can be situated in the swamp and maybe I can move quickly into the design phase and finish this project… finally.

We’ll see how it goes.

Lines, space, magnetism

Just some sketches I really liked from this part of the project.

     

  

Oh, yeah and here’s the model as it stands (or leans…)