Kinetic Systems and CAD/CAM

Administrative email 09-27-02

Staff: Michael Fox (mafox@sciarc.edu), Jonas Hauptman (jonashalp@sciarc.edu)

Lecture: Tu 4:00-7:00pm

Location: Shop or Central Space for lectures

All,

The volunteer visitors, council members and community were all very pleased with the initial presentations last Teusday.  Financially things look very good - far exceeding our initial expectations for the class.  I will not talk numbers in this mail but kudos really go out to Jonas for making it possible to turn your designs into reality.  We will discuss briefly the political diagram and finances during the next class.

I will discuss the procedure and then attach a few critical thoughts for each project that were gathered from the outside reviewers.

Procedure:

• "Kinetic Water" (Yasushi, Atsunori, and Steve) need to email me, or hand us personally a hard drawing for your  project in plan by this Sunday Evening.  I will post it onto the Web-site on Sunday evening.

• "Sculptural interactive bench" (Jeremey, Deborah, Kara)  As recommended during your presentation; you should develop terracing on the East side of the site to accommodate your bench. You can get going on your design but recall that the Water project will have a reservoir/ pond at the bottom and how these two projects come together is important.

• "Twisted Fencing"  (Sam, Kevin, Asako) Also you should play off of the plan for the water project and think of how these two projects meet.  A railing is not required on that side, and I do not think that the water would be behind the fence but rather the two should come together nicely. There is a railing on the other side (so consider that as well and do something spectacular with the steps.

Everyone:

• You need to have your projects defined in plan at the least on next Teusday. 
• Jonas and I will make a 3-D model with these blocked out at 1"=1' so that you can make models at a scale that allows you to explore rapid prototyping of forms and also kinetic models that can plug into this base model. 
• We plan to have a presentation to the community on Saturday the 12th. at noon.  At least one representative should make it.  We will have the base model at that point and at least your first models.

• Every Team also please come up with a good name for your project.

Criticism:
Mostly From Douglas Sutter with a few comments added in.

• (Jack, Bertrand, Alper, Tyler) The group with the four individual agendas for the "shade piece" won't fly unless they get it together immediately as a team. The two organic pcs fit the overall site much better than the two abruptly erect/statement pcs. They need to have a single presentation designed out to the level that all the other groups will be at in two weeks if they want to be part of the process any further. 

Michael +Jonas:  I agree with all of the above, especially on bringing it together. On a good note - There is very good funding for this project - It will also be somewhat of a landmark on Sunset Bullivard. You should also consider the inclusion of signage.   

• The fountain with the square pcs on swivel is brilliant but should also insinuate itself into flood control or water conservation - they should work closely with the team that is working

their seating plan into a redesign of the orchard terracing/layout.

Michael +Jonas: Yes to the above.

• The two guys doing the large scale median sticks should increase their

use of language that is site specific maybe focusing on summarizing the natural elements in the garden. They need to get specific with their scale and shapes/motion and address the community’s odd fear of objects moving above in periphery. I would love to see one on the orchard side  to balance things out a bit also.
Michael +Jonas:  Yes, justify in terms of going beyond art. I know you came late. We can talk and also look over Lecture on Kinetics on the website.

• The shed/meditation group should play up the shed features more for

funding purposes. The mention of 4' tall grass spec. was brilliant.
Michael +Jonas:  Nice project so far. I am pleased with the cohesiveness.

• The seating group is totally on track organically and by participating in the terracing/retaining wall will guarantee completion.

Michael +Jonas:  See comment at the top under procedure.

• The fence group is dead on. Very exciting, of all the groups they

grasped the organic's of the site vs. standard material flawlessly.

Michael +Jonas:  Nice so far, plan it out for the sight - especially heights.  Also gate is nice kinetic piece, although a bit rudimentary. 

Thanks everyone.  I just want to say that also we will discuss next class how you can learn to sell these projects to the clients.  I think our overview of the politics and (dis)separate agendas will provide you with the tools necessary to argue appropriate attribute justifications for your designs.