Brian Slusher
Selected Work (3 of 4)
A Wilted Civic Power
This studio explored a palimpsest of various topics including: state power conflicting and complimentary programs redaction for suppression and subversion office materials construction foam the mill as a design attractor
The studio began with an exploration of State Power and its need to assert its power, through redaction, controlling of the production of State Histories, and through other means.
Anna Neimark
To:Slusher, Brian;Vista, Raymund John;Han, Yi;Bharwani, Shaheen;Ma, Huihao;Li, Acacia;Wong, Wang Ching;Phan, Harrison;Ni, Chuwei;Yeh, James;Pena, Gabriella Cc:kaita.a.saito@gmail.com
Dear Group,
Great work Friday - it was exciting to see all the progress on your projects all together. You are an awesome, enthusiastic class, so we are keeping a steady pace. We gave you lots of different directions on Friday, and I'd like to summarize these here, so that no one is confused on what to do next ;)
Please continue to develop your models, drawings and photographs over the weekend. We suggested multiple ways of working in parallel, and you may begin with any of these tasks for Monday, and develop others during the following week:
First, make sure you have a model you really like; for some of you this means making one more - maybe it's a question of material or form - but some of you may have received feedback on how to update the paper model. Please do so first.
Second, photograph the new model, and an older one, against a flat consistent background (grey or white). You should use a tripod and a nice camera or a phone camera (check out equipment from the library); make sure your hands & wrists are included (take off the sciarc bracelets). Shoot the model such that your hands produce a believable section and document the model in elevation (front/back) as well as plan views (top). You will need to photoshop the images before printing to correct for color, light, crop, etc. Print full bleed on good matte paper at high res and crop to 8x10 vertical, one photo per page.
Third, if you are happy with your overall massing model, you may build an even newer one that has some structural features. Consider adding wedges (like door stops)
Second, photograph the new model, and an older one, against a flat consistent background (grey or white). You should use a tripod and a nice camera or a phone camera (check out equipment from the library); make sure your hands & wrists are included (take off the sciarc bracelets). Shoot the model such that your hands produce a believable section and document the model in elevation (front/back) as well as plan views (top). You will need to photoshop the images before printing to correct for color, light, crop, etc. Print full bleed on good matte paper at high res and crop to 8x10 vertical, one photo per page.
Third, if you are happy with your overall massing model, you may build an even newer one that has some structural features. Consider adding wedges (like door stops) between the floor plates - these could replace your fingers. The wedges, door stops, or shims may be made out of paper, tape, 3D-print (I like the metallic filament), made of bubble gum, or blue foam, no matter the material, but don't glue these into the paper model. Alternatively to the free-floating wedges, you may score structural tabs and bend them along edges of floors either down like beams or up like parapets (think of the mezzanine at sciarc as a floorplate where the floor plus parapet make a U-shape in cross-section).
Finally, you may send a floor plan to the CNC in a 24x36 format, may be single-sided. Draw a 24x36 vertical rectangle in Rhino and label that layer "non-print layer". Then add your plan in the middle and scale to fit, keeping proportions consistent with your model. You will need to consider how to translate your raster line work into a vector file in Rhino. Use your diagramming techniques, and separate line work by later. Kaita can
Finally, you may send a floor plan to the CNC in a 24x36 format, may be single-sided. Draw a 24x36 vertical rectangle in Rhino and label that layer "non-print layer". Then add your plan in the middle and scale to fit, keeping proportions consistent with your model. You will need to consider how to translate your raster line work into a vector file in Rhino. Use your diagramming techniques, and separate line work by later. Kaita can definitely help you set these files up over the weekend, and if a couple of you try to do this on Monday, those experiments will give us more food for thought. You may always update the drawings and send additional prints to the CNC later in the week. So try sending something, and don't hesitate too much. Remember that milling is a process and a negotiation with the machine. If you upload the files on Monday morning, they will likely be milled during studio time; Matthew will bring the stack of newsprint to studio on Monday. Let Brandon know that the material will be 24x36 newsprint for everyone and available Monday.
We will take a break from big communal meetings next week and move on to individual desk crits in our own sections. Kaita and are excited to see what everyone does! Have a great weekend.
Cheers, Anna
Circulation Program
Entrance conditions of each program type describe specific needs for each. Childcare requires more safety, and is thus closer to the fortress-style connection pattern, as described by the right side of the spectrum on pages 36-37. One must enter the courtyard before entering the childcare program. Alternatively, the Library program is much more open, falling on the left side of the spectrum.
The set of floors 00-02 are at once individual (see above) and a single band of connection (see pages 42-43). As shown above, the ramps must be placed according to ceiling height requirements, and clearance of the floor below. A the colors in the diagram indicate program specific zones and the connections between them.
The palimpsest of the typology of parking structures, with courtyard precedents, resulted in a set of hand models. Special attention was taken in material and ink choices, which reference the bureaucratic environments that house civic power, or national power structures.
a grid which implied cutlines for a handmodel of a parking structure topology.
Process work resulting in a model. Newsprint was painted in an attempt to give structure to feeble newprint paper. The color is a shade of manilla folder, found in bureaucratic environments.
The “paintchip” study model was material exploration and partial transmaterialization between, newprint and manila folder. The model remains in a state of flexibility and pliability. It is a response to the traditional power structures, which rely on oppression to control masses. Here a different notion of power is implied: one which celebrates compassion, patience, compromise. These are also forms of power, perhaps which are longer lasting then the more common manifestations.
Detailed studies of the paint chip model, show a floorplate, which commonly taken for granted as a simple paper surface, in fact has both a top and bottom. Both of which have different functions. The bottom of the floor plate, which is also a ceiling plan, contains structure, and thus geometry that defines the plan below it. Additional floorplate studies continue on pages 60-61.
Section study of the “paintchip” study model. This drawing shows a crossroads in the project. The freedom of the paintchip model, required a step in the direction of reason. A return the graph connection diagrams (pages 3643) was a natural next step.
Continued floorplate studies combined the wilted pliability of the paintchip study model, with the rigor of the graph diagrams. The geometry of each floorplate was modeled in a physics simulation, based on the ramp placements in the program connection diagrams. To add thickness, each “floorplate footprint” was extruded to meet the surface.
The chunk model is another iteration of study of the slump model. In this model, the tape as ornament reappears, the layers of paper which act as structure and counter structure against gravity and the texture of the crumpled paper. Graphic printed on the pare introduce different tectonic properties to the loose and free craft paper, as well as initiate different geometrical emphases. The chunk model, which is a single multilayer face
of the slump model, acts as a provocation of, “at what point does paper become a model?”
Its thickening gives it body, yet is unzipped tabs emphasizes the singular sheets of the thickened envelope, as do its other single sheet layers. It has both structure and looseness; both three dimensionality and two dimensionality.
The chunk model is another iteration of study of the slump model. In this model, the tape as ornament reappears, the layers of paper which act as structure and counter structure against gravity and the texture of the crumpled paper. Graphic printed on the pare introduce different tectonic properties to the loose and free craft paper, as well as initiate different geometrical emphases. The chunk model, which is a single multilayer face
of the slump model, acts as a provocation of, “at what point does paper become a model?”
Its thickening gives it body, yet is unzipped tabs emphasizes the singular sheets of the thickened envelope, as do its other single sheet layers. It has both structure and looseness; both three dimensionality and two dimensionality.
