TERRA MURA

ARCH 509

Design-Build,

Project bringing in natural paradigms into Terracotta Tiles.

Through KU's Design-Build Program, a "living" facade was installed on the facade of the ICRC. This building is used by the KU ceramics departments. The terracotta tiles installed pay homage to the ceramics program, and the tiles scattered across the installation give visual interest, while housing pollinators and birds native to the area. As a team of 6, our class worked together from Pre-Design through Construction Documentation to create a creative bio-amalgamation of several natural and ecological precedences as sources of inspiration which would then be implemented into the final tile design, now on full display at ICRC's southeast corner.

Interdisciplinary Ceramics Research Center (ICRC)

38°57'24.2"N 95°15'50.0"W

In collaboration with: Eliott Freeman

Hoaxun Ma

Jeffery A. Mcbee

Olivia Erickson

Ryan G. Nguyen

Proposal Concept Development Preparation

Gathering research and inspiration to produce an early tile iteration to develope at the next stage.

Once we've refined our inspiration selection, we combine their features and then make a final tile iteration.

Gather all necessary materials and supplies, cast the molds, and get ready for production of the tiles.

1 2 3 4 5 6

Using the resources at the ICRC, we press and process the tiles to prepare them to be baked in the kiln.

As a team, we coordinate in installing the NBK track onto ICRC and the assembly of tiles.

We gather one for last time to present our semester long endeavor and reflect on the lessons we learned.

This project revolved around biomimicry, trying to emulate the characteristics of nature and use them to our advantage.

Eastern Dogwood (Local species) Fungus, Lichens, etc. All play a vital role in the ecosystem that we wanted to include and support.

Eliott Freeman and I were primarily in charge of Tile Design. Eliott created all the phenomonal patterns for the tile, then passed it onto me to use Rhino to generate the Final Tile with the refined hollowed cavities and my custom diagonal mounting flange.

Once we completed the Final Tile design, we immediately got to work transfering the files to a RAM Press die model, CNCing the molds, pouring the Hydrostone, and mounting the finished dies into the press.

Eliott operated the RAM Press to produce every single one of the +100 tiles for the project.

I was in charge of cleaning and organizing them to prepare them for the kiln.

I also hand modifed the 10 tiles that sweep the corner.

After Ryan and Hoaxun completed the skematics for the track, and Olivia and Jeff completed their bee hotels and birdboxes, we all cooperated to install the aluminum NBC tracks and mounting the tiles.

We often had to improvise and adapt on-site to complete the project: grinding down tile edges, improvising single flange clips, cutting down tracks, we all worked together to get this job done.

Presentation Day: May 24

This was the first real group project I worked on at KU. The most important thing I learned wasn't the new skills with computers, fabrication, concept and skematic development, but the value of teamwork and what it means to be a competent part of a studio.