REFLECTION Week three’s reading on ‘Surfaces that can be built from paper’ had a very large influence on our group’s progression in designing the second skin. The reading mentioned the works of Tony Wills. These works partially inspired the form of the shoulder piece and it’s rather organic shape.
Tony Will’s D-forms (as mentioned in week three’s reading)
During week 4, the Thomas Heatherwick TED Talks Video Clip + the Virtual Environments lectures taught our group to “Think outside the box”. Heatherwick and his group’s imaginative designs (for example the unfolding bridge) influenced the way we tried to connect personal spaces with our second skin design. We were also more focused on the concept of “Form + Function” as we wanted an aesthetically pleasing design which still describes our group’s imagination on personal space. The ‘Lost in parameter space’ reading influenced our group when we were modelling our design up onto Rhino. We used the process of reduction and abstraction within our CAD modelling (e.g. for the back section of the design we decided to model each ‘shell’ off the other, taking out extra time to make different shapes) As mentioned within one of our first few Virtual Environments lectures, the process which led to our final product was not a forward brainstorm- design- model- make process. There was a lot of going back and forth the steps to reach the stage our group is currently at. After making our prototypes our group has realised that there are still many changes needed to be done within our design. For example considering changing the top of the shoulder part design into a stronger shape, that is if our group is going to continue working with Ivory Card.