Wood Fabrication Ideas

Everyone has been coming up with ideas on what we could actually make. Since we are focusing on using only straight members, I have been experimenting with creating curved surfaces that are ruled (a straight line is able to run through the surface at any point). This has the possibility of adding another level of intrigue to the project.

My construction of a curved surface created from straight lines connecting two circles.

Here's a little video of my first proposal.

Everyone liked the design, however there is the obvious question of constructibility. However when I was explaining how I modeled the design, what caught everyone's attention was this.

The idea of spiraling straight wood members around the space would definitely produce a dynamic experience for the user to walk through or sit in. So over the next week I continued to develop this idea, trying to emphasize the effect, create a clearer structure, and generate a space that compresses and releases the occupants.

This line drawing represents wood members and it is the latest iteration.

I am imagining that this could be placed along a popular smaller path on IIT's campus and that seating elements could be incorporated where the structure touches the ground. This design will certainly require us to find a fabricator nearby who will lend us access to a CNC machine. We have just visited a few places in Michigan who were willing to show us around, however they did not have the machine we would need to cut and notch our members. 

Our goal is to use a CNC machine to construct something that we otherwise could not do by hand, but since we are the first students to go through this course, we might not find a place willing to collaborate with us in time. We should know within the next week if we have somewhere to cut, otherwise we may have to simplify our designs quite a bit.