The first effect was “narrow, deep, and low,” seen in the feature image above. I used long, slender slits pushed to one side of the room, running front to back. This was to create a series of lines leading the eye deep into the space, which were all close together, leaving the other side of the room unlit, so that viewers would not notice that area so much. The slits were also cut so that on top, they were wide, and at the bottom they were narrow. This produced interesting patterns with the light source held at certain angles and distances. Very little light hit the ceiling, pushing it down.

Narrow, deep, and low -- patterns created by triangular slits

Wide, shallow, and tall

Dappled light

The second effect was “wide, shallow, and tall.” For this one, I cut wide rectangles running across, and then built dropped reflectors that bounced light back onto the ceiling. One opening was specifically placed by the back wall, to make sure that wall was well-lit, bringing it forward. The wide bars of light running across the space made it look wider and shallower. The reflectors also created patterns of shadow when lit at angles.

The final effect was one of our choosing. I wanted to create a dappled light with different intensities, by filtering some openings but not all with translucent paper. The paper was also an openwork Japanese tissue, to further break down the light. Many small organic shapes were punched through the ceiling, and they created an effect somewhere between a disco and a forest.

See the whole set and the presentation slide deck on Flickr.

The "box of crosses" structure is clearer when seen from above

Adriana Garcia and I went through several designs until we settled on our competitor, which as seen above was a set of crosses lashed into a box shape. The interesting thing about this design is the way that it adapts to the load put on it. Though the dowels transfer some load to the ground as compression, the remaining force becomes a moment of rotation, spreading the arms of the cross. When the arms spread enough to tighten the lashing, the tension of the cable counteracts the rotation, and the structure stops changing shape. It was built of 1/2″ hardwood dowel, 1/16″ steel cable, screws, washers, and epoxy. Lots of epoxy. Steel cable is extremely slippery and treacherous, and unlike the fishing line we’d built the concept model with, would not stay wrapped tightly to the wood if left to its own devices.

Adriana loading it with bricks

We also had to analyze how our structure would fail. I had expected the cable or glue to snap, but was wrong. Adriana accurately predicted that uneven loading or sheer strain would snap the wood around the screws where it was weak, and that then the structure would rotate and collapse. Our structure was middle of the pack for both the weight it took — about 480 lb — and for its effiency rating. The winning structures were all boxes built out of lots of simple X frame trusses. We had considered such a design, but decided against it. As well as being less original, it would have been expensive and difficult to build: we did not have a table saw, so instead of slicing a sheet of plywood into strips, we would have had to use expensive but weak softwood square dowel; neither did we have an accurate means of making angled cuts, so our trusses might not have fitted together accurately and thus not transferred force well.¹

It smashes to flinders!

Maybe some time I’ll build another iteration, one that lacks the flaws of the old — I’m sure it’ll have exciting new flaws of its own — out of dowel or pipe and rope. Definitely not from steel cable. You see, the concept model showed a lot of promise. It weighed at most half an ounce and held up almost 50 lb of bricks, a ratio of over 1000 versus one of 400-ish for the competition model. I’d like to see what it can do if I do a better job of building it.

We were asked to design, draw and model a 650 sq. ft. house for two people anywhere in the world but North America. Outdoor spaces were encouraged since they didn’t count towards our square footage, but no major functions could be left outdoors. I asked my friend Allison if she and her husband Paul would be my clients, and we promptly had a brainstorming session over tea. She wanted the house to be on New Zealand’s North Island, but didn’t have a specific town in mind. I located it in the Coromandel Peninsula, between Tararu and Whakatete Bay. Allison is a witch, Paul is a shaman and energy healer, and they are both tall, so they both wanted the house to be in harmony with nature, have high ceilings, and have quiet space to meditate in. There were many other desiderata, but these were the most important.

Our initial sketches were of earthships and cliffside houses. Our favourites were the many-storey cliff house, and the two-storey house built around a fireplace circled by the main stair, but I didn’t have enough experience to design these within the square footage requirements and the massing I wanted. So in critique, I was advised to concentrate on one or two key ideas, because I was being pulled in too many directions, and because I had some difficulty explaining how the place should feel — or rather, what I was going to do to produce that effect. The feel I knew: this was the good witch’s house, so I wanted it to be hidden away in a forest or other natural setting, and I wanted it to surprise and delight, to be a place that you hadn’t expected to exist but were glad did, like a secret grotto. That was when I got the idea of making it a treehouse. That surprised and delighted both me and everyone who heard the idea, but I knew it was feasible since I had heard of books about them.

Public block, first version

My first intention was to split the house into one or two-room chunks, and put them on individual platforms, all connected to a roofed outdoor stair wrapped around the trunk of a massive kauri tree, like a necklace. This is perfectly workable in a climate that stays between 5-25°C all the time. Compare that to my home in Ottawa, which goes from -40°C in the winter wind to +40°C in the summer sun.

Public block, second version

The first version of the public block saved space and was efficiently heated by the central fireplace, but didn’t respond much to the tree. The second version wrapped better around the trunk, and kept the compact but livable kitchen and dining room arrangements. It also snuck in a half-bath and laundry room (on the right) to cut down on the plumbing labour.

Private block with angled join between bedroom and bathroom

The blocks wrapped around the trunk. At this point, I still had to figure out how much height I needed between the platforms, and how many turns of stairs, since the roofs had not been figured out. I particularly liked the angled joining of the bedroom and bathroom.

Arranging the blocks around the tree

The drawings of the house were due soon, which was how I learned why traditional houses are simple rectangular boxes: they are vastly easier to roof. I sweated over how to cap those angled blocks until my head spun, and admitted that I would have to simplify them in order to meet deadline. That brought about the second version, which was a two-storey house and deck perched in a large, spreading totara tree.

I didn’t like this version so much. The whole composition was awkward. The deck was enormous yet boring, and while that peaked second floor roof worked, it felt like a 1950s or 60s bungalow, not a traditional cottage. Worst, the meditation perch felt like an afterthought. This mattered to me because the key idea I had been able to retain from the cliffside house was the ascension from public, social space through private space to a place to be alone with yourself. That last was the meditation perch, and I could barely cram in a ship’s ladder in the bedroom to the roof, and if I added a balcony or sitting area up there, it would look like an afterthought. Not acceptable.

Final floorplans, private block above, public block below. Link to CAD file below.

Since I wasn’t happy with the second iteration, I changed the plan again before building the model, which was the final submission for the project. Some features from the previous stage remained, such as the material choices: wood siding, a shingled roof, a brick chimney. But the concessions I made to simplify constructing it were exactly what made it feel charming and cottagelike again. All the rooms were simple boxes joined orthagonally except the angled bath, because I could cut 90° and 45° angles accurately in foamcore without a fancy mat cutting setup. Suddenly the blocks looked traditional and nestled into the tree better. I changed almost all the roofs to simple gables, which again, I could see how to make even though I needed to represent 18″ thick material with 6″ thick foamcore.¹ That meant the interiors would have vaulted ceilings with rafters — perfect! I solved the joining of the bedroom and bathroom roofs by not having them join — instead I made the bathroom enough taller that it could have its own roof, and just let it be square instead of trying to cut off a corner.  Since it was going to be so prominent anyway, I made the roof look like a witch’s hat, which Allison loved.

Get the CAD drawings for the plans and elevations (AutoCAD 2004 .dwg file, 170 kb)

But honestly, the house was the easy part of the model. The hard parts were the ground and the tree. Especially the tree. The ground is kitty litter molded into shape with water and glue, dry-brushed with several shades of acrylic paint, and set with twigs to represent smaller trees. It looks satisfyingly groundlike, and permitted me to stick dowels and skewers into it, which turned out to be very important.

Detail of tree and ground

The tree is made out of broomstick handle and coat-hanger wire. To make the tree actually look like a tree, I wrapped the bare wood and wire with gauze-mâché.² Once that was dry, I painted it with a basecoat of brown acrylic and dry-brushed another shade or two on it. This gave me a firm trunk, bendable branches, and a nice barklike finish, all good. The problem was that it also gave me branches that tended to rotate, even when unloaded. Perhaps that could have been solved by gluing them into the sockets, but I didn’t have time for epoxy or Weldbond to set, my cyanoacrylate had glued itself shut, and the hot glue didn’t work when I tried it. I saved the tree by adding reinforcing braces out of bamboo skewer and dowel, which would stick with hot glue to the outer layer of the tree.³ If I ever build another model tree, I’m going to buy a nice thick cable twisted out of medium gauge copper wire, which I can gently fray apart and bend to my will, and gauze-mâché it into life-likeness. I’m sure that method will have its own new and exciting dilemmas, but at least the branches won’t twirl in their sockets.

I admit this isn’t the best model I could have made — another iteration, and it would have been much better. But, given the difficulties I overcame in making it, and how impressed most people have been when they see it, I’m still pleased with it. At least half the class were startled to find out that it wasn’t a real tree. Allison is making room in her apartment (after downsizing from a house) to keep it permanently, even though it is large and somewhat fragile. Another friend who saw it stopped in his tracks and said, “Could I have that?”. Now, if I can just get that kind of reaction to all my projects, I should be set!

For this project, we were asked to visit a place with a strong character and then make a moodbox (a sort of three-dimensional display) to convey what it was like. Maryam, Candace, and I visited the Bytowne Cinema, which has some interesting Modern details, especially on the facade and lobby. It also has a very recognizable mural.

We considered what elements from the Bytowne ought to be used in the moodbox, and decided on the mural, the sign, and red velvet (for the silver screen’s curtain). We also used film and a copy of the schedule in our composition. The curls of film made our entry unique.

For this project, our professor wanted us to define a certain number and types of spaces within an 8 x 8 x 8 inch cube, by using a minimal number of walls and columns, which we could colour white or black. We needed to have at least one space of each type: large, small, overlapping, and double-height.

This is one of the projects that shows why I enjoy design so much: even though the rules of the assignment are strict, everybody makes something different. For example, mine is symmetrical, abstract, and sculptural, while many of the other submissions looked architectural.

The model is based around two intersecting cubes that form a diagonal hourglass within the implied outer cube. These three cubes are my large spaces. The rest are all defined by the framework at the pinch in the hourglass. That creates the small space, overlapping space, and double-height space.

The professor kept the model for the next CIDA review, and put it in the display case outside the Interior Design office, along with a couple other entries from the same assignment.

Since it began with my hacking holes out of hotglued boxes of battered foamcore board, and wedging them into each other, I called it the agglomeration. The official project name “Light as Inhabitant Part Three” was much too pretentious for it then, and the nickname stuck.

Even though it was constructed entirely out of right-angled boxes and planes, the final composition feels much more dynamic than you would expect from that. Again, we were invited to craft interesting joints, and I did. Headache-inducing joints, like these multiple angled crossings and wedgings:

The leaf tower was one of my favourite assignments of the year, since I managed to make it do something a bit special. The rules were to make a three-dimensional structure out of one sheet of bristol board, with only cuts and folds, and without removing any of the paper. Here’s what I came up with.

The zipper up the back holds the two edges of the sheet together into a circle, and the “windows” on the back are really tensioning struts that hold the front to the back. These struts are then folded on the front side to lock them in place, which along with the fold between them, brings the tower to form an asymmetrical heart shape. I then added the ornamental leaf cut-outs, and bent the leaves slightly outward to make it look as though it was covered with vines.

This piece was to make us experiment with using the height and texture of the cardboard to create an effect. Having done a lot of cutting of cardboard recently, I made a grid and then blocked out the size, height, and directions I wanted, so that everything would be easy to measure and cut. It worked out quite well and the professor kept it for the next CIDA review.

Since Tony was interested in joinery I borrowed some ideas from woodworking, such as pegs and dovetails.

The next stage was to pick the best two. Number three (the feature photo) was one of my favourites, but I had to admit it didn’t make an exciting photo in elevation and display the light-pipe effects that made me love it. Tony and I selected sketches five and seven as the best. I remade them at higher quality and took a full set of photographs for each.

My favourite pieces played with balance, in both physical and power terms. They were supported or held together by the subordinate piece, such as the slices in five and seven, and the slender column in three. If that piece was taken away, the assembly would tip over or fall apart, so it was subordinate and dominant at the same time.