After an intense week of design development we refined both designs to a point where we felt happy with them. Rather than decide to choose one design over the other we have decided to build both designs. The 'sticks' design will act as a more permanent and sculptural intervention in ecclesall woods, acting as a orientation point as well as a piece of art. The modular scheme will be much more transportable and will be able to be used in a variety of locations in and around sheffield. Both showcase different, yet equally valid, ways of working with timber, advertising the qualities of the material. The drawings below showcase the design development.

Design Development

Following the day on site we decided to proceed with two of the schemes and work them up in much greater detail. The previous day on site meant that the 'sticks' scheme changed from a curved to a more vertical design, with floating canopies, the making having an effect on the designing. The current design for the 'modular' design are shown below.

Day on site...

Today was all about testing out 2 of our 3 proposals, one at 1:2, the other at full scale. By doing this we were able to sort out just how achievable some of the schemes would be, in terms of joints, the looks and size. The images below show some of the design processes.

Working the wood for jointing and consistancy.

Bending the wood for one of the options.

Construction details for another option.

Akari Lights - How they are made

http://www.vitra.com/en-it/home/products/akari-lights/#video/4DDCOWA9q7U

Feedback from meeting with Sarah and Helen 15.10.2009

We feel the site should be left as ‘natural’ as possible – ie. If
everything was moved off the site it would look like it did to begin with (apart maybe from some essential landscaping).

The yurts and pods would be seen as individual structures in their own space within the site. We’d like to offer our guests their own privacy with a sense of retreat and quiet. That said, if the need arose, we could erect a marquee/gazebo type structure to create a ‘common’ space for example a wedding party/large family gathering etc. The space needs to be flexible to accommodate the needs of different guest types.

We would also like to provide some seating that guests could use to their advantage whilst on the site. We envisage picnic tables with benches attached (or something similar) that could be positioned wherever guests felt they were of most use.

When describing the quality of the site, we would employ words such as rustic,
rugged, unaffected, genuine, open, relaxed, wild, organic and natural. These words try to convey the essence of how we would like the site to feel –we want to keep the materials we use organic and unpolished yet at the same time allow them to communicate a feeling of high quality and value.

We would also like the eco pods to be constructed from (local) timber and would be interested in investigating some of the designs you brought today. A nice addition which encompasses the ideas about growing veg etc, is the idea of a living roof, or solar/photo voltaic panel on each of the pods. We also thought that the sauna was a great idea but it would need to be kept quite small and perhaps be designed to look like another eco pod.

Finally as we want to offer accommodation all year round, the pods would need to be heated, perhaps by a stove or something similar that could perhaps be removed in the summer months, so something portable maybe like a small stove?

Friday Design Workshop

Friday's workshop allowed the group to exchange ideas and thoughts on the bike shed design. We all brought two designs to the table and each member had five minutes to work up every design in turn. The session proved extremely fruitful and we were left with a wall full of images.

Common concepts behind the ideas were drawn and we were able to group the designs in to three areas. Modular, Basket and Mechanical.

The three concepts will be further developed and taken to present to Ted on site on Wednesday. Play Safe

Good news on the Bradfield front

The meeting with Bradfield Parish went really well and they're a hundred percent behind the project. They're really interested in seeing what we come up with. To quote Sarah, 'It's full speed ahead!' Incidently, we're meeting up with Sarah and Helen next Thursday at 10.

04/10/09 - Site visit to Lower Bradfield

Post dated I know, but on Sunday we visited the site for our Eco-camping ground. The site is a field in the middle of woodland. Very tranquil and standing there for twenty minutes the 5th year portion of our group managed to come up with some initial ideas for a master plan.

Below are some of the photos taken:

As you can see the site is pretty much an over grown field, that is isolated from its surroundings by a wall of trees

07/10/09 - Testing techniques in the woods

We headed down t Ecclesall Woods bright and early to learn how to coppice trees in the "donkeyfield." Tom Jackson Hulme was suprised to find he'd chopped down the wrong kind of tree. Fortunatly it was already dying, he'd just put it out of its misery.

Once we had a decent stash of timber we headed back to the covered area of the saw mill to try our hand at a few basic jointing techniques, ways of cleaning the timber and we became aware of the challenge of using raw timber for a clean design aesthetic.

Will showed off his talent ripping bark from the wood on the shave horse.

While Ronan dazzled with his skills on the pole lathe.

As you can see some of the joints produced were a bit basic and rough and ready, but we came away with a bit of insight to help in the design process.