This has been a long time coming, here is what we have been up to for the past month.
We kicked off the start of the final project with a reverse brainstorm of the problems we thought were pertinent with our specific project. (First image) It was a quick secession of listing ideas that we thought could have issues later on in the project. The group came with eighty different possibilities ranging from financial blunders to aesthetics, construction, and feasibility of our design. Ranging from that we picked the problems that we considered long term and short term problems. The blue was marked as long term and the pink was short term. These series of exercises encompassed the span of the 6hr class. Then as a group we met on the next day, Wednesday. As a group we went over the entire list again, one problem at a time and discussed as if this was something we could feasibility manage within this one month of design and construction. Trying to solve the community issues is not a pertinent problem.
Making a second trip back to Detroit, Stephanie and myself went around the neighborhood and talked to whoever we cam upon the street. We talked to them about the powerhouse and and their opinion of it. Most people referred to it as Mitch's house more so than the powerhouse. People knew the couple were good people but most people did not know what was going on with the power house, except it was the house with the crazy green roof. We talked to the community about our ideas and aspirations for the project. Some people were intrigued about the fact it was a security measure because there is only one light on the street. Most of the people were not that interested at all, but everyone was friendly and willing to talk.
We then meet on the that Sunday to go over what we wanted this project to do. We concluded that having a mass multitude of something would serve our purpose the best. Concluding that 300 stalks of pvc would be the best bet. The only problem then was this idea of the lever arm. That the longer the stalk the easier that it would be to break. We had to pour a mock up piece and hit it with a bat, these were the result we saw. We first bent the pvc to see if it would fail, and surprisingly it did not. Bending it enough times it did kink. When it came to testing and the way the pvc did break that it was a hazard. The pvc broke in a way that was undetermined and not uniform. Which begged the question to we design this knowing it will fail that we design each stalk with some sort of moment that if it was broken, or were to break. The break would be clean and predetermined by us and there would not be any point shards. Also the pvc was way to easy to break. While hitting the pvc, only the outside two of the line of three broke. The outside took the blunt of the force, but if we were hitting it from the face, across all objects then the force was dispersed all objects and none broke.
After our series of testing we came up with a list of aspects what were essential to the construction of the piece:
adhesive
PVC
ploycarbonate
allot of crap
little of nice
sandblast
capping
pir proximity
pir cone
functions
T connection
drilled connection
secured by a screw
actually in the ground
stalks per unit
how many stalks per unit
linear distribution
arrayed distribution
stalk heights
how to wire
how much wiring
lights at bottom of tube
light at top of tube
wave guiding
etchings on the tube
spray paint
Going through the list and another series of testing these were the conclusion. Using spray paint on the pvc was not the best choice, the finish was not clean and uniform. Using gray pvc was ideal over the white pvc. In terms of cost and that the light did not shine through the gray pvc as it did the white pvc. Placing the light at the top of the stalk was the best orientation because having the light at the bottom, the light diminished when it got to the top even for a 1' length. We decided to do little of nice and allot of shit. So we chose the polycarbonate because it has a higher resistance to vandalism ad it looks much nicer. We decided on 2' stalks mostly because the stalks are shipped in 8ft lengths, anything else would be a plain waste. We decided to keep it simple, no etching on the tubes or spray paint, clean and crisp. There was no need for wave guiding because the light was placed at the top of the stalk.
The questions that still need to be answered is:
adhesive
finish
joint connection
pattern distribution
capping
pir distribution
stalks per unit
Then because we decided to use the polycarbonate we have another list of problems that need to be addressed, reason being that the polycarbonate is clear.
sandblasting
joint connection
capping
hide wires
wall thickness
