Intension

What i have got from my lectures and my lecturer Cik Wan?
I started to realise that i've gain many information and knowledge while i'm constructing my virtual site. In order to make my site more infomative, i have to browse the internet and read up some books. We were also given a chance to gain real experience through our assignment in building a dome and take photograph of the convocation. In the process of constructing the dome, i have got a clearer picture of all the elements of a production.

Besides that, Cik Wan have explored me with many new vocabs that i've never seen or hear before like "iatrogenocide", "eurocentrism", "celestial".... I have to read up the links that Cik Wan have posted in his site and browse the internet in order to understand all these terms. In the process, i have gain many extra information and it's like exploring something which is new to me. I feel that my lecturer, Cik Wan have came out with a good approach for us as we have to read up for ourself, find information through internet and books, experience a real construction of a dome in order to understand the lectures more clearly and gather everything what we have gain in a virtual site. This approach has been very useful to me as a uni student and there is no more spoon feeding like when we were in high school.

Although it is only a short 4 weeks lecture, i would like to thank my lecturer Cik Wan again for his hard work to prepare all the contents for his site and slides which have explored me with such a great number of new things and knowledge. I do appreciate all of it.

The Dome Spine

The dome spine can also be seen in the built environment by using different scale that we have learnt. I will use my dome as an example.

Object: The components

Ropes

Woods (Kayu Mertam)

Interior: The interior of the dome can accommodate 5 person

Building: The Dome

Premise: The dome with lanscape around it

Urban: The Dome SpineThe dome spine in USM

Regional: Penang Island (Gelugor)

For region i would say Gelugor of the penang island where USM is located.

Global: My Virtual SiteMy virtual site can be viewed by everyone around the world so i would consider it as a global scale.

Assignment B- Geodesic Dome(10/9/08)

Report on Project Schedule
1st Meeting: Planning and Material Determination
Date: 27 August 2008
Data: Gather opinions from each member. Material selection has been made. Opinion analysis has been made and choice of selection is made.
Conclusion: Choose for wood material but not too heavy to enable transportation system. We search for wood in forest but failed. We sketch and calculate the size of the dome. We found out that 2V dome is suitable for us and we decided to use the appropriate scale that we have calculated for our dome.

2nd Meeting: Practical Building 1
Date: 3 September 2008
Data: Material gathered. Practice on merging the product and design the structure.
Conclusion: Finally one of our members passed a coffin shop and she sees lights. We decided to use the wood that those material that has been used by that shop. The shopkeeper agreed to provide us excessive wood material. After gathered up all the material, we started to build our foundation for the dome. We accomplished the dome foundation within 4 hours.

3rd Meeting: Practical Building 2
Date: 5 September 2008
Data: Structure confirmation has been made.
Conclusion: We started to make our roof and finally combined them together to form a dome. Sugar bags are collected and sealed them up into one piece. We are trying to form a large piece of shelter for the dome. We succeed.

4th Meeting: 30 Minutes Training
Date: 9 September 2008
Data: Trial on overall project. Prefabricated pieces are formed into one in time.
Conclusion: We practice on how we build the dome in time. We separate the job evenly. Final practice has been made.

Intension
Idea:
- To experience a real construction.
- To enable a practical learning space for actors to learn the actual construction.
- To be holistic, analyzing the whole system of believes.
- Learn to consider all factors before construction.
- To be simulative, reproduce features of something exist.

Decision Made:
- Rules given

- Site given
- Actors selected
- Product detail given

Group formed: 5 people with at least one different in major
Product to be established: A Geodesic Dome
Rules: Zero cost, Packaged, Prefabricated, Accommodate 5, Carry able by 3, Assembled in 30min.
Site: Inside of campus, starting from school of HBP.

Actor

The actors for this production involved 5 people(me and the other 4 members).

Me and my team members work together to tie the knots.

Act

With 5 members in a group, we worked together in the process of preparing the pentagon for the dome and built the dome on dome's day which was on 10/9/08.

The innitial phase:-

Prepare the pentagon to bring to the site.

Below are the processes involved to prepare the pentagon.

1. Collecting and cutting the woods(kayu mertam).

2. Tying up the pentagons with different knots

Final Phase:-
Build up the dome on the site given by connecting all the pentagon.

~working on site~

Rules
The rules given are:-
1. Zero cost
2. Packaged
3. Prefabricated
4. Accommodate 5
5. Carry able by 3
6. Assembled in 30min.

Zero Cost
Ropes are collected at dock where fisherman used to tie boat knot. We cleaned it with fresh water before we used it.

Kayu Mertam is collected from hearse and coffin shop where Chinese used them to construct sculpture to burn for dead people. The woods were cut into the size we want.

All our material is recyclable. Coconut ropes can be connected by using machine into long-chain coconut fiber ropes. The Kayu Mertam is a natural and biodegradable material; light and not heavy, merging into one piece by factory to form a wood platform. It can be said that our dome is environmental friendly.

Accomodate by 5 people

It’s packaged and formed by 6 pieces of pentagon wall. It can accommodate 5 people and carry able by 3peoples. No steel material has been used, therefore no rusting condition will occur.
It’s prefabricated. The lifespan of the dome should be more than one year due to the product has been strengthen and reinforced with x-panel.

The entire dome fulfills all the requirements listed. Rules is followed.

Site
The site given is shown as below. My group was place in no.3.

The PRODUCTION

Geodesic Dome Selected: 2VSize of radius: 1 meter. The walls were constructed with 5 pentagons and 1 roof (pentagon also).

Pentagon: Formed by 5 sticks with 0.55 meters tie at the center and the other end of the sticks is connected with another stick with 0.62 meters.The pentagon is actually formed by 5 isosecles triangles.

6 pentagons will merge with each other at each edge to form a geodesic dome. After merging the pentagon’s wall, many equilateral triangles with 0.62 meters will be formed at each side of the triangles.

Our Production~!

With this project, i have a better view about the production model and i would like to thanks Cik Wan, my lecturer for his intension to help us to gain so many extra knowledge.

Brief for Assignment B

Geodesic Dome

1. Intension- Experiential, holistic, stimulative learning

2. Act-Design, build, assemble

3. Actor- Team of 5 people

4. Rule- zero cost, packaged, prefabricated, accommodate by 5, carryable by 3, assemble in 30 minutes, show team identity.

5. Site- On HBP premise

6. Product- A geodesic dome

Assembly: 10 September 2008

Time: 11.30-12.00noon

Life: 2 month

Recyclable

Further changes in rule:

Team members: at least ONE from a different major.
Team leaders need to submit the particular of their team in the form provided in the web site.

Lifespan: Not more than 12 months.
Links: Not linked to other domes, i.e. independent, standalone.

Team Report:
-Each team must submit a report illustrating all the above rules including the lifespan of the proposed dome and what the materials can be recycled into.
-Report (210mmX210mm) must be bound with a front and back covers.
-The front cover must carry the team name, the members and majors, motto, and a sketch of the proposed dome.
-Submission: 10:00am, 10 September, E48A.

Lecture 3- Product: Basis of Forms of the Built Environment.(3/09/08)

On all seven scales, a product may be viewed as having the following elements- form-space, nodes-paths and illusion.

FORM
"Architectural form is the point of contact between mass and space... Architectural forms, textures, materials, modulation of light and shade, colour, all combine to inject a quality or spirit that articulate space. The quality of the architecture will be determined by the skill of the designer in using and relating these elements, both in the interior spaces around building."

Edmund N. Bacon
The Design Cities
1974

Defination
Form is an inclusive term that has severalmeaning. It may refer to an external appearance that can be recognized, as that of a chair or the human body that sit on it. It may also allude to a particular condition in which something acts or manifests itself, as when we spaeck of water in the form of ice ar steam. In art and design, we often usethe term to denote the formal structure of a work- the manner of arranging and coordinating the elements and parts of a compostition so as to produce a coherent image. Form also suggests reference to both internal strcuture and external outline and the priciple tha gives unity to the whole. while form often includes a sence of three dimensional mass or volume, shape refers more specifically to the essential aspect of form that governs its appearance- the configuration of relative disposition of the lines or contours that delimit a fogure or form.

Attributes of form
Shape
Size
Colour
Texture
Finished
Glow
Shine
Pattern
Transparency/ translucency
Heavy
Light
Proportion
Scale

Forms also have relational properties that govern the pattern and composition of elements:
Position
Orientation
Visual Innertia

Space
"We put thirty spokes together and call it a wheel; But it's on the space where there is nothing that the utiliry of the wheel depends. We turn clay to make a vessel; But it is on the space where there is nothing that the utility of the vessel depends. We pierce doors and windows to make a house; and it's on these spaces where there is nothing that the utility of the house depends. Therefore, just as we take advantage of what is, we should recognize theutility of what is not."

Lao-tzu
Tao Te Ching
6th century B.C.

Space constantly encompasses our being. Through the volume of space, we move, see forms, hear sounds, feel breezes, smellthe fragrances of a flower garden in bloom. It is a material substance like wood or stone. Yet is is an inherently formless vapor. Its visual form, its dimensions and scale, the quality of its light- all of these qualities depend on our perception of the spatial boundaries defined by elements of form. As space begins to be captured, enclosed, molded, and organized by the element s of mass, architecture comes into being.

A space would also be structured as nodes and path.

Illusion
A product may also be an illusion.

What is illusion?
We can perceive our environment through visual and auditory sensations. Since we do this easily and naturally, we are generally unaware of our visual and auditory functions in daily life. Occasionally, however, we fail to acquire information correctly. Dreams or hallucinations, of course, are not real, and we can have wrong perceptions if we are seriously ill, injured, or tired. Abnormal sensations are also common in cases of brain damage or drug abuse. Illusions, on the other hand, are wrong visual or auditory perceptions that an unimpaired person, even though s/he understands them to be false, still sees or hears.

In a visual illusion, one will see the wrong size or position of a figure or fail to judge brightness, color, and motion. In audition, one will hear a sound that does not actually exist, or make mistakes judging loudness, pitch, and location. We have two types of illusions. The first type happens when all information is given at the same time. The other type happens when pieces of information are presented sequentially. This is called the aftereffect. Vision and audition may work together to cause illusions. We know that because of a familiar phenomenon called constancy, we usually do not recognize illusions. Size constancy means we see the same size figures independent of their distance from us. Color constancy causes us to see the same hue of surfaces of objects independent of lightning. Our tactile sensation may also give us interesting illusions that are analogous to visual illusions. Though we do not have comprehensive information, olfactory and gustatory sensations might happen to provide illusions.

References:
1. My lecturer, Cik Wan site: http://www.hbp.usm.my/1b/RAG132/2008/L3product.htm
2. http://www.brl.ntt.co.jp/IllusionForum/basics/index-e.html
3. Architecture- Form, Space, & Order (Third Edition)