DESIGN PROCESS:
Buildings/ architectures in Shanghai have always been a very important part of my life. When going on city walks or taking pictures of streets in Shanghai (and other cities as well), I am always attracted to these exquisitely designed architecture. And these architectures are usually perfect for sketching considering my poor sketching skills :0
Having the idea in mind, I decided to dig my phone album for photos of Shikumen buildings I took. Growing up I. Shanghai, Shikumen buildings played a very important role in my grandparents and parents’ childhood. However, I have never lived in one before. It is really such a pity that the Shikumen my dad used to live in for 10ish years were taken down by the government. The good news is he took me there before the deconstruction; but the sad thing is it didn’t leave me with deep impression.
Anyways, I really want to use this project to show/ present a part of my identity as a Shanghainese. ✨ I want to present one of the prettiest sides of this city. 📸
TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENT
- I did encountered much struggling during the design process. So actually for the three iterations, they are more like my experiments with different ways of construction.
- Experiment with the pipes: I wanted to construct the patterns on those Shikumen buildings, so I used pipes/ multi pipes. But the pipes I made are not thick enough to be printed. So I gave up😭. But it laid foundation for my idea of creating rectangles for the arch shape.
- Another experiment for making the column patterns | reference link
- Experiment with the pipes: I wanted to construct the patterns on those Shikumen buildings, so I used pipes/ multi pipes. But the pipes I made are not thick enough to be printed. So I gave up😭. But it laid foundation for my idea of creating rectangles for the arch shape.
- Iterations
- What I could have done better is definitely how to make the thingy more printable. I constructed so many surfaces that after baking everything to Rhino, I realized they were not the printable surfaces. So I tried cap holes/ connect Breps … (basically what ever I could, as long as they could work) The code was really messy
- As for the construction of the shape, I would like to know more about how to construct the very detailed column patterns and the tiles. One concern is that my computer couldn’t handle these amount of code 🙁
- Lists: I think I am getting more familiar with the list functions, but to get my ideal result more quickly, I might have chosen a more complicated way to do the list.
- Graphs: I’m not sure how things will turn out to be if I used the default graph settings. I think maybe I don’t need the RICHED GRAPH MAPPER. However, this extension did give me more space to play with the graphs.
Notes on LIST: (reference video )
- Reverse List: reverse the sequence
- List length: how many data in the list
- Subset: create a domain and take the items in the domain out
- Dispatch: Use boolean to create pattern and select items
- Split List: Split the list into anything below the item number & anything above (can be combined with list length and math operations)
- I tended to mix the three a lot. Dispatch is more about the BOOLEAN values
- List Item: take out very specific items in the list; can use panel to take out multiple ones
- Weave: weave 2 lists of items together (use boolean as well)
- Partition list: choose the size of the items you want to break the original list into
- Sort: sort a list into another list (rearrange the items in the list)
- Pick and choose: take a bunch of list and sort them into a new list according to a pattern (true/false)
Notes on Grasshopper Masks (reference website)
Reflection & Future Development
- I love this project a lot because the Shikumen buildings are really an important part of me. I feel like right now these three little magnets are very similar to those sold at the souvenir stores: poorly made but full of good memories. I also love the choices of color! The grey/ brown colors are the color of the Shikumen buildings! 🙂
- I really would love to make the Shikumen more exquisitely designed. Professor Lena Scheen from Global China Studies department told me that she has been looking for these kind of models of Shanghai, but they were all so poorly made. I would love to contribute more to the education of my city 🙂 And I wonder how to better make those arches and details. Maybe I need to make one lager model, and rescale the model according to the door.
- As for the function of this little magnet, it is true that I can add a transparent layer so that it could function better as a frame. Right now, it is easy to put Polaroid pictures inside using tac it. But it would be better if it could hold more kinds of pictures.
- I’d also make those ones that can hold horizontal pictures to make it more inclusive.
References:
These are the designs for the Shikumen. Pic 1 taken by me near 张园；pic 2 found on Baidu, it’s Xin tian di 新天地；pic 3 is actually a small village in a Hongkong island called Tai’o, which I love VERY MUCH!!
- How to construct the bricks | reference
- Other references can be found in previous documentation
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