Sacked by the "downturn", an unemployed architect touring the country in a bus...




I used to live in New York City. I designed homes for the tycoons of Wall Street; Park Avenue, Scarsdale, Greenwich. It was great fun. And, after years of saving up for a down payment, I was just about to buy my own little place in Fleetwood, half an hour north of the city, when the economy fell apart. Architects are like canaries in a coal mine when the economy slows, and true to form, there were massive layoffs in firms all over the country. Devastation of the profession. So, I decided to try to find something else to do for a while. I bought a 23' school bus and I'm on the road to see if I can figure out what that might be.

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Design is an evolutionary process

I love pencil and paper; it's interactive.  I put down a sketch, and immediately see alternatives or the next step.  Tracing paper goes over and a new sketch goes over the first, and so forth.  If a sketch is good to suggest the next idea, then a 3-D mock up is fantastic.  Maybe this will be a series of evolutionary models.  I installed arms and the back bone today, but I'm not happy with the marriage between the top half of the chair and the bottom half.  Now, the arm rest supports are not yet trimmed at their tops, I left extra wood to be able to tweak the arm rest positions, so what's there now looks a bit heavier than it will when the tops are trimmed.  But, I am also thinking that maybe the arms and side legs should be all one continuous shaped piece, and the front and back legs as well as the back rest support could also be all one piece.  I have to try some things.  I am certain the corners of the seat should be less aggressive.  I like the forward motion implied by the angles of the legs and will try to emphasize that.  The back is leaning to far back....

I did sit on this for a few seconds, even though there is no glue in the joints and there are no ties across the bottom.  It felt pretty good... :-)

No comments:

Post a Comment