Conclusion Post

After establishing that concrete pillars were thecore of the building at UTS, our design evolved into the form a vine – The vine is an ever‐growingweed that tangles and spirals its way up healthyand larger trees in natural environments,representing the core. Our greater installation isproposed to be displayed on the harbour bridge.We feel this is an iconic trademark of Sydney. Itrepresents the core of Sydney as it joins thenorthern and eastern sides of the city tieing backto our concept of exposing the core structure.This installation will promote sustainability andbeing environmentally friendly to a wider rangeof people.

Vine Development

So the vine is probably the aspect that has changed the most.

While initially, we started with three seperate vines, as I began work on the first vine, we realised that as it had to be 6 meters long, it was not feasble time-wise to make three. I had initially hoped to make two full length 6-meter vines but similarly was faced with time issues. I spent around 7 hours sewing the first vine!

I began by sewing rows of hexagons together until they were 6 meters in length and then sewing these two rows of hexagons together. I used a zig-zag stitch at 4.5mm width and 1mm length. This created an unusual look that sort of resembled a catapillar trail that I really liked. I then created triangles to fill in the gaps at the edge and sewed a strip of fabric onto the edges that I turned into a seam and put wire in.

I made sure the ends met.

For the second vine that would be wrapped around the pillar I just sewed the hexagons together leaving gaps to create a different effect. Below is an image of the second vine.






We then pinned the flowers on in the installation!

Manipulating hexagons within a space

Combining hexagons with triangles

Inspiration of contrasting nature within a built environment

Our group met outside of class and came to conclusion that in order to evenly divide up the assignment and utilize our time efficiently, allocating specific tasks to each person would be the best option. Libby and Katherine worked together to form and create the structure of the flowers and Benedict sketched out ideas of how to construct the vine effectively. After agreeing with our final solutions we began making our hyperbolic model. Libby and Katherine cut out five hundred hexagons of two different sizes. We used two different coloured green cotton fabrics and then gave all the hexagons to Benedict so that she could start sewing the vine. Libby and Katherine had created four different flowers during our experimentation process;

1) Hexagons of all different sizes, centre smaller than outside petals and wire around each petal sewn in between two fabrics to form 3D realistic flowers

2) Hexagons of all the same size a bit smaller than the first flower with wire sticky taped to each petal connected to the centre point and again in between two fabrics with the centre hexagon being a different colour.

3) Hexagons the same size as the previous flower but using paper instead of material and no wire.

4) The net of the flower is fabric and fused together with another fabric and then sewn around the edges.

We particularly liked the second and fourth flowers to use for our final model because they looked realistic and were the neatest outcomes.

Idea Development.

After this class we began drawing up our installation and elaborating on our concept. We came to the conclusion that animals and water were unnecessary and our idea would be conveyed just as convincingly with only the vine and things that are generally attached to it.(leaves and flowers).

We knew how we wanted the vine to look, know it was a matter of converting our idea into a hyperbolic 3D shape purely made of hexagons.

Experimentation was the first stage of our modeling process. We selected our natural materials for the vines, leaves and flowers; we bought florist wire, created net shapes for each of the objects and began figuring out the best ways of completing each of our tasks ahead.

Initial Post

This week we found out that we were going to be in a group just the three of us (Bene, Libby and Katherine) which is not only going to make it more challenging, I also think it will make it more interesting as there won't be as many conflicting ideas and it will be easier to share thoughts etc.

We initially began brainstorming potential ideas and decided that we much prefer the idea of the hyperbolic to crocheting. Hyperbolic, we found, gave us more options and was a far more interesting route to us. We came up with some ideas such as exploring the hyperbolic structure to create 3D shapes and from this we thought of the 3D shapes of animals or birds.

We continued to develop this idea until we realised that the best installation was within university on the pillars- we think a vine would be a good idea with the flowers and birds attached to the vine- maybe even a river at the base of the pillar?

We also decided that we should use ALL NATURAL fibres/fabrics to develop a concept that is all about nature/the conflicting nature of natural surroundings and the UTS building. It seems that we are developing the concept of "while UTS is striving to be more environmentally friendly, we can still see unsustainable aspects" (This would be demonstrated through the exposure of the pillar).