Combs

I have been advised by my tutors to look at stacking the floor plates up on combs to check the overall height gain relating to the acrylic tolerance. Once I have measured the overall height of all the floorplates when they are at their correct heights, I can then check the overall thickness of the material and work out how tall the internal walls need to be to achieve the correct height.

Privacy blade flashings

On the top of the floor slabs that protrude outside the glazing there is a flashing which can be seen on my mock up model. I chose this as the method in which to fit the copper privacy blades. I chose to make it in two parts to recreate the shadow gap which occurs on the actual building. Making the underside solid would also block off the holes in the floorslab that I have created to locate the top of the copper privacy blades as there is no flashing on the underside of the slabs.



The slab edge detail taken from the architects drawings can be seen above.

Interior representation

At a scale of 1:75 the interiors of the floors will be visible. After speaking to Mike Fairbrass on my visit to RHS+P he thought that I should show some representation of the domesticity of the pavillion at this scale. I have managed to find a floor plan from a website which shows all the rooms and their use can be deciphered from the furniture illustrated. I now need to decide how much of the interior I am going to represent with my model.

Balcony Steels

I have decided to laser cut the balcony steelwork so that they are included as part of the floor slabs, this will avoid the need to assemble at a later date and make sure they are level, in the correct location and line up, however because the steelwork is black I will have to make sure that the masking off is done well so I dont get any overspray onto the white paint.

Laser Cut Slabs

The floor slabs are such an irregular shape that I have laser cut them out. The thickness of the acrylic is 3mm which is the equivelant to the thickness of the slab on the building. Laser cutting will allow all the slabs to line up accurately. There is a lot of vertical details which tie all the floor slabs into each other from a visual perspective. As the floor slabs are laser cut there will be little tolerance, as such the components that I will be making by hand will need to be to the same level of accuracy.

CAD model

As the floor plates are a none square layout I have opted to laser cut them to ensure they are accurate and identical to each other. To allow for a better understanding of the architects drawings and to ensure that I have understood them correctly, as well as creating the drawings for the laser cutter I have opted to create a full CAD Model of the model. This will allow me to forsee any problems I may have in the construction process as well as gain a better understanding of the building. It will also allow me to make sure in my own mind I know the layout of the building and I can iron out any areas which I am unsure about before I start cutting materials. I felt that this was an essential process due to the quantity of material that I will be using. If I had interpreted the information incorrectly this could be a very costly mistake.

Angle Cutting

There are concrete columns which run vertically through the floor slabs, these columns protrude out from the building at an angle of 35.5°. The thickness of the columns equates to 5mm on my model which means I can accommodate their thickness by using 5mm thick acrylic sheet. To cut the angle accurately I used an inclinometer rather than using the angle guide built into the circular saw which I found to be slightly out.

To create the columns I used the thickness of material closest to the thickness which the actual column scales down to.


Again I used the inclinometer to make sure the circular saw blade was set to the correct angle before I started cutting.



The image below shows the circular saw guide when the inclinometer is set at 36°. Unfortunately it's almost half a degree out, out as can be seen, over the size of the column on the model this would be far too much to accommodate.




If the 8mm material was laid flat on the bed, the blade of the circular saw doesn't tilt over enough to create the correct angle. The best way around this was to cut a strip of material to the correct width, turn it on its end and then using double sided tape stick it to a piece of MDF which can then be run along the fence.

Laser Cut Card for Window Detail

I was unhappy with the finish I got with the masking tape and spraying the windows. I wanted a crisper detail. The window details are almost flush with the glazing which dictated the spray on detail. However as this didnt work I looked into the possibilities of adding a layer on top of the glazing. 1mm thick acrylic would sit too proud of the glazing line at this scale, I mocked up a layer cut from card. The potential problem with this was the sticking down of the card layer to the acrylic. I opted to use emulsion glue. As the glazing can be seen from the inside of the floor space, and as a way to hide the emulsion glue I also chose to cut a card layer and stick it on the inside of the glazing as well.