Day 13

Today is the 13th day since the Domes' Day. I decided to pay our dome a visit after our afternoon lecture. 

On the way there, I saw several domes had collapsed while some others have parts and pieces unattached to the respective domes anymore. I was praying hard that Prairie's baby is still standing strong despite being told numerous times by my group mates that our dome is still in good shape.

And... IT REALLY IS! 

Back View

Side View

Front View

Front View, again.

I'm so proud of the dome. Even though it's simple, it's pretty good. Hope it will stand as long as possible before we are told to take it down.

While I'm smiling all the way, snapping pictures of the dome, I've been attacked by some blood-eater mozzies (big fat mosquitoes!) but it's worth it to know that Prairie's hard work is still looking good :D

*fingers crossed!* 

Note

Just a note to notify readers that you might have seen several similar pictures here from other blogs as my group members share pictures which were taken by two cameras.

You might see similarities of images in the following web pages :

- http://www.freewebs.com/layanbo/          (La Yanbo)

- http://www.freewebs.com/pheili                (Ng Phei Li)

- http://www.raelynnrag132.blogspot.com  (Ong Rae Lynn)

- http://www.karenwongcf.blogspot.com     (Wong Chung Fong)

~ Thank you ~

Production of the Built Environment : Our Dome in the Dome Spine

Date : 10th September 2008

In our earlier lectures, we were given guidance by CikWan on our assignment, the DOME. Our Intention is to form a group of five and build a geodesic dome. We have decided to build a 1V dome after considering our resources. We went to CikWan for more advices and we are grateful that CikWan is willing to spend some time with us, giving us ideas and suggestions.

My team, which is the Actor, carries the name PRAIRIE and my group members include La Yanbo, Ng Phei Li, Ong Rae Lynn and Wong Chung Fong. All five of us worked together from the beginning till our Domes Day cooperatively. I am very happy to have them in my group as all of us had very memorable moments together, including the time when we challenged Yanbo to assemble the dome all by himself in 15 minutes.

The Rules set by CikWan include zero cost, packaged, prefabricated, the dome should be able to accomodate five besides being able to be carried by three people, to assemble the dome in 30 minutes by only team members and the dome should carry team's identity. 

Our dome is made up of mop sticks, screws and butterfly nuts which I had asked from my juniors as we, girl guides, use a lot of mop sticks and the mop sticks will then be stored a room until the incoming office bearers clear them up at the end of the year. We had made use of several boxes as our package so it would be convenient to be carried around. The boxes will be recycled while the mop sticks, screws and butterfly nuts will be re-used for other purposes. One of our members wished to take the dome home to be HIS clothes-line. ~.~ Well, it is therefore, recyclable, creatively.

We estimated the lifespan of the dome to be around 30 days, taking into account of the weather and the topography. Our site is on a slope which would be of disadvantage should it rain heavily as we did not have a proper foundation to withstand the rain water flowing from the top.

There are 39 groups on that day which are arranged as a Dome Spine and our Site is situated at Site Number 33. 

We started our Act by having discussion at Roti Bakar and after deciding on our materials and other details, we started building the dome with rafia. After a short talk with CikWan, we decided to change our plan. We decided to connect the domes using screws instead.

The following are the pictures of the production of our dome.

Actor : Prairie

Intention : To build a geodesic dome

Act : Check out the dome calculator website

Rule : It must be a geodesic dome

Site : Yanbo's place

Product : Measurement of each struts based on the radius

Actor : Prairie

Intention : To minimize or avoid mistakes totally

Act : Check other websites and see examples of geodesic dome

Rule : Geodesic dome

Site : Internet

Product : Confirmation of measurements

Actor : Ng Phei Li

Intention : To measure the struts

Act : Mark on the mop sticks for Yanbo to saw

Rule : Struts of the same length

Site : Yanbo's place

Product : Twenty four 1.1m long struts

Actor : La Yanbo

Intention : To saw the mopsticks as measured

Act : Saw the mop sticks

Rule : To follow the marking

Site : Balcony

Product : Twenty four 1.1m long struts

Actor: Wong Chung Fong

Intention : To cut the rafia

Act : Measure one-arm length and cut the rafia

Rule : Not to waste resources

Site : Yanbo's place

Product : Bunches of rafia which were not used in the end due to change of plans

Actor : Tan Li Ling

Intention : To connect the struts

Act : Trial and error with rafia

Rule : To be built as a geodesic dome

Site : Yanbo's place

Product : Connected struts

Actor : Ong Rae Lynn

Intention : To prepare the report

Act : Take pictures, type and sketch the dome

Rule : The paper must be of 210 mm x 210 mm in size

Site : 210 mm x 210 mm papers

Product : Report

Actor : Prairie

Intention : To make the dome look presentable

Act : Paint the struts

Rule : Zero cost

Site : Yanbo's place

Product : Prairie's baby ---> the dome

More pictures - the weekend before Domes Day

Actor: Rae Lynn and Yanbo 

Intention : Create a package with recycled boxes

Act : Cut and connect the boxes with tapes to make a package

Rule : Zero cost and recyclable

Site : Yanbo's place

Product : Package for the dome

Actors : La Yanbo, Karen Wong Chung Fong, Ng Phei Li, Tan Li Ling, 

Ong Rae Lynn (holding the camera)

Intention : To assemble the dome in 30 minutes.

Act : Work together cooperatively and time ourselves.

Rule : To complete in 30 minutes

Site : Yanbo's place

Product : Assembled the dome in 15 minutes

Tadaa...

Product : Dome.

Actors : Prairie

Intention : To come out with a report describing our dome

Act : Take pictures, type the report and draw sketches of our dome

Rule: Use 210mm x 210 mm papers

Site : 210 mm x 210 mm papers. Phew...

Product : Report as shown above

Actor : Prairie

Intention : To carry the dome down to the car

Act : Dismantle the dome and put it in the box

Rule : To be carried by three people

Site : Yanbo's apartment compound

Product : Carried the dome by only one person

On the Domes Day, all of us gathered in E48A for a briefing by CikWan before proceeding to the Temple to hand in our report, take a group picture and for the Carryability Test Path. Our site is at number 33, which is situated rather far away from HBP. We were pretty exhausted by the time we arrived at our site but we went on assembling the dome without delaying any further. Even though our site is far, it is shaded thus we do not feel the warmness as bad as the first few groups whereby their sites are not shaded by trees.

Below are the pictures during the Domes Day.

Pictures above and below are  from http://www.hbp.usm.my/1b/RAG132/2008/domeregist.htm

Prairie's baby... On site ---> SITE NO. 33 (at the valley)

ACTORS

From left : Karen, Yanbo, Rae Lynn, Li Ling, Phei Li

Visiting other group's domes. This looks good...

This looks adorable

Made of cardboards. That's a lot of work.

PRAIRIE

When there's a will, there's always a way

Product

Lecture 3 : Product

Date of Lecture : 3rd September 2008

How do you look at a product?

One would want his/her product to look beautiful.

But then again, what makes a product beautiful?

One answered the quality, another answered the materials used.

To humans, our largest organ is the material that makes us beautiful, that is, our skin.

What properties does the skin have to make us beautiful?

A tanned skin? A fair, glowing skin maybe? Or skin with freckles?

In some cultures, when a baby is born fair, she will always be praised as beautiful. BUT, when a baby is born dark, many will just keep quiet. Does that imply that the baby is not beautiful or somewhat ugly? Some say 'hitam manis'. Yea, I get that most of the time because I am a bit too dark for a Chinese. ^.^

Is she beautiful? Wait, she's not me.

Source of picture picasaweb.google.com

We, students, are a product to the lecturers. Thus, if we do not understand what the lecturer is trying to say, can we say it's a failed production?

Based on the seven scales which we learnt last in the previous lecture, a product may have several elements which are form & space, nodes & paths and illusion.

A form will have the following attributes : 

Colour, texture, pattern, shape, transparency/translucency, light, proportion, scale, size, shape, glow, shine and finished.

Most people will focus on form. However, there are some who say that space is more important.

For a product to have form and space, we'll need nodes and paths.

The attributes of form and space show the identity. Thus in our Assignment B, we need to show our team's identity, by way of our team name or motto.

For our dome, we are building it in the object scale as the basic producing components, the interior and building scale upon the assembly of the components, the premise scale as it is located on a site, the urban scale as all domes are forming the dome spine and the global scale as we're uploading the documentation on the Internet. However, we are not applicable for the regional scale as we are doing it within our school.

With the motto and team names, an essay may be created to determine the sites of the individual domes. 

The production of the Dome Spine will illustrate our Identity.

Site (Scale of the Built Environment)

Lecture 2 : Site (Scale of the Built Environment)

Date of Lecture : 27th August 2008

~ Every object produced must be placed on a site ~

We must have KNOWLEDGE beforehand to have our INTENTION.

Knowledge, however, is a product of another production. For example, we LISTEN, SEE and UNDERSTAND something to gain KNOWLEDGE. 

There are seven scales which are :

- Object

- Interior

- Building

- Premise

- Urban

- Regional

- Global

Intentions are the ideologies, design, theories which we understand from. Act is the scope of work which involves the development procedures. Product, on the other hand, is the design of physical object to physical world. Actors may involve the industrial designer, interior architect, architect, landscape architect, urban designer, planner and governor depending on the scale. Rules are the legal aspects of development. Site may vary from factories to Internet due to the globalisation.

The Earth is labelled as a dying planet as many things in this world have expiry dates. It is just the matter of when. How long more can human survive in this planet?

www.peterrussell.com

Will our future be like what is shown in Wall E? From natural site to a man-made ship sent to the galaxy. Do we want to live in the Axiom? Everything is so simple, we live in bliss and we neglect whatever that is happening to us. Everything is computerized. All we do is sleep, eat, talk to friends via computer although he/she is just next to you. I definitely do not to live my life that way. Even though it is pretty tempting to lead a life such simple.

Back to the topic, the Earth will face difficulties in supporting humans and other living organisms if the destruction to the Earth by the the Earthlings continues. Many claimed to be Environmentalist but how many of them really is one?

When there is a need to compete to survive, only the stronger ones will live. Cannibalism is inevitable when resources become scarce and we need to fight for our lives.