Movie Notes:

We watched “ Sketches of Frank Gehry,” in my materials and processes class.  It was a documentary that explored the life and the work of renowned architect Frank Gehry. It was directed by his friend that did not have any experience making a documentary (or using a videocamera apparently) , which is why Gehry thought he was the perfect man for the job. The result was a very intimate and sincere look at Gehry’s life, experience, and work. It showed his supporters and critics and didn’t hesitate to show some of the skeletons in the closet. While I was unsure how the movie pertained to the class content, the movie was interesting. It's a fascinating look into an architect who's broken lots of architect rules and decided to create buildings that don't look like anybody else's. Which I guess may be a creative process. The movie showed a great deal of gehry’s creative process. First he doodles on sketch pads. They dont look like building...they look like the work of a kindergartner.



A form emerges from the scribbling. He makes commands and occasionally helps as his assistant works with construction paper, scissors and tape to make a three-dimensional model from it. He tells assistant to move things and  to play with the model. Occasionally he tapes things …. His assistant cuts pieces of tape to hand to him. Eventually, it looks about right. His assistants use computer modeling to design a CAD model and to work out the stresses and supports. Gehry's buildings are so complex that he believes they would have been impossible before computers (which he does not know how to operate). Certainly the math would have been daunting. Computers assure him that his cardboard fancies are structurally sound. His road to this process was a long one as he began doing classic architecture. He hated doing “borring” buildings that clients wanted. The clients only wanted what already was because that’s all they have seen. Finally challenged by a client about why he was doing this if it wasn’t what he wanted gave gehry the realization that he should do just that. And he did. But he had to leave his wife and kids? Durring all of this gehry was dealing with his own identity and what he wanted. He worked with a psychologist who suggested that he needed to stop his fervent pursuit of architecture, or focus on his family. He chose to dedicate himself to his architecture.

Hallmark Symposium Notes:

A recent speaker at KU’s Hallmark Symposium was Matthias Pliessnig.  Although he pursues other artist ventures, He primarily uses "computer-aided curves with laborious craftsmanship" to handcraft chairs and benches. The furniture is made up of thin bands of white oak that is steamed and then bent to the desired shape. He gained inspiration from studying boat building at RISD. As he continued to go through his graduate studies, he took inspiration from the process of boatbuilding to create unique furniture designs. Many of the furniture pieces looked like unfinished boats with exposed ribbing. He also uses rhino CAD software to model the work digitally before actually making them. The digital model helps him to interact with other designers, architects, and clients. They often want to see what the piece will look like or how it will fit into a floor plan. It was interesting to hear that many public buildings are required to spend a certain percentage of the building cost on Art for public betterment. A mid-sized piece for him sells for $40,000 and takes around 2,000 hours to build. Even when he works with an assistant it takes a long time. The time set up each joint is very short. He has about 30 seconds to set up a single joint before the wood starts to lose it malleability. He has several hundred clamps that he works with at a time. The thing that interested me the most about Matthias’s work is the blend between using digital tools to design along with the pain staking work of classic craft. 

Field Trip Notes:

Star Signs is a company located in Lawrence that specializes in signage and graphic panels. They offer both design and manufacturing services to their clients. They are serving a client base that is far larger than just the surrounding area of Lawrence. They have major clients in KC, all around the Midwest, and even national ones. The major material they were using was aluminum. They shaped pieces using sheers, punches, or a CNC router. The pieces are then rolled, bent, or pressed to shape and then painted. They were equipped with a pantone booth for painting, allowing them to precisely match any color. They used Spooled gun TIG welding. They also an impressive array of printing abilities. They could print on most materials, including aluminum. They often contracted out electrical work or laser cutting work. It was cool to get a tour from a Recent KU ID grad and see where people are going in the industry. My criticism is that they didnt seem to harbor much of a design studio environment. The designer facilities didnt have life to them. 

Field Trip Notes:

The Reuter Organ Company is a producer of custom pipe organs. They have been  located in Lawrence Kansas since 1919. They are the one of four remaining organ companies in North America who make every component of an organ themselves. WHO KNEW! its cool to get out and see the industry in lawrence! They make custom pipe organs for customers around the world. Their typical clients include Churches, Colleges, Universities, Concert Halls, and the occasional private residence (some guy in Lawrence used to have one in his house.) The largest market for them is churches, due to the classic nature of the instrument and its connection with religious material.

Materials used in the pipe organs at Reuter range widely. They include copper, zinc, lead, tin, sheep skin, goat skin, kangaroo skin, various types of wood, plastic, and cow bone. The copper and zinc are used on large pipes (over 4ft. tall), and a lead/tin alloy is used on the smaller ones, with 50% of both components. They actually melted down tin and lead inguts in house and then spead them across a slate topped table to create sheets of material. The wood is used to create air reservoirs, as well as the varying types of skin. However, only sheep skin is used when creating the valves that open and close the pipes. Wood, plastic, and cow bone are used to create the keys that make up the console box, no ivory is used to create keys anymore. They have several plastic options that look like ivory. Larger pipe organs are generally constructed using copper or zinc. They also may use tin on some occasions. Copper and zinc are favored due to the sound qualities they are capable of producing. They also have their own in-house lumber mill to make custom lumber for various parts. Out of all the variety of woods they carry in-house, poplar is most commonly used since there are very few knots in the wood.

Reuter relies on many typically classic forms of woodworking tools ( planers, bandsaws, and table saws) They also have a CNC router that they use to remove knots and cut complex geometries for their custom trim used on the organs.  Their products can cost anywhere from $500,000 to $2 million. They said that much of that money is absorbed in labor costs because there is such a high cost to their production.  The design process itself can take anywhere from 3 months to 3 years, and the construction process can take between 12 weeks to 6 months.

Overall I was most impressed by their process of forming tin/lead sheets inhouse.

Materials and Processes:

How its made -

Incandescent light bulb

PRODUCT: an electric light which produces light with a wire filament heated to a high temperature by an electric current passing through it, until it glows. More than common, its seen in just about every residence and commercial building in developed nations.

Function: To provide light for the user. This is usually used in darker spaces where the level of visibility is not ideal. 

Personality: Industrial look. The light bulb has a utilitarian look to it. The bare bulb is usually concealed by a shade or panel that is more personable. 

Who makes it?  PHILIPS Lighting Company. Made in Holland

Markets: Worldwide market, for developed countries.

Materials: Glass, Ceramic, tungsten, phosphor, 

Process: the filament, is prepared by mixing tungsten and binder and then drawing the mixture into a fine wire around a steel mandrel. After heating the wire and then dissolving the mandrel with acid, the filament assumes its proper coiled shape. The The glass bulbs or casings are produced using a ribbon machine, which takes thin tubes of glass and blows them up to form a a bulb. A ribbon machine moving at top speed can produce more than 50,000 bulbs per hour. After the casings are blown, they are cooled and then cut off of the ribbon machine. Next, the inside of the bulb is coated with silica to remove the glare caused by a glowing, uncovered filament. The finishing Process is that a vacuum is created in the bulb and an argon mix put in.

Light bulbs are tested for both lamp life and strength. In order to provide quick results, selected bulbs are screwed into life test racks and lit at levels far exceeding their normal burning strength. This provides an accurate reading on how long the bulb will last under normal conditions. Testing is performed at all manufacturing plants as well as at some independent testing facilities. The average life of the majority of household light bulbs is 750 to 1000 hours, depending on wattage.

Check this out! I am thinking of all the applications that this could be used for. "Everything can be a lamp with LumiLor," writes Darskide Scientific, the company that developed it. LumiLor is a patented coating that glows when a current is applied to it. (And yes, it's safe to touch, as it's sealed and insulated.) The brilliance of the system is that since it's water-based, you can load it up into any paintspraying system or airbrush and you're off to the races.

The patented LumiLor™ Electroluminescent Coating System  is a practical and durable electroluminescent (EL) coating technology that is energized with an electrical current. Used in conjunction with simple driver electronics LumiLor’s light can be controlled while being applied to almost any surface. It can even go over curves and around corners.

Simply hit a switch to turn LumiLor on and electroluminescent (EL) light is generated, effectively transforming any surface coated into a lamp. And when the power is turned off, surfaces coated with LumiLor return to their normal appearence.