During my junior year in high school I decided I wanted to take an independent study. Investigating two contemporary buildings that interest me and recreate and remodel them with new technologies such as 3D modeling and rendering, 3D printing, and laser cutting. I am most interested in the shape and space aspects of architecture and design, and I wanted to learn and study these buildings to better inform me for the making phase of the process.

The most important aspects of my independent study are the tangible work I produced for each of my final renditions of a structure. My culminating project would have been put on display in the art gallery at Greenwich Academy to share my ideas and work with my community. Due to Covid-19, I wasn't able to finish my independent study physically, so instead, I used Fusion 360 to build, render, and animate my design.

Before school was let out, I was putting the finishing touches on my Oculus inspired building, and just about to start building my Hearst Tower-inspired building. Unfortunately for my independent study, I was only able to build the Oculus-inspired building. With the help of my advisor Ms. Riley we decided it would be best for me to finish my Oculus design in Fusion 360 and to leave out the Hearst Tower building due to lack of material and resources.

Inspiration

Planning and Building

Materials

• Plywood
• Balsa wood
• Round and square dowels
• Diffuser paper
• Neo Pixels
• Micro bit

Building Process...

The building process was by far the best part, I was able to take the idea I had in my head and bring it to life. This process was fun and also challenging; I was frequently changing ideas and cutting wood in order to work productively. I learned how to problem solve and efficiently rework ideas and change files.

Although I finished most of the Oculus-inspired building I was not able to finish it completely; I had planned on adding diffuser paper to the outsides of the spikes to create windows. I also intended on adding Neo pixels(LEDs lights powered by a microcontroller) on the dowel that runs through the spikes and on the interior of the spikes. The idea for this building was to make the inside of the building an art piece to add a spin on the true meaning of the Oculus in New York City. The Oculus was created as a tribute to the attack on 9/11, the spikes on the original building stand for " a bird being released from a child's hand". I wanted to take this artistic exterior and bring it into the interior of my building. My building's purpose was to act as an art gallery and/ or museum, I planned on 3D printing statues and figures that I would've created in TinkerCad and stage the interior as an art gallery.

Moving into Fusion 360

Designing

Designing my building in Fusion 360 was challenging I wasn't used to the software but with the help of Ms. Riley and Youtube I was able to create a 3D model of the Oculus-inspired building.

Rendering

After completing my design, I rendered my design with different materials to show what my building would look like if it were to be created in real life. I choose polished nickel for all of the spikes, raw copper for the dowel running through all of the spikes, and white and grey concrete for the base of the entire building.

360 Rendered Video of Oculus inspired Building

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rHRYYqIEqeYMhb4UeN6tabeJaIdJ5Hej/view?usp=sharing

Annotated Drawing

Lastly, after rendering my building I created an annotated drawing of the design. I included different views of the design, and measurements In my annotated drawing.

Culmination of Work

Reflection

Although it is not how I envisioned it initially, after seeing the end results of my independent study, I am very proud of the culmination of work that I have put together. I was able to learn different skills like building effectively and timely, and also learning how to use Fusion 360. Learning how to use this software will be very helpful to me as I move on to college and study architecture. I am very grateful that I got to have this experience, and want to say thank you to both Ms. Riley and Ms. Hedstrom for helping me with anything and making themselves available to me in the engineering lab and virtually.