Reflection

Reflection on my Discipline- As a landscape architect, a major component of my discipline is the understanding of nature, natural systems and the Earth. Forms found in nature are generally not restricted to the concepts of maths and perfect lines and forms that are found in architecture and human built elements. The core element behind all my work is the landscape. as the title suggests, which is made up of many complex curving forms that work together as a system. My approach to the creation of these aluminium skins was one that stems from this concept. Highlighting the beauty of natural flowing curves was a strong mentality I had throughout construction. Furthermore, rather than just seeing the shapes as a series of curving planes, I instantly began to recognize the forms as being valleys, slopes, depressions and ridges. This helped with the process as I evaluated them as a smoothly transitioning system as I would in the landscape. My approach to the actual construction carried on this theme as I began with the mallet, creating immense impacting forces similar to those that have shaped the bulk of the landscape. This gradually eased right down to the final stages where I mainly used my hands to shape the finer detail of the forms, with minimal force, just like the slow and soft processes of erosion. I feel like this is an approach that is very unique to my profession. In a comparison of landscape, construction and architecture disciplines, I feel like architects would be drawn more to sharper, defined lines and shapes and that construction students would produce a greater finish due to a more developed skill set, but may lack in fine detail of curves. Meanwhile due to studying these natural shapes every day, landscape architects would have a greater understanding and appreciation for natural form. I believe this is evident throughout not only my choice of  object, but through the construction of my aluminium skins.

Reflection on Construction- The main problems I cam across through the construction process was a lack of time. Living so far away from uni and having very little change for utilisation of the lazer printers left me with plenty of time at home to perfect the templates and get the final lazer print great but by the end of this time there was very little left to construct the skin. This caused a requirement for quick formation of the bulk shapes and left very little time for detail. In the construction of the rock skin, I would have liked to spend more time trying to form the detailed curves that were on top of the rock. Instead the top form resembled a simple bowl and didnt fit as great as Id have liked. For the shell skin i had more time to construct and a much greater skill set which resulted in a more closely fitting shape. The main flaw in both projects was the finish. To get a great finished product I could have spent much more time planishing then progressed onto the english wheel to really get a smooth and shiny surface, free of bumps. Instead I opted to use steel wool to try and increase the aesthetic appeal however, this had no where near the effect that time on those 2 techniques could have produced. The final lesson that was carried into the creation of the 2nd skin was the use of the shrinking machine, In the first project, a heavy use of the shrinking machine caused the first 3 attempts to crack from over workling of the metal. While the final skin didnt crack, the grooves left by the machine are still evident as it would have taken a great deal of time to smooth them out. On the second project I opted to use more of the stump forming technique, that is more common in professional practice, because even though it did take slightly longer, there was minimal marks in the final product which accounted for a better finish even without the use of the english wheel.