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DESIGNER / ARCHITECT / DREAMER / FUTURE
SCALE MODEL / INDUSTRIAL DESIGN / MACARD BENCH
MACARD BENCH
NATURAL FURNITURE FOR PUBLIC SPACES
Full 2024 / 3 Credits Course
ENVD 4010: MATERIALS + DIGITAL FABRICATION
CLASS CORE THEME
ENVD4010 centers on curiosity and the rigorous investigation of materials and tools for crafting. This will occur through interdisciplinary design work from material investigations and digital fabrications. Rather than decontextualizing curriculum, this class fosters the construction of knowledge that happens remarkably well when students build, make, and publicly share objects.
GROUP ASSIGNMENT
Students will use the shop and CNC router to design and fabricate seating for the Dudley Courtyard. (Note: This brief does not prescribe a “chair,” “bench,” or other generic form of seating. The student's job as the designer is to DESIGN what type or types of seating are most appropriate given the conditions. To do so, you will research seating types, conduct site analysis, iterate design options, digitize designs, fabricate mock-ups, and build actual prototypes for an outdoor, end-of-term exhibit. Work will shift from the hypothetical to the real; design concepts are refined by testing, prototyping, and detailing.
DESIGN CONCEPT
The design starts with the selected address and scope. The main design is centered around the atrium of Auburn University's CADC Dudley Hall. Each team member needs to make an initial personal design based on their choice and then vote. The design needs to use synthetic wood as the primary material and use superimposed assembly techniques to design. Each team's construction funds are at most 200 USD, and the team needs to change the voted design according to funding needs.
Unlike making ordinary 3D models, the team members divided the work to complete this project's virtual model and the physical chair. The members responsible for making the chair needed to constantly adjust the precise CAD sketches and Fusion files and use CNC to cut out the corresponding parts.
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