FabLab Click-Raft Workshop

Dear Chris,

It was great fun being out in public with click-raft. I'm so in love with this system. I like acting as a kind of embassador to this open-source self-fab material and explaining the possibilities to people. It's not "my project", as most other designers were presenting, it's a community thing. Most were interested and impressed, as i'm sure you know. The 1:10 table-top construction game is very inviting, and people who sit down and try hard, are surprized at the strength you get when weaving correctly.

Christian Friedrich was there with the project he named clickFab. It's about workflow, streaming, collaboration, intuitive design, I think :)

There's some pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fablabgroningen/. I'm also attaching some pics with this mail. All in all, people were happy with us being there. Some leads to possible smaller jobs involving click-raft, and one order for a boxed set of about 100 click-leafs to play with.

The specific developments (evolutionary steps) we made during the day were interesting. I will have to detail the steps to you later, because it's kind of messy and i have a very clean numbering system / version control in mind.

Jaap

click-weave space-time sketching

for those that are interested I have been asked to give a talk at the pecha kucha on Monday 19th at the Wellington Downstage theatre. Here are the details and the line up for the night... on my ol' favorite topic the click-raft, but with a broader twist.. titled "click-weave space-time sketching" all are welcome, hope to see you there,

Peter Wilson // artistic director // capital e national theatre for children // www.capitale.org.nz //
Fifi Colston // author / illustrator // the birth of velvet, a wearable art piece // // http://fifisart.blogspot.com //
Spencer Levine // designer // www.spencerlevine.co.nz //
Gerbrand Van Melle // media designer / intercept > decipher > participate // www.gerbrandvanmelle.com //
Roger Walker // architect / car enthusiast // dancing with the cars //
Sam Trubridge // performance designer/director // drawing: the perfoming page //
Briar Monro // arts consultant // connecting creativity //
Chris Moller// architect // click-weave space-time sketching // http://click-raft.blogspot.com/ //
Tommy Honey // director film school // street crime //
Ravi Kambhoj // photographer // urban fusion // www.urbanfusion.co.nz //
Lorenzo Buhne and Kedron Parker// musicians / about the bite of the tarantula /
Tom Beard // urban designer // about a sentence by Baudelaire //
Eric Dorfman // eklektusinc. // the affair of the diamond necklace, an interactive theatre event //Marcus McShane // designer // self-powered stuff and being good //

Louvre Development

We are currently exploring further refinement and development of the louvre systems. One of the more interesting options operates more like a fish-gill through bending the louvre rather than opening it. This rather elegant solution offers some very interesting advantages such as reducing the number of moving parts and also keeping the ends of the louvre sealed against the plywood click-beams to reduce unwanted drafts or leaking.

Click-Raft Proto02 recent developments

Proto02 is still under development and is starting to shape up well.
Based on the maximum height of 3m and plan area of 30m2 this live/work studio pavilion with 3 pods (kitchen pod/ shower wc pod/ store pod) is designed to side step full planning permission, similar to that of a garden shed, greenhouse, or garage and thus reduce costs and time radically.
Traditional cladding systems can be easily and inexpensively used instead of the louvre systems shown with plenty of scope for good insulation within the depth of the click-raft structure. A range of wall and roof material choices will also be available.
We have been exploring new metal connection details, in particular the louvre joint and design development of the click-leaves.
Jaap Dankert produced the images in 3d-studio with mental-ray on 64-bit. The publishing to web-3d is with google's o3d platform.

Pre-Fab Workshop

I attended a wonderful Kiwi Pre-Fab workshop last week, organised by Pamela Bell of Victoria University which involved many of the diverse players in the industry including industry, contractors, policy makers, designers, suppliers, and clients such as Housing New Zealand or Habitat for Humanity. It was a completely full house, with many more turned away. There was an extremely optimistic atmosphere for new beginnings in the industry with a clear agenda to reach a much broader public with more accessible, less expensive and higher quality solutions for Housing in the future. A range of examples especially from Europe and North America including the work and writings of Kieran Timberlake, and their involvement with other players from Europe and Australia at the MOMA exhibition with especially designed and built prototypes. Similar initiatives from LA were also shown, and a range of machinery and systems outlined. German, Austrian and Swiss examples were also shown with very impressive CNC factory production and equally impressive resulting buildings.

Pamela Bell's full 'Kiwi Prefab' thesis is available online at
http://researcharchive..vuw.ac.nz/handle/10063/1111?show=full