Week 3 - Review - Shirin Heidari

Name: Shirin Heidari

Student ID: 1577418

Blog Address: shirinarchi@blogspot.com

Group: 3

Again my computer has failed to be able to open the blogspot addresses, unfortunately this means that again I wont be able to add pictures from the associated blog by Shirin but I will aim to do so tomorrow upon visiting the computer suite at the Architectural School.

From the outset Shirin made it clear to me that she was upset and confused by the fact that her model was given a D by Dermott upon her review that morning. She was rather upset throughout the peer review and likewise the review followed a slightly different format which I will try and conclude within a few paragraphs.

The main idea between Shirin's project was that of a canopy structure hanging between the facades of two building structures. The canopy on the outside would be made from stained glass, polished metal sheets and would be sitting on top of a wooden bridge that made up most of the inter building span. Shirin (from what I saw) had a number of developed sketches within her sketch book but in realisation fell short in achieving the task asked of her in creating a 1:1 scaled detailed that emphasizes the structure and how the canopy is create which in fairness she tried to make as polished and as covered as possible. This was observed in her fine welding of the metal plates together, the gluing of the stained glass/plastic to the metal and the lack of joining of her wooden bottom slats to the metal of the sitting-on-top canopy. Without a lot to look on I set about helping her figuring out a way she could fix it in order to get reconsidered with a couple of ideas coming through that she could:

1. Instead of welding her metal canopy and gluing her stained glass to the metal, she could have used a number of spider-clips or inter piece grips that could have held all the pieces in position using an intricate and interesting structural form.
2. She could have explored the bolting down of the wooden slats to the bottom of the metal canopy.
3. Further functionalism could have been addressed with possible use of silicon in the joints of the stained glass windows in order not to let water through.

All in all Shirin's project had potential and while she stresses that both Dermott and Padma weren't there for her checkup the day before in the tutor groups, it is just one of those unfortunate situations where the brief is just misunderstood despite an object of certain quality potential.