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the tree stump and olaf's boredom: Archinect Forum Assignment

awaiting_deletion

the creator of Olaf, works non-stop and is behind on many deadlines, but that does not mean they are not bored out of their minds....

so an Olaf blog post that never happened as much as Chris tried - about Sadeqh Hedayat and his book the Blind Owl [translation: D.P. Costello (1957)]. >>>It's Edgar Allan Poe in Persian meets Satre existenialism - for you westerners that should sound exciting. It's a trip, nevermind mushrooms or LSD, just read it, and please don't kill yourself.

Here's the challenge:-

Below are scans of a log in very NON natural colors and presentation.

A Persian, that Chris knows had a Cooper Union thesis project of landscape cut up in pieces and then re-organized to form something very other, based on Hedayat's Blind Owl (read book, you'll understand)

Given that flying a drone over landscapes to model an Iranian art project would probably not go over well - "Officer, It's an art project about Iranian Modern Literature! I need to use Drones!" ....I've resorted to a tree stump in my backyard. [Skaneckt was used]

Archinect Forum's Assignment:

1. What gird should be used to cut the log up? The real log will be cut as such.

2. What will the cut sections look like? [i..e cake layers, building sections, archigram in a layers of wood grain, etc...]

 

feed me that, I'll go out and cut the stump, scan and 3d, make renderings and go from there.  may take a few weeks...bored as I am , I still have to make money....

 

toodles

 

-  Olaf

 
Jan 31, 16 5:39 pm
JeromeS

Why not something literal: rift cut

Jan 31, 16 6:16 pm  · 
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awaiting_deletion

ok, this direction will be done if no greater vote for another version is done in the next 48 hours from now.

 

thank you JeromeS

Jan 31, 16 6:55 pm  · 
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awaiting_deletion

fyi

random story #1:

not sure if all parties knew what everything meant in either country, but on  a recent project the Design architect from London and the millworker from NYC could not agree on what a Quartersawn cut was.  I whipped out the sketch pad, drew a tree section and said, you guys tell me what cut you want...

 

Above is what we're going by

Jan 31, 16 7:07 pm  · 
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JeromeS

Actually, I meant this... 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/goodmoldings/5019335583/

Jan 31, 16 7:41 pm  · 
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awaiting_deletion

Miles can you confirm for us what a Rift cut is...

JeromeS says

vs

Jan 31, 16 8:42 pm  · 
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Nobody cuts timber the way Jerome's rift and quarter pictures show - too much waste. Both Olaf's rift and quarter diagrams yield both types. It should be noted that the center cuts of the flat sawn (livesawn) timber are pure quarter, and that the edges of flat sawn pieces farther from the center are rift.

Jan 31, 16 10:22 pm  · 
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archiwutm8

I'm disappointed that the scans are textured, I wanted to see how your log looks. Post the mesh on SketchFab so we can see it in 3D view.

Feb 1, 16 5:12 am  · 
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awaiting_deletion

ok will do.

Feb 1, 16 6:41 am  · 
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awaiting_deletion

archiwut cool site, and here is the link.  it's the original scan including surrounding area.

https://skfb.ly/KDCW

Feb 1, 16 7:27 am  · 
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Knowing nothing about the book, there is a new brewpub near me named "Blind Owl Brewery" and the name makes me so sad I can't imagine ever going in. Now at least I know what it's referencing.

Olaf I've told this story before but it's one of my favorites. Here is a diagram (if the photo doesn't load, which I've had issue with recently, I'll describe it instead):

Feb 1, 16 9:03 am  · 
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Take that a step farther -

Each tree is a post, each post is placed in correct orientation with butt end down and original N/S orientation maintainted.

FYI the center is notoriously unstable, subjct to all kinds of conflicting forces that will cause any piece with any part of it to warp, twist and crack. Best to cut the center out or leave it intact in the center of a timber.

Feb 1, 16 9:11 am  · 
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archiwutm8

Texture the model brah.

Feb 1, 16 9:29 am  · 
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gwharton

It's been done.

Feb 1, 16 11:45 am  · 
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awaiting_deletion

haha ghwarton........Donna I like that approach actually, integrating space layouts based on cuts, the project is developing a thesis. good bit of Bline Owl takes place in a room.

Feb 1, 16 12:36 pm  · 
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Zaina

poor Olaf :P the drones doesn't make your mission sound easy.

Feb 1, 16 2:04 pm  · 
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Zaina

oh... interesting novel! what does it have to do with your tree stumps?

Feb 1, 16 2:20 pm  · 
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awaiting_deletion

Zaina you inspired this non-sense via the Cube post, haha ;)  actually it's a long brewing in my head side project (like 2 years+)

Donna has brought the Thesis in perspective, and why it's a stump -

Hedayat supposedly was familiar with Kafka. His style, based on a Western literary review (Michael Beard) would be Gothic, similar to Edgar Allan Poe.  Beard confirms Hedayat read Kafka, but no real indication of Poe. With that said -

The stream of consciousness of Hedayat's writing is much more abrupt and disorientating than Kafka ever was (is), with abruptness as strong and horrific as Poe.  What he does that makes it all the more interesting, is that symbols, objects, and characters are often repeated but shuffled in their relations at many of the abrupt changes in the stream of consciousness. So you feel differently about the same things, or you feel the same in a different places

--.

So why a tree stump? - Tree stumps have patterns which are made all the more visible when cut in section.  These same cuts are often then re-assembled to be something very other, like a table.

Abruptness is the cutting of a tree.

--

Much of the book (Blind Owl) takes place in a room physically and in his head virtually.

See Donna's post, now we are not just cutting the tree stump but will organize it in a space, perhaps multiple configurations.

------

In Sanford Kwinter's Architectures of Time - (see links description of Kwinter working Bergson and Kafka together (last sentence))...from the chapter "Kafkan Immanence", intro sentence:

"Nothing characterizes the surface of a Kafka story better than its continuous marquetry of story fragments, each embedded besides the other as if it were the most natural thing in the world that such abrupt and disjunctive blocks of narrative should meld seamlessly across a single plane."

So I'm revisiting a good bit of Henri Bergson, but in a much more maddening way.

---

Bernard Cache attended Gilles Deleuze lectures and then Deleuze wrote about Cache's work. Cache worked with topography and wood and the concept of time for both is a version of Bergson.  Cover of "Earth Moves" below.

I'm tired, so can't work this in better, will get there....

 

I'm not a complete mad man, just bored....learned about SketchFab today and Donna's placement of wood grain in a room is blowing my mind (that's the kind of attention to materials I love)

Feb 2, 16 12:29 am  · 
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I'm glad you're groovin' on my diagram, Olaf! I learned it at the Weald & Downland Open Air Museum, a sort of wildlife preserve for historic buildings in Great Britain, while I was there with the Attingham School for the Study of the British Country House. There are apparently many examples of historic timber framed building built using that diagram, with the intent that the building would change with weather conditions and age in a harmonious way.

Feb 2, 16 10:26 am  · 
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This might also be interesting for you: PROJECTiONE's early experiment in
"tracing a single grain line in Rhino" then exposing *only* the one year of growth of the tree.

Feb 2, 16 10:29 am  · 
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archiwutm8

Thanks for that link Donna, makes me want to do a masters in digital fabrication even more. Might actually apply and start it next year at this rate.

Feb 2, 16 11:35 am  · 
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awaiting_deletion

that is sick! I mean dope.  What are we saying now on Archinect?

and this is awesome (not abrupt though)

with the intent that the building would change with weather conditions and age in a harmonious way.

Feb 2, 16 6:11 pm  · 
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Zaina

Olaf- I have a lot of Whys and Hows but anyways thanks for the explanation... so basically you're going to reassemble the cut tree logs to from a new configuration in a way similar to the literature narrative structure?  ... so if abruptness is the cutting of a tree, that make the tree logs the fragments of your story, and those fragment have layers in them, and those layers intersect. so what if (just saying, I don't really understand ...).. what if we take the three tree stumps and try to intersect them in a way that the circular layers embedded in each others in each stump can speak to the isotopes of another stump forming one harmonious pattern as if it is the most natural thing in the world :p 

Feb 3, 16 6:40 am  · 
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awaiting_deletion

time is the story of a tree stump. and you are correcr about the cutting and abruptness. just have to get a big circular saw now.

Feb 3, 16 7:14 am  · 
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