Sweet Onion Creations

The highlight of my year so far was getting the chance to spend some time recently with a professor from Stanford’s design school who was here in Bozeman for vacation. He has the enviable position of working with the best and the brightest in a multi-disciplinary course that tackles design problems for some of this planet’s poorest citizens and gets further built upon with a program called KickStart.

Summary: The course takes some really sharp students, throws a complicated problem at them, and the world gets changed through innovative designs and entrepreneurial know-how.

I asked him what his one-piece of advice is for students when they delve into design problems.

His response?

Prototype. Prototype today. Prototype often. As soon as you can, get it in a 3-D model and start finding the flaws in your design and having conversations.

Now these tools don’t have to be expensive…simple cardboard and Scotch tape works. (Check out the documentary: “Sketches of Frank Gehry” and watch the part where he builds a model…it’s hilarious and yet awe-inspiring to watch him crinkle a piece of paper just right and achieve his vision.)

I think the cross-over for architecture is using a laser-cutter. If you’re old school and doing it in 2-D, it’s a piece of cake to export a DXF or DWG file and crank out terraced topography or walls. The accuracy is amazing. Plus, it’s a really cheap way to build a model from a raw material perspective. *If you’re working in 3-D BIM, this might not be the best solution. Kinda like buying a car and then riding a horse to work.

However, the trade off is time and quality. It takes time to punch out each wall and assemble it to make a space. But the quality of the conversation that takes place with a client is measurably better. Imagine what it can do for you word-of-mouth for your firm as well.

Letting a client touch, feel, and take apart your designs with their hands is an experience not too many firms are providing these days. The tools are here to make rapid-prototyping a viable option and give you a competitive advantage.

I’ve been curious to see what Google Earth can do in conjunction with a 3-D printer. So, we were recently asked to go to San Diego and speak with an environmental firm about building topography models for showing off their restoration work. This is usually occurs on sites in desert and coastal areas.

Challenge: Need a small, portable model that can get through airport security and show beautifully smooth topography. A little custom branding would be nice too. (And we’re flying out the next day…)

Timeline:

2:36 pm: Download Google Sketchup to my computer. Begin flipping through Google 3D Warehouse for ideas on what is available for topography.

2:48 pm: Bingo! I find a beautiful mountain topography file, complete with a smooth valley floor that looks eerily similar to the Bridger mountain range around Bozeman, Montana.

2:52 pm: Download the 3d model off Google, import it into the software program, Rhino 3d, using a Sketchup plug-in. The model comes in as a surface. This would be like having a towel thrown on the floor…great wrinkles but no real thickness. So, we have to make it a “thick surface” using some extrusion tricks in Rhino.

2:53 pm: Grab the Sweet Onion Creations logo in .eps format and slap it on the valley floor and make it a 3-D object using Rhino. This is to show that a firm’s logo can be branded on the model.

2:55 pm: The 3-D printer is fired up, fed the file, and is off and running.

3:34 pm: 3-D printer finishes the model and the model is ready for depowdering, hardening, and painting.

Total time: A shade under an hour from digital to physical.

About an hour is all it takes from what is available online to having a physical model being built. Google Earth makes it easy to grab site topography and incorporate it into physical models.

To date, I haven’t seen a lot of people using 3-D printing technology with 3D Warehouse. I know there exists some challenges in getting files out of Sketchup ready to go to the printer but this was just too easy. I’d be curious to hear from anybody else…

Here’s a picture of the finished object:

The World Business Council for Sustainable Development produced an in depth report that looks at sustainable design. Considering approximately 40% of the primary energy consumption comes from buildings, it’s certainly worth a look at producing more sustainable buildings. However, the report identifies eight key barriers to producing sustainable design which include: personal know-how, business community acceptance, supportive coporate environment, personal commitment, economic demand, positive climate impact, pragmatic involvement and business attractiveness.

Despite the barriers, there is hope. The report suggests a holistic approach to reduce barriers which requires support in terms of policy and regulation, financial incentive and behavioral shifts. Additionally, the cost of sustainable design is typically much lower than estimated.

Check out the report, worth a read!