Vassiliki K. Demakis

In this partner project, the goal was to create a shelter for a specific, chosen area in Northerly Island, Chicago and develop a 3/4” = 1’ - 0” large model. The picked site was located at the end of a long, meandering pathway where a square platform was surrounded by water. Exploration of triangulated forms led to the creation of a continuous band that wrapped around the platform, creating moments where people could hover over the water either being exposed or enclosed.

The concept for this project focused on levels of transparency and materiality drove the design. Wanting a lighter, flexible material that also encompassed this concept of transparency would allow visitors to view the area around the site but not feel as exposed when enclosed by it. A netted, white fabric was chosen and through experimentation, we discovered that layering the fabric gave even more degrees of transparency. Pinpointing the different areas of the triangulated band, certain pieces became wrapped in 2-3 layers of fabric. When constructing these pieces, careful planning became an important role in the process. A cardboard mockup was initially created to get the accurate sizing and the triangles themselves were wire-formed and soldered closed. After this, we handsewed the layers of fabric, keeping track of the ones that had more than one layer. Regular checking that the adjacent pieces were the same length allowed us to one by one to connect the pieces and made arranging it to our desired form a lot easier, especially with the main material being the flexible fabric, and having the pieces in tension allowed the form to be stable.

Additionally, a light birch plywood that our shelter wrapped around allowed minimal detraction from the shelter itself. From an earlier project, the usage of paper was reintroduced to represent the water. We chose to use a thicker, watercolor paper and hand form the waves, ripping at various areas to create more layers and texture in the large area being covered.