Amy Huang ATCM 3355 F23: Project 1 Castle-Tower

 

IMAGES

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Printed Tower:

BRIEF

 Concept:

    The first place my mind jumped to when introduced to this project brief was gothic architecture. Something sharp, looming and dark, but elegant and beautiful at the same time. I was torn between whether to do a gothic mansion or something more akin to a wizard's tower, but I eventually settled on the latter due to time constraints. I wanted it to look almost like a witch's hat, with a tall cylindrical roof, but also be simple and read well from a distance, since it's purpose is to be a chess piece.  

Process:

 

     I started out the project by searching for reference images. Gothic mansions, dark wizard towers, even minecraft builds. I found this image of a wizard's tower that matched my concept, and started building the base according to the base of this image. I started out by drawing circular curves. When the curves were to my satisfaction I would then go in and loft surfaces between them. For the upper portion of the base I copied and scaled the sides of the base and then connected them with the loft function. However, when I got to the top portion of the model, I was kind of dissatisfied with the overall silhouette of the tower. It wasn't reading as sharp or dangerous, and I didn't want to add any of the intricate riveting along the sides for fear of making the overall design too complicated (also I didn't know how lol). So instead, I started building a sort of pagoda structure. I used the polar array command to evenly space out supports around the center and then built the top of the tower off of the supports, so that it made sense architecturally. It also looks a lot more like a chess piece now in my opinion. If I become more adept with Rhino in the future I would like to come back and add some more detailing along the sides, maybe some trim or windows, something to make it feel more alive. 

Materials:

        All throughout the construction process I was thinking about what materials to use for the final structure. In the beginning stages of the process I was aiming for a more realistic stone tower look, almost like a mini that could be used for dnd. I was imagine a rough stone base and some sort of brick for the roof. However, as the size of the tower grew smaller and smaller, the more I wanted to lean into the whole chess piece feel. I wanted it to feel like it was part of an expensive chess set made out of gems and marble, fragile and delicate. So for the base of the chess piece I made it a polished red gem. For the upper portion of the chess piece, since that's the part that will be handled the most, it is made out of a polished black marble. The gem base refracts the black and gives it a beautiful glow that adds to the overall look of the tower.