Gayan MunasingheStudent No: 586139 Semester 1/2012 Group 9

Natural Process: Tsunami

I got the idea of looking at the process of a tsunami from thinking about natural disasters that can happen suddenly. I remember the time when I was on a holiday in Sri Lanka while the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami struck. I remember how it effected and ruined many thousands of peoples lives forever and I wanted to show how ferocious a tsunami can be through the lantern.

A tsunami occurs when an underwater earthquake happens and pushes a huge amount of water upwards and disperses out and travels towards land. As it approaches the land it builds in height and destroys everything in its path and in many cases taking peoples lives.

Time Lapse of a TsunamiI wanted to show the path of a tsunami as a whole for the lantern.

Earthquake creates water ripple.

Water ripple travels towards shore.

Water ripple forms into tsunami wave.

Time-Lapse of path of tsunami.

Precedents- Architecture

Noise Barrier, Eastern Freeway, Melbourne The Wave in Vejle, Denmark

This shape of the barrier is very good for the shape of the wave of the tsunami.

The shape of this building is very good to represent the shape of the ripple travelling towards the shore.

Precedents- Architecture

Federation Square, Melbourne Coop Himmelb(l)au- Pavilion 21 Opera Space, Munich Federation Square, Melbourne

The use of triangles is very smart and give the surface a good texture.

These triangles can be good to use for panelling and can also be used to let light out of the triangles.

These spikes are really good to show emotion of anger and ferociousness and is great to be used on a tsunami.

Research- TsunamisThis could be a outline of the shape of the lantern and gives a good overview of the natural process of a tsunami from the underwater earthquake to the tidal wave that causes huge destruction to many victims.

SIDE VIEW BACK VIEWFRONT VIEW

TOP VIEW

I would like to have most of the light shining through the front as it is the main focus.

Research- TsunamisThis could be the outline of the front of the lantern and where most of the light will shine out and mostly be the focus of the lantern.

BASIC SHAPE

Use of triangles to let out light from the lantern.

I want to show how ferocious the tsunami waves can be, so I want to make the waves very rough and dangerous.

Using spiky texture to add scary and ferocious effect to the tidal wave.

Research- Tsunamis

I want to use the spread of a tsunami as a base shape of the lantern and to show the path of a tsunami diverge out from the earthquake.

Just having a rectangular base for the lantern is a bit boring and just plain so I want to add better shape to it.

The ripple effect from the earthquake can give a good texture to the lantern to have a bumpy surface rather than a smooth surface and can show the natural process of the path of the tsunami.

SIDE VIEW

TOP VIEW

I like the use of the cone/wedge shape to show the path of the tsunami and it gives a good base shape to the lantern.

This shape also gives an idea of how the light will disperse out of the lantern.

TOP VIEW

Research- Tsunamis

This is where a tsunami is formed from the water ripple cause from the underwater earthquake. This effect could be the back piece to the lantern design as the tsunami wave evolves from it.

TOP VIEW

SIDE VIEW

SIDE VIEW

This shows the ripples looking smooth and calm.

With the addition of spiky ripples, it gives the feeling of rough and dangerous as an earthquake is very violent.

Research- Tsunamis

Started with upward wave.

This is where the tsunami ripple begins and will also be the start of the lantern.

Waves are pointed to give a violent and rough look to show the power of the earthquake.

Basic shape of earthquake ripple

Upward wave in half Upward wave in full included

Concept #1This is quite neutral and is the basic shape to work around with. I am very happy about the shape formed.

Concept #2The use of triangles cut-out of the model to let light shine out of the lantern.

Cut-outs all in the front section of the lantern to emphasis the tsunami wave.

Concept #3

Some spikes at the end show the power of the earthquake to cause the ripples leading to the wave.

The use of 3D triangular prisms to give the lantern some texture and give a feeling of danger and ferociousness to the model as it relates to the raging tsunami wave.

Plasticine Model

LEFT RIGHT FRONT

BACKTOP

BOTTOM

I just modelled the basic shape to see how it turns out.

Lectures & Readings

The lectures have been very interesting so far. I have learnt so much about shapes and patterns. It was remarkable to find out that simple nature also uses mathematical structures such as logarithmic lines to form patterns and shape. I also found out that trees don't branch out randomly, but they use pattern and are fractal to form these natural structures. Also in the video of the paintings of Jackson Pollock with his unique style of painting first looks completely random but when looked closely enough, can see patterns happening which was amazing. I also learnt how some buildings in Melbourne use mathematics in there structures such as triangles in Federation Square gave me ideas to incorporate triangles in my lantern.

The readings by Phillip Ball have been very interesting. Ball focuses on the shapes and patterns in nature and the world around us. He also goes into the mathematical aspect of nature and also touches on evolution and how things are formed. I like the example of the Nautilus shell how the pattern and shape of the shell evolves as the living creature inside grows. He also stated how the spiral of a shell follows the logarithmic spiral and how snowflakes are always symmetrical no matter how complicated they are.

Module 1 Reflection

Module one was pretty challenging. I found myself stuck right at the beginning. I just didn't know what to do. There are many natural processes out there but none were coming to my head. Eventually the thought of natural disasters came up and the natural process of a tsunami was selected. As soon as I had my natural process, everything just got easier and kept on rolling. I had a fairly clear idea on how the shape might turn out like and it actually turned out better than I thought. Going through the processes on design the lantern has been really fun. Making the model was really great to play around and was a change from just sketching and drawing. Also, making the presentation on OpenOffice was very good and straight forward which was good to see. Module one has been great and I guess the hardest part for now was trying to know where to start.