I began this brief by looking through the different collection options. I felt quite overwhelmed by the amount of choice in the library and Harvard collections. When I looked through the categories on 3Dsky.org, I liked the simple shapes, fun colours and form of the items. I don’t have experience or much understanding of 3D software, but I felt it was a good opportunity to learn a new skill.
Looking through 3Dsky, I felt particularly drawn to the shapes and colours of the “playgrounds” category in the architecture section. I think playgrounds are one of the few accessible public spaces purely dedicated to play and design just to facilitate fun and exploration. In 2021 I saw Noguchi’s playground designs at the Barbican. He described the importance of “social function” in his work and that playgrounds were a type of functional sculpture and saw this as an important aspect of his work.
Looking through the collection and following the brief I began analysing the sets differences, similarities, forms, “grammar” etc. I put images of each on an illustrator document and grouped them by these items. The consistent themes of each seemed to be primary colours, straight and curved poles, animal and plant shapes and house shaped forms.
I decided the next step was to explore “(re)drawing” these forms in a 3D software. I used a software called “Womp” which is free and easier to use for beginners to 3D design. I debated trying to learn Blender, but I didn’t know if I’d be able to learn enough in the timescale to create enough work.
I had a lot of technical issues with uploading files into the 3D software which meant I was limited to two models to work with. I tried to get around this by working on computers in the library, but I still had the same issue. I created a playground site out of the two 3D models, deconstructing them and using the shapes to create slides and climbing obstacles.
During the tutorial, my feedback was that categorising needs to come through more with this piece. It was also discussed that animating the elements would do more to bring meaning to it. I think I will spend some time learning blender to try to do this as I will be able to draw and animate within the software. I think I will split the project into categories by motion/function and colour and have them as separate playground sites.
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