Wonderful summer day. Sarah leaves for SF Wednesday. Giving us two days. Plan to make three kiln loads; finishing the inside panels, start the outside panels and mock up the cable and mounting system.

A trip to the hardware store is an adventure. One takes a number upon entering the store, and can explore the displays. Then an individual waits on each of us, helping to source and fetch any product one wants to purchase. After we purchased set screws, tap, drill and cables, there was a larger than normal group of shoppers waiting for the staff.

July 1st – Beginning of 4th week

Started “production” of the inside panels yesterday. We realize that each panel will be unique. Still struggling with the moisture content of the clay as well as the shrinkage. The panels seem to expand outward at the bottoms as they dry. Creeping outward – despite checking them against the template several times.

We drap the clay over a steel pipe wrapped with insulation foam from plumbing pipes to form top of the panel. We found these can be removed after 2 – 4 hours. Any more than 4 hours, and the bone china will have shrunk too much to allow removal.

We began templates today for the outside series of panels. We’ll mark a code for punches/holes, etc at the top and bottom.

We’ve discovered how to each work the process, individually doing parts and doubling up only on several parts when it takes four hands.

After two hours of hard labor, we took a break and rode bikes into the “Brook” zone south of town. Going further than other times and on a different route, we happened upon government buildings of modern architectural style. There were pre-cast concrete panels – with a rhythm and repeated pattern – flipped. Similar in concept to conversations we’d begun about the outside panel. Good to take a break, for exercise, sunshine and visual stimulation.

Koffel / Willmer
ekwc studio 9
Participant’s Chat 06.27.07



Project: Translucent Ceramic Screen
Rain-screen or interior screen divider for architecture.

Design Concept
• The bone china ceramic panels highlight the physical characteristics of ceramics not obtainable using other building materials: fluid, flexible and simultaneously translucent.
• The focus is on the aesthetic possibilities of a layered wall; the wall distinguishing inside and out, the moment of the threshold, the light transmittance from the sun, the pattern of light on the wall, the floor.
• The installation represents a single possibility.
• Other clay pieces will be developed to suggest other forms the translucent ceramic wall can take.

Goals
To develop a prototype with the industry for real applications both inside and out. Issues under consideration:

Characteristics of Ceramics
• Has unique physical characteristics such as fluid and translucent.
• Transparent to radio frequency opens the building to be fully wireless.
• Can be an antenna.
• Can be self cleaning.
• Conducts electricity.
Product Development Issues
• The thin ceramic panels need to be veneered onto a honeycomb, resin or polymer backing to give them strength.
• Size limitations
• Building system structure for panel support i.e. steel cable or frame sub-structure.
Architectural Uses / Issues
• Sunscreen, rain-screen
• Interior privacy wall, lobby divider etc.
• Multiple geometric forms possible.
• Has both functional and ornamental characteristics.

June 20th

My Dad died today on the east coast. I will be returning for the memorial service. Not completely unexpected as he was 85 years old. Gave a eulogy at the service.

Linda, a good friend sent me the following, an apt metaphor for life’s cycles.

In the metaphor that we are all drops of water in a river I thought that death is really just an evaporation of one of those drops - the transition from living to not, a simple, peaceful, unexplainable phenomenon, one drop evaporates and is no longer in the river but it is not gone either, it is in transition, maybe to come down as another drop of water in another river in another place.

Sarah keeps up the firing, mixing of more bone china, holds are participants chat and explores a fishing village while I am back east.

Images of our test panels from kiln # 1 - first firing show promising results. We will be exploring lighting. The sunlight gives the best translucency! Any ideas on how to best light the panels.

Process: I’d never made many slabs before embarking on the rain screen _ architectural skin proposal Sarah and I’d submitted to ekwc. Seems a simple enough task. We’ve honed it and are taking one page of detailed notes to track the variations in process, so we can learn how best to achieve our goal of 36 panels for our installation I’ve begun to call – “ties that bind us.”

The full-scale mockett has been instrumental in detailing the end goal. We’ve changed the panel proportions, based on available kiln shelves. Realizing the process would require up to 18 shelves at a time, to optimize our schedule. We can make 5- 8 panels a day, depending on our endurance and the complexity of what we do after the initial rolling out process. These dry within a day but so far we’ve only been able to fire one time per week, due to the other participants kiln requirements. We’ve decided to stick with Kiln # 1 – that holds 9 panels. We could switch to Kiln # 4 – and fire all the panels at one go – but this seems a larger risk – and perhaps less predictable. We chose to fire in Kiln # 1 – nine shelves of 45cm x 60 cm x 4cm thick.
We apply alumina oxide mixed with 3% bentonite each firing to insure that the panels can be moved during the making and do not fuse after firing.

Rotterdam the weekend before had been a great adventure. Ekwc hosted a Brick Exposition from work completed in the past year. We’d known some of the artist during our stay in January.

A walking tour of Rotterdam to Rem Koolhaus’s Kunstaller, a Corbusier exhibition at NAI and other building of architectural note completed the day’s jaunt.

Enjoy the images.