Construction Miscalculations and Cool Textures - Shannon Arms

How often are green walls and roofs washed over surfaces in architectural renderings? Pretty often, I've done it without having any idea how that system might work or integrate with the structure and skin of a building. So for me this first exercise "A Mould.A Vessel" was a chance to explore the integration of these systems on a small scale, about the scale of a brick. Though the popularity of bricks seems to be declining everywhere but Eugene,OR they were for me, both because of their modularity and structural properties a really valuable point of inspiration when thinking about how building enclosure and horticulture could have a more meaningful relationship.

The idea was to start with the module of a brick because it is a widely recognized building material and also seemed reasonably receptive to additive systems that might incorporate planting material.
So... Imagine a small angled volume cantilevering from a brick... imagine that this angle would have a void in it and be able to hold a small plant. This was the idea behind my planter.

Building a mould of this involved a fair amount of angled pieces and carving away of the pink foam formwork.I think that executing this idea in plywood will actually be easier.. and surely more precise.

So now that you've imagined this brick with the small angled cantilever, it's probably best to keep imagining it. While I think the idea was good and worth more exploration the experiment didn't quite work like I expected. The bottom of the planter didn't make it to the final piece.

I have however, included a digitally doctored image of what it would have looked like if it worked out.

However, some cool textures came out of the somewhat unsuccessful exploration.

My concrete Recipe:
4 parts sand(1 part rough to 3 parts fine)
1.5 parts cement
Water as needed to create a relatively stiff mixture.
In retrospect I think more cement and a bit less water would have improved the mixture.

- Shannon