South [Maker]Factory: – A Tech+Health Incubator

Watersheds

Tom Moss on March 1, 2016March 12, 2016

If you’ve been to Portland recently you might have heard about the new Tanner Springs Park and the work being done to recreate the historical watershed streams in the area. After looking into the maps of these streams, I found that there are two of these streams that have been conglomerated and pared down into water collection pipelines underneath the West Hills that then travel underground to the river. As it were, these two streams would have merged with the Willamette at our site.

Here’s a diagram:

There was a midterm in Portland

Tom Moss on February 21, 2016March 12, 2016

It did not go well.

the neural network

Tom Moss on February 10, 2016February 8, 2016

I have no idea if I’ll ever use these, but they look cool and I made them, so here you go.

branding, or how i sold my soul to apple for their font

Tom Moss on February 9, 2016February 7, 2016

I love fonts.

So, naturally, when asked to create logos for our projects, I was excited. These are just a couple of pages from my Field Notes. There’s a couple of complete ripoffs, both of which are pretty noticeable (think Steph Curry and MIT).

Easter egg: I was watching a lot of RBMA music lectures whilst doing this and heard the best quote from George Clinton (of Parliament). It’s written vertically in the second image. I took most of these into Illustrator and kept revising them:

(one of many illustrator boards, it just so happens that the final two logos were on this one.)

Looking at models like 22@ in Barcelona, I started branding the entire district as a new development for Portland, hence the Technodistrict, Innovation Kitchen and the like.

I eventually reached these two final logos:

The Maker Kitchen was a complete accident, but it brought up something really interesting in terms of branding the district. The logo can be shortened into MK1, or “Mark One”, meaning the concept can be repeated in other cities. I even made a poster (the font is San Francisco from Apple, hence the title):

This led me to rethink the initial diagrams for the site. I started making them even simpler:

A playlist

Tom Moss on February 8, 2016February 7, 2016

We were asked to pick a theme song for our project. I love music, so I made a playlist. Check this often as I’ll be continually updating this by adding and deleting tracks.

The one song that will always remain, however, is “Hung Over” by the Martini’s. THAT is my theme song.

Wax

Tom Moss on February 8, 2016February 13, 2016

This wasn’t supposed to look like this, it was a complete failure.

I thought the wax would create optimised walls as they dripped off the string, but alas they did not. The hemp strings are now stiff little buggers, so I guess I learned something there.

More of this will be coming, I think.

Initial Site Analysis, aka, Galapagos to the Rescue

Tom Moss on February 7, 2016February 8, 2016

I will admit up front that I am not especially interested in the potential of Ladybug to visualize day-lighting and design facades. With that being said, plugins like Ladybug and DIVA I find are extremely useful in creating informed site design. With another of my studio mates, I started this term master planning the site by combining the best bits of each of the previously submitted plans to create a continuation of the chequered pattern of high-rise and low-rise that already exists in the original South Waterfront plan.

It is important to note, and this will be mentioned in a later blog post, that the buildings to the south of my site will be in the second, third, fourth and however many following phases after the construction of my building*.

*also, my building is non-existent so all this is just conjecture

Welcome to the blog.

Tom Moss on January 27, 2016February 8, 2016

Hello readers,

In addition to the main blog for our entire studio group, located here, I am undertaking a blog with more periodic updates as I move along. This project is what we call the ‘capstone studio’, or alternatively the ‘thesis studio’. I’ll be posting updates backlogging work from the last four weeks, but moving forward I’ll be providing more as they come updates as I start programming in Processing and further developments in Grasshopper.

This project is a tech incubator space for South Portland, on the Zidell Yards site. My first post, all forty pages of it, is my initial programming book. All the information you’ll need to know about my project up to is in here.

Thanks for stopping by, and hopefully you stick around.

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