Tag Archives: Akhil Mathew

Mecanoo B.15 Modelmaking Award 2016 Winners

Posted on by

Final judging for this years Mecanoo B.15 Modelamking awards took place on Friday afternoon ahead of the end of year show opening.

Representatives from Mecanoo were Laurens Kistemaker, Paul Daly, Oliver Boaler along with former MSA Student and previous award winner Sara Hammond. Representing MSA were Jim and myself and Dr Ray Lucas.

Judging awards

As with last years award judging looked at the overall quality of the finished models, The effectiveness of their response to the brief and the integration of modelmaking into each students designing process. This proved once again to be very tough and created a fantastic post-marking deliberation over the final results.

“I was pleasantly surprised by the efforts and quality of the students work, which therefore made it really hard for us to pick just 6 winners. We covered both sides (skill and representation of the brief) of modelmaking with a judging team of 3 modelmakers and 3 architects. I hope we as mecanoo together with Jim and Scott have contributed to push the continued importance of modelmaking in architectural learning and practice.”

– Laurens Kistemaker 

DSC06033

Prizes were presented by Laurens Kistemaker and Professor Tom Jefferies to the winners who were as follows:

1st Prize MArch: Daniel Kempski & Peter Lee

DSC06055

DSC06058

2nd Prize MArch: Natalie Dosser & Diana Muresan

DSC06054

DSC06059

3rd Prize MArch: Sam Beddingfield

DSC06049

DSC06060

1st Prize BA (Hons) Architecture: Ciara Tobin

DSC06047 DSC06061

2nd Prize BA (Hons) Architecture: Akhil Mathew

DSC06045

DSC06064

3rd Prize BA (Hons) Architecture: Daniel Vella

DSC06057 DSC06065

We would like to thank all at Mecanoo for their continued support of this award which has already built on last years success with another quality display of projects.

Congratulations to all who made the hard earned short-list and eventual winners! We hope you will continue to employ the use of modelmaking in your learning and future careers whatever they may be.

Scott and Jim at B.15

SLA Resin Printing by Akhil Mathew

Posted on by

It has been a year now since we purchased our own SLA resin 3D Printer. In this time we have had a varied degree of successes. Perhaps due to its relative infancy, we have come up against numerous issues with this printer meaning its use has been limited as it often required constant checking to ensure the process is working correctly. The best uses have come when a student has taken initiative to research the process for their own requirements. One such student is 3rd year Akhil Mathew who has kindly written about his application of the process and the various pro’s and con’s he experienced.

DSC05841

The SLA resin printer is very useful to communicate certain aspects of design due to the material the printer prints with. The printer can use a variety of coloured or clear resins to print. My project featured a separate internal structure within an external frame and therefore the clear resin was ideal for communicating this aspect of the design.

However, to make sure your model is printed correctly, a number of points need to be kept in mind.

DSC_0436

DSC_0448

This printer is unlike the ABS and powder printers not only when it comes to material but also the orientation in which it prints. The model is printed upside in layers by slowly raising a platform out of a pool of resin. My models would often not adhere to this base platform and that would cause the print to sag on one side. This might occur due to:

  • Problems with the model (inverted faces, un-welded vertices etc)
  • The base platform not being clean
  • Impurities in the resin
  • Insufficient foundation and support material

image5

Due to the orientation in which the model is printed and the action of pulling the model out of the pool of resin may cause horizontal elements in the model to sag if vertical elements or supports are not introduced at nearby intervals. The floor plates of one of my first resin models sagged towards the inside as there wasn’t enough vertical elements. (This error would not have occurred with the powder printer or ABS printer)

image4image1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Resin may get trapped inside the model if there isn’t an opening for the resin to drain out of. Again, one my first models still has resin trapped inside it and with resin being slightly translucent, it is visible and may not be desired.

Lastly, since these types of printers are still being tested and perfected, the printers are not perfect yet. Therefore, the printer may just ignore a certain element of the model without any warning. The best ways to get around this I found were:

  • Keep the model as simple as possible
  • Make sure the model is one object before converting to .stl
  • Within the object make sure the faces are oriented correctly
  • Make sure all vertices are welded appropriately

The SLA printer is a very interesting piece of equipment and the finished products if printed correctly look great and work perfectly to communicate exactly what I needed in my project.

– Akhil Mathew 2016

DSC_0464

DSC_0575 DSC_0589