Final touches…

We have used all 22kg of willow and the structure is now finished!! We now face the great trial of carrying the whole thing down to The Moor. Here are the pictures…

22kg of willow rods = a birds nest! …

 

 

 

This morning 22kg of willow rods were delivered to Catherine’s house in Crookesmoor. She and Gideon kindly kept them in their bathtubs at home underwater so they stayed flexible until they were carried to the Crookesmoor building to be incorporated in the structure. When they arrived they were put in a dustbin filled with boiling water so that they would be made flexible enough to weave with straight away.

The willow soaking in a bin of boiling water.

Now that we had the willow ready on site, we began transforming the skeleton of willow into an enclosure. First we had to make the uprights longer, so they could meet in the middle of the dome, by attaching another upright length of willow using rope. Each upright is three pieces or willow woven together.

Two uprights joined with rope to make one longer upright

All of the uprights were bent into the centre of the circular base and tied into three bundles. Of course following health and safety rules we wern’t allowed to poke each other in the eye.

Holding the uprights in place.

Tying the bent uprights in place

We then started to weave horizontals in and out of the verticals at 45 degrees to the base.

Weaving the first horizontals.

Taking shape.

The centre ring was then woven into the structure by the engineers.

A job for engineers only 😛

Weave, Weave, Weave…

BIRDS-eye view bravely taken by Gideon.

Interior

Just the roof left to weave.

We all like willow... especially Andreas!

Working Weekend…

 

 

Over the weekend work has begun on building our willow structure. We have decided to build it outside the Crookesmoor building and plan to transport the structure in one piece (hopefully!!) down to The Moor on Thursday night.

On Saturday the base was completed. The base consists of small lengths of timber with holes drilled at regular intervals.

 

The timber base pieces.

Drilling the holes.

The willow lengths, that have been soaking in a nearby pond to keep them flexible, are then poked into the holes and other lengths are horizontally woven between the vertical lengths.

The cut willow lengths soaking to keep them flexible for weaving.

At the base the willow has to be kept tightly in place.

Weaving up from the base.

Close-up of the weave.

Testing the weave technique. 🙂

More weave testing.

A Little Background Info…

Hello Everybody!

A week ago we were set the challenge to make a place for conversation out of timber, to be placed on The Moor shopping street in Sheffield. As two separate design groups B3 and E2 we set to work. B3 created a dome made from floorboards joined at peculiar angles to make a structure reflecting the unfinished state of The Moor. E2 designed a woven willow dome with an interesting inverted centre. Only one of the 2 designs could be carried forward and this was decided in a design competition. E2s design was the favoured piece and so now B3 and E2 are working together to finalise the design and source more willow ready for the exciting build of the design.

The winning design by E2.

This is the model of B3s design and one of the complicated joints.