Kickstarter

Hey! My name's Jared Long and I am a student at Judson University earning my bachelor degree in Architecture. Let's talk about a project I want to build. Below are the sketches of my design process.

As a student, I want take this time before entering professional practice to play around with some concepts and ideas. The idea for this project is to find a way to make a structure that explores the interplay between people, structures, and nature, and build a structure that inspires people to notice nature as art. So my concept is to make a picture frame, and frame nature to essentially creating a living painting. Unfortunately picture frames are not known for their stability, so the frame is then extruded into more of a box shape for stability.

But then when the frame is extruded, it seems to hurt the view. The structure becomes too dominating and distracts from the view. So I fixed this by cutting away the corners to allow more views from a wider array of angles.

So I decided to go with this parallelogram shape, and decided to use the same shape for the sides and top piece. Due to legal restrictions, to avoid needing a building permit, the structure has no floor.

I found a nice location atop a hill by a large lake surrounded with trees. The structure will frame a gorgeous view of the trees, lake, and sky. I hope to face it towards where the sun sets for an awesome photo op. 

How I'm going to build it is pretty simple. I'm going to use 19/32" thick pieces of Oriented Strand Board (OSB), cut them into the parallelogram shape, and glue them together. I'm using OSB because it's cheaper, stronger, and more weather resistant than plywood. The sheets will be glued together with wood glue to form the sides and top pieces. Each panel will weight 150 pounds each, and with the glue and paint the total structure will weigh in at around 500 pounds.

Each panels OSB sheets will be staggered to create larger connection areas to hold more glue and form stronger joint connections. To avoid needing building permits, I can't have a permanent foundation, so instead the bottoms of the side panels are also staggered to create a wedge shape. So under the weighty 500 pounds, the wedges will dig into the ground to hold the structure firmly in place. Each piece of OSB costs around $9 each, and I'll need 9 of them (3 sheets per side). And after the fees Kickstarter and Amazon take out, the total I'm asking for is $100.

If you can find it in your heart to help a poor college student further his education, I will be eternally grateful.

And if you don't think I'm capable of doing this project, I'll just leave you with a photo of a disaster relief shelter me and a team of fellow students design and constructed for a competition last spring.