Part Three - The Model

Research Design Project with Professor Williams 

The Site Plan Model is a physical model created based on the 3D Site Plan designed in Autodesk Revit.  Each shipping container is represented by a 4” x 1 ½” wooden block, painted a sandy color for camouflage purposes. These blocks are mounted on a piece of Architectural Butter Board. The board is painted using a mixture of the same sandy color as the containers, a light brown color, and a dark brown, and is painted in such a way as to try to mimic a sandy, silty, texture; however, this did not come out as well as hope, though the mounting board looks pleasing, it does not represent silty ground as best as it possibly could have. After the blocks were mounted in accordance to the 3D Site Plan, labels were created for each of the models.  Next, the area where the 3D Site Plan shows a fountain area with benches for esthetic reasons, the physical model puts to a more practical use.  In the military, there would be an area, enclose by sandbags, designating an assembly area, and this is what that area has become. To represent sandbags, the model uses strips of foam that have lines at intervals to create the look of a line of sandbags.  The painting of these was kind of tricky; at first I tired spray painting them, but that only led to them flying away or dissolving. So, next I tried simply coloring the strips with brown/sandy colored markers, this failed in the esthetics area though. I eventually came to the solution of individually hand painting each strip, and that seemed to work much better. There has also been a flag, held up by a rock pile to add to these embellishments.