Digital Making_Interdisciplinary Skin

I paired up with a landscape architecture student, and we simply exchanged adobe illustrator files of our laser cutting through the laptop. His chosen object is a rock which is an abundant material of earth’s resources and is the foundation of landscape architecture. Landscape architects work on structures and external spaces which is appropriate for this chosen object and to have a better understanding of the site and surrounding context.

The laser cutting process did a great job of cutting all the required pieces and I removed all of them out of the plywood frame.

I took all the pieces out of the plywood frame and began gluing them together.

I cut out a small piece of aluminium and began curving the metal sheet by using the roller machine which helps to give a nice smooth curve.

I had to roll the metal sheet a couple of times to get to the desired curve I wanted

I marked out the extra bit where it is unnecessary and began cutting with the tool machine shown above

I tried to wrap the curved aluminium sheet along the edge of the mold but it still needs a bit of bending. 

I marked out the edges where it needs bending and from there i tried to  and there are two edges shown above After bending the edges, i was able to fit nicely around the object. 

I began shaping the aluminium sheet by pounding on rigid fixtures and with the tools provided in the workshop.

Hammering the aluminium sheet was a difficult process as it was a small object to work with and the sheet kept slipping away from my hands. I had to hold the metal sheet firmly and tried to shape the metal sheet as close as possible to the object. 

Shaping the metal sheet along the bottom edge of the object was easy but wrapping the top was a struggle for me and it was very difficult. as i tried to shape the top around the mold, the bottom bit of the sheet would deform and go out of place, I had to go back and forth of hammering the top and reshaping the bottom which was a tedious process. 

This is the result of my first attempt. My first attempt was somewhat unsuccessful because I've used a thick metal sheet which was 2.5mm thick. I cut out another piece of aluminium and tried to shape it with a second attempt. 

 This time I've used a thinner piece of aluminium sheet about 1mm in thickness. 

I tried to wrap the metal sheet with the same processes from my first attempt.

i would say the third attempt was better than the previous attempt. I was able to gradually shape the sheet around the mold as the metal sheet was a lot thinner

Final