This year again we were asked to contribute towards the Comic Arts Festival.
Though I missed the earlier meetings I was involved in the process the following week.
As can been seen below in my notes there were to be 6 possible events
Moomins
Pop Noir Tour
Rogue Trooper
Finnish Village
Canadian Building
VIP event
v=qwhlckWR3ag”>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwhlckWR3ag
The one thing this extra visit raised to us was that the ceiling had different heights so we had to bear this in mind when designing the structure. As can also be seen the inital plan was too large and would not have fitted within the space allowed.The structure was to be made using tank traps and scaffolding. So we cam up with the following plan 
From the above we could assertain what lengths and number of scaffolding was needed to make the ‘box’
At this point we also drew up potential floor plans for the layout of the steel decking which was to be used for the pier/walkways within the installation. 
Once we had a good idea of layout I produced a 3d render to scale of the structure
It was also decided at this time, that to create a round boathouse would be very difficult in the time allowed, so we redesigned this to be a hexagon. We also had a boat available to us. One last design change at this time was that we would probably again due to time constarints be unable to produce the moutain plywood cutaway so the plan was to have a backdrop painted to hang on the reaer and one of the walls, thus making the box not so dark and gloomy looking. The boathouse was desgned with a 5′ radius and the height to be determined via the structur
Backdrop inspiration
This fabric was ordered as a 40′ long piece of fabric, to ensure it would stretch around these 2 walls, the other wall and ceiling was to have the star cloth covering, so this was measured up to ensure it would fit.
Once we had the inital plan in place we then moved in ‘The Box’ to recreate it using the decking to check our layout. During this process the desgn changed to incoprorate a bridge, and differnet location for the boat and boat house.
This gave the installation a better feeling as the space was in actuality quite cramped, so in the image above, the boathouse would now be situated in the top right of the image with the entrance being in the bottom right, the exit was to be the top left, but this was moved aty a later date to the bottom left, to allow tech istallation etc. The black floor areas were to be covered with blue tarpaulin to replicate water and the left side pieces of decking would be joined via vinyl cut flower stepping stones.
Once the desgin was finalised it was time to move onto the boat support and the boathouse.
The boat needed supports to be made rto ensure the bottom didn’t fall out when people were in it. The boat was to be used for the fishing game.
We made a structure to go along the bottom of the boat as well as to level it out so the it sat flay with no rocj=king movement from side to side or fromt to back. This was achieved by marking out various pieces of plywood and cutting the to shape. Then by tril and error cutting chocks that would support the boat, this frame work was then screwed together and could be positioned under the boat. This approached was used as it would mean that we would not need to damage or screw into the boat in any way.
Desgining the boathouse
As mentioned we decided that the boathouse intially was to be a 5′ diameter cylinder with a conal roof, due to tie constraints tyhis was changed to hexagonal build. So we took a 5′ circle and divided this by six using a set of compasses and set them to scale, using centimeters. We drew a circle with a radius of 2.5 cm, we then positioned the compass on the circumference ensuring not to change its separation and scribed to lines on the cirumference. The marks were used to reposition the compass, and the 2 further marks inscribed, repeating this process allows us to divide the circumference by 6. Then joing these marks gave us our hexagon. Dividing a circle
The angles of a hexagon are shown below
We had previously decided that the overall height of the house was to be 8′ this would allow us some lee way with deck height whilst ensuring we were not touching hte roof of the structure, as it was primarily designed for chidlren we thought a wall height of 5′ would be sufficient, we therefore needed to essentially build 6 flats which were 2.5′ by 5′.
This was simple process however we did have to bear in mind how the would join, with this in mind we chamfered the joining edges, the long pieces were chamfered on the internal corners by 30 degrees this gave us a break angle of 60 degrees which when butted up together gave us our angle of 120 degrees.
Also to moted that the bottom was also chamfered in this way. We also needed to add windows to 2 panels as shown in the following diagram.
This was a simple process of once the flats were made measuring the distance and cutting a piece of wood to fit. Once the flats were made it was a simply assembly. The doorway was to be left open and the rest was to be clad in strips of hardboard, roughly cut to give it a ‘handmade’ look.
The roof required a little more thought as it was to be made of trianlges but we need to ensure that it wouldn’t be more than 3′ high. Wall height 5′ + Roof height 3′ = 8′ our max height.
This again was fairly straight forward to achieve
In the diagram above in the bottom left you can see our calculations. Knowing the radius 2.5′ and height we could draw a right angled with these measurements. then join the 2 free points to form a triangle. This then gave us the length or height our trianlge needed to be. This was then dranw in plan view. Unfortunately I do not have an image of this step.
Draw a straight line to scale 2.5′ (Wall width) find the centre, draw a perpendicular line from the centre 5′ long. Now connect each end of the 2.5′ line to the top of this perpendicular line. This gives us the right dimensions for the roof trangles, again 6 were required. These were built and then attached to gether to form the roof. as we were attaching we realised we hadn’t taken into account the various abgles coming together at the pinicles so it was decidd to trim the roof tops down by 1/2′ and then brace them to allow for smoother joining. As this top was above eye height then it was deemed so necessary to be exact at his point. Once this was done the pieces were joined to form the roof. Again cladding of hardboard was to be used, but larger bits in a rhomboid shape.
Unfortunately I have no images of the cladding steps. The boat house was then testfitted before painting.
Installation in the venue was straight forward due to our planning, that said howver our planning had taken us to the very edge of our space and though the scaffolding structure fitted the deking did not. However thr incorporation of the bridge gave some flexibility in squeezing the layout in one plane. This enabled us to fit our design easily into the structure.
I should also note here that opur scaffolding design changed upon build. We had given extra scaffolding for supporting the legs so they did not splyout and allow the structure to twist etc. We were advised to just use short length and brace the top corers of each wall. This was done and gave a very secure structure without ugle scaffolding poles being visible halfway down the length of each wall.
As mentioned the structure and installation was smoooth and successful however there were some issues. As will be evident from the images shown below.
The lighting was very dark, though it was meant to be night time, the effect was quite gloomy. The lights used were simply not bright enough or had enough spread to fill the space efffectively.
The team who painted the backdrop, of the white fabric we had bought at the right drop and length had only started the backdrop from halfway up the height. this was supposed to be a full height backdrop and such the over all effect was lost and to my mind looked incomplete and a little amateur.
Matt Cooper 