Derriford Sculpture

Over the summer I've entered five competitions, two of which have been for large scale public sculptures.

In this post I'm going to focus on the earlier one, the Organ Donor Recognition project for Derriford Hospital, and review the lesson/s learned from it.

This started as a college project.  All the students in the 1st and 2nd years of Contemporary Craft were asked to propose designs for one of various projects, one of which was for two sculptures and a seat for Derriford Hospital, to thank organ donors and inspire others to follow in their footsteps.

I  focused my effort on the larger sculpture, for the main entrance to the hospital, proposing a design that could be scaled down to suit the smaller sculpture in a courtyard.

 I came up with a general concept - hands reaching out to each other, appealing for and offering help, inspired by Michelangelo's "God creating Adam" painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Stage 1.

I proposed a very large (3m high by 1.2m wide) sheet of 25-mm-thick glass slump cast over a mould of the hands on a concave surface.  I cast a 1/10 model, pictured below:

 I was shortlisted, along with 3 other proposals, and I was asked to develop my ideas further, particularly in term of costs.

Stage 2.

I knew that the scale of my project meant that it would have to be made by a specialist - none of the kilns at college were big enough and the weight, about half a ton, meant special lifting equipment would be needed.   So I contacted Proto Studios, a company with a long track record of working on architectural glass projects, and I went to see them in Wiltshire.

David Proto told me that slump-casting was a non starter on safety grounds.  If someone was able to crack the sculpture (which would take some doing) it could fall on top of someone and kill them.   He proposed an alternative - deep sand-blasting the hands in a sheet of glass that could then be bent and toughened and bonded to a second bent and toughened sheet to create a laminated monolith.  It would  be almost unbreakable and if it did break, one side would shatter completely but be supported by the other side and stay in place, like a car windscreen.

David gave me a quote for doing this, so my second submission was now a practical proposition with realistic costs and a proposed contractor.

I made a 1/10 model, pictured below:

All the same, I wasn't too keen on the laminated monolith approach.  I'd wanted the whole thing to be much more 3D.  I'd liked the idea of the slump-casting in Stage 1 causing ripples in the glass that would catch light and convey the idea of energy, a life force, being passed between the hands.

As a result, my revised design boards suggested that the original idea might work in another material, such as one of the plastic alternatives to glass.

Not surprisingly, I was asked to look into this idea further, which I did quite extensively.  It was very interesting but I concluded it was a bit of a blind alley - the materials existed but very few companies had used them on large scale sculptures, the cost was probably going to be prohibitive and there were question marks over how the material would age.

Stage 3.

I didn't much like the laminated monolith idea and alternatives to glass had been a dead end, so I was at a bit of a loss.

Then I had a brainwave - a totally different way of implementing the same basic concept of the hands reaching out to each other.   This involved 3D modelling the whole project and then water-jet cutting up to about 100 relatively small pieces of glass and stacking them horizontally, threading them onto rods.

I discussed this idea with Formlite, the company I worked with on the gates for Devonport Column.  It was game to do the 3D modelling.

I discussed it with Proto Studios who agreed that it was a far less risky (and thus less costly) idea than the laminated monolith.  The water jet cutting could be done in a factory environment and transportation and assembly would be much easier because we would be dealing with relatively small, light pieces of glass.

Unfortunately, however, time was running out for submitting this idea. I didn't have time to do a 3D scan of hands and arms or get Formlite to create a proper 3D computer model of a prototype.  

I ended up designing it in 2D on my computer and having to draw sections of the hand almost by guesswork.  Still, I managed to generate a file that I could feed into the college laser cutter to make about 40 pieces from a couple of 3-mm-thick acrylic sheets - see photo below:

I then threaded the pieces onto two threaded rods, spacing them apart by 3mm with washers.  This created a 1/5 model of part of my proposed sculpture:

Photos of my design boards for Stages 2 and 3 are on my website - click on this link to see them.

I and the other shortlisted candidates presented our ideas to the estates department of Derriford Hospital on 12th May.    I took along all my design boards and three models.

Unfortunately, the room at Derriford was very gloomy and as a result, the hand in my Stage 3 model didn't stand out as well as it might.  Also, it would have looked a lot better if I had been able to do a 3D scan of an actual hand, and if I had been able to do a 3D design of the whole project, rather than my rough-and-ready approach using a 2D drawing package.

This might sound a bit big-headed but my proposals were much more developed than the others.  I had discussed it in depth with companies that would help me design and build it so I knew it was a practical proposition.  The other proposals weren't much more than ideas that still needed a lot of development in terms of determining whether they were build-able, whether they were safe, whether they were weather-proof,   how much they would cost, what scales they should be, and so on.

Anyhow, the estate staff voted on the proposals and I came second.

I wonder whether I would have been better off trying less hard.   If I had stuck with my original proposal I could have "discovered" the safety problem later on if I had won  - and it would have put me on equal footing with the other candidates.

Having said that,  the proposal that came first was a clever idea and John Grayson, our course leader, balanced some positive comments on my proposal with a negative - that "the design concepts were rather derivative in nature".

I questioned this - see my previous post - and I've mulled over what he meant ever since.  John wasn't available to give me more than a one-sentence email as feedback.

 I've ended up seeing his point or view concerning one aspect of my design - the panel concept.   The switch to making the sculpture as a stack of horizontal glass plates gave me the opportunity to make a much more interesting and dynamic shape.  I wish I'd taken it, but the way the competition was structured meant that I tried to stick with the design idea that had been shortlisted.  Also, the timescale was tight, particularly as models were involved,  so I didn't really have the opportunity to go back and think things through from scratch.

As it happens, I subsequently encountered a sculpture that uses horizontal glass plates in a similar way to what I'd been planning.  The outcome was stunning - see the photo below.  It made me realise what I could have done, with more time,  in Stage 3.

I assumed that coming second in the voting at Derriford meant that I was out of the running on this project but when I voiced this opinion to John Grayson in July he replied:  "The final decision has not been made".

So who knows: maybe they'll be a Stage 4?    I would love the to opportunity to develop  my Stage 3 design some more, but I doubt whether this is going to happen.

Lessons

• Consider how and by whom proposals are going to be assessed.  The chances are they will be artists evaluating the aesthetics rather than engineers reviewing practicalities.  If this is the case focus on appearance rather than substance.
•  Look at who else has been invited to submit proposals.  Adjust the aesthetic/practicality balance of your own efforts accordingly.
• If you make a big shift in the way you plan to implement a concept then go right back to the beginning and see whether new opportunities have emerged.