Mongolian Nomads

The pictures you showed were very eye opening. I was kind of confused though. These people that are building their new houses (yurts) in the grass fields.. where were they before this? It was really interesting to see how exactly they were built, though, and it was cool that all the other families that were in the area came over to help. I bet this was an awesome experience for you and I am kind of jealous. Its unimaginable for me to process how they live their lives like that, but it is really interesting to think about.

Rapid Prototyping

Learning about the rapid prototyping techniques was very interesting, especially seeing the videos of how each is done and used.

The four that we saw include:

Stereolithography

Selective Laser Sintering

Deposition Printing / FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling)

Laminated Object Manufacturing


It was cool to learn that a few of these processes can be found in the engineering department, and I will definitely need to find time to go venture over there and see these with my own eyes and maybe get a chance to use them to help my development process here at KU.

Berry Plastics

Berry plastics is a manufacturing plant located in Lawrence that specifies themselves in plastic products for things like containers to tubing to packaging. They use materials like high-density polyethylene and polypropylene. They use mold processes like injection and thermoform. They also make trash bags and different styles of tapes.

Target Product: Rugs

The product that I documented and researched was home rugs.

There were multiple brands at Target:

nThreshold

nTarget’s “Home” Brand

nMohawk Home

nNate Berkus

nRE: Room Essentials

Each brand used mainly the same materials, that included...

Cotton, Jute, Nylon, Wool, "Other Fiber", Rayon, Olefin, and Polyester

PROCESSES

nGather raw materials

nClean the fibers

nSpun into threads with spindle

nMultiple threads spun together to form yarn

nDye the materials

nOnce spun and dyed, the weaving process begins

Manufactured Landscapes

To start off, the beginning scene with the camera that pans across the side of the massive factory was eye-opening. The film is a basic aesthetic study of industrial landscapes. The documenters shed light on the tedious and repetitive individual processes that make up giant manufacturing processes, like disassembling electronics and breaking down cities that will soon be covered in water. The conditions of the places where electronic waste recycling was taking place were terrible. Smog and pollution filled the air, with disgusting work areas for what they are doing. I am sure that they weren't protecting the workers from materials that contain cancer causing toxins either. The villages they were breaking down that would soon be covered in water literally looked like bomb sites.

El Dorado

I was really glad we got to visit El Dorado, because when I was thinking about coming to KU for architecture, initially, my dad knew someone who was friends with someone at El Dorado, and I visited the place back in 2009 or 2010. The place really looked about the same to me, but it was nice to see it again. I really like how small it was then, and it still is pretty small now in terms of employees. I like how they all treat each other as the same level of worker; there isn't a big hierarchy of individuals within the business. The 3D model they were making towards the back was so detailed and precise, and I knew that would be a tedious process, but it's cool to see a model like that up close and in person. I thought it was funny that their conference room by the front of the office had openings toward the ceiling, and that the conversations inside the room could be heard outside of the room. The shop they had downstairs was cool, too. They use mostly metals down there to work on pieces that they need to have built for clients.

Lawrence Paper Co

The Lawrence Paper Co is a massive factory/plant located in Lawrence. They produce tons of paper on a regular basis. My favorite part was definitely the room with all the big brown cylinders full of paper. Going up to these and reading the label that said how many tons each weighed was mind blowing. Another cool part was the design room where they put designs on paper, and also another where they assembled paper packing units to be displays in grocery stores or gas stations. The room where those were located had an awesome cutting/perforating machine that once you inputed a design, it would automatically do the perforation on the paper in a fast, precise manner.