Final Reflection

This course is very meaningful and useful to my future architect career. In the beginning of the course, I knew nothing about metal shaping and I was quite confused about the assignments and submissions, I did not expect this course to bring so many benefits to me.

In the first submission, I underestimated the time needed to fabricate a beautiful skin. I remember my first attempt was a disaster, and it was made less than one week before the deadline, which really made me worried and panic. However, this became my motivation. I started to make experimentation and try to explore new solutions to shape the metal skin. This process is actually very important to an architect, as designing a building is all about problem solving, to find the best solution to resolve the situation in an architectural sense. Throughout the experimentation, I developed my metal shaping skills and I notice the improvement of each new attempt.

In the second submission, I am more confident with my metal shaping skills, so I chose to fabricate the sneaker skin, which has lots of curvatures, which is much more challenging than my first object (handheld vacuum), which has a straightforward streamline. In this project I further developed my skills through using some new tools and techniques. I really like the idea of trying different techniques and tools, as there are no right or wrong in metal shaping, there are lots of possibilities, just like architectural design.

To conclude, the two objects in the course helped me to explore shapes and forms, which brings me new inspirations. Before this course, my architectural ideas are mostly squarish and rigid. This course has provide me with opportunities to try new things, such as making some streamlined and curved templates and metal skins.