beatriz pm design

Nature’s Dreamscape


 phase I: Concept development

phase II: Prototyping

phase III: Fabrication

phase IV: Putting the final product in its environment Timeline: 6 weeks

Skills: Environment and Interaction Design, Large-scale concept development, Fabric dyeing, Sewing, Prototyping, Pattern-making

Role: Concept developer, co-designer, production

Team members: Beatriz Pimenta Medas, Evie LaComb, Huarui Lai, Maddie Burroughs My team and I designed, created, and installed our giant inflatable Leaf, a nature dreamscape, representing the abundance of nature and what it offers us, both now and in the many possible futures.

Process



    My team and I were tasked with responding to the prompt of ‘Abundant Futures’ in our Inflatables class at Carnegie Mellon University. I began the ideation process by visualizing some forms that excited me. 

    I embraced the qualities that are unique to inflatables in my sketches. Large, full forms that are colorful and bountiful, beautiful in their simplicity, but playful at their core. In my concept sketches, I considered how a person might interact with the form, and the role this plays in the story we were telling.

    I eventually landed on a giant, enveloping leaf. A form that was comforting but also exciting in its expansiveness and power, what being in nature feels like. 


We created the form in Rhino, which solved our biggest problem: designing a natural, sloping curve in the leaf.


Template for the edge of the leaf, creating the desired curve
                                           
One side of two leaf halves, divided into sections for the fabrication process. The sections were divided in this way to suggest veins in the leaf, adding to its realism.


The fabrication process involved not only constructing the fabric pieces, but also dyeing them by hand. I was able to use the irregular finish and handmade quality of dyeing fabric by hand to our advantage, because of how it added a beautiful texture reminiscient of plant cells, and how light passed through the vibrant colors.




Exploring color gradation in ripstop nylon

Finally, we got the chance to see people interact with our leaf. To me, these quiet moments of conversations underneath the structure, or individual observation of it, were the most powerful.

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