PORTAL-PANEL

Photos of Portal 114









The portal panel project we completed in studio began as collection of ideas from many different perspectives. Surprisingly, as we formed our groups the ideas transformed into a solid design that was ultimately very successful.
Linsey Frost, Haley Sudderth, Brittany Stiles, and myself formed a group that was challenged with creating a portal reminiscent of the Propylaia and each of our Pathways projects. As if this wasn’t challenging enough, we were also faced with designing Stoel’s door, a very intimidating task.
At first, we were puzzled by how we were going to integrate all of our requirements yet still produce a cohesive design. After doing two sketch models, I convened with the other three members of my group to begin making final plans for our portal. We decided to combine two of the sketch models that we felt embodied each of our design words, our pathways models, and the Propylaia. We wanted to build a portal with vertical pieces that seemed to float on the wall to use Brittany’s design word balance and also to mimic the columns of the Propylaia. We wanted the “columns” to give a feeling of magnitude and intimidation, much like the portal to the Greek Acropolis. They were designed to create a sense of boundary, the design word Linsey chose to work with. We also decided to gradate the extension of the pieces from the wall to give the feeling of a theater curtain, which was another characteristic of the Propylaia and also to use my design word, which was gradient. As a group, we designed black strips of paper to weave through the pieces and embody rhythm, which was Haley’s design word.
After designing a portal that successfully embodied each of our design words, our previous models, and our historical context we began construction. Cutting the long panels out of cardboard was much harder than I expected, trying to keep the edges neat and the lines straight. Originally, we glued our vertical panels to a large sheet of white bulletin paper and tried to pin the entire thing up. This was unsuccessful because the cardboard “columns” were too heavy to be held up by the paper; so, back to the drawing board. We thought about gluing the pieces to tacks and sticking them in the wall, but ultimately decided to risk taking off the paint with double-sided foam tape. Luckily, the tape wasn’t strong enough to rip the paint, yet it was strong enough to hold up the cardboard. After our first failure, installing the rest of our portal was easy. We worked into the night, finally finishing a whole day before the deadline. We were so excited to be finished, and we were very proud of our work. Our portal met the requirements with complete success.
After reviewing our work, the professors had this to say:

“propylaia : the perpendicular fins shape an experience that has depth and surface variety. we find this to be parallel to the experience of the propylaia. we appreciate that the group explored multiple views in their work. the graphics lack clarity.” http://theopusproject.blogspot.com/

Although our graphics weren’t clear, they were well integrated. I was so pleased to know that our work was appreciated. Overall, our portal process was very successful. I am very proud of our work both individually and as a group.