Minute Miniatures Part 1

WARNING! Long post ahead! Patient readers please read till the end!

Final exams are over! Actually it was over since last Thursday, but I was too lazy to update. So sue me. I must admit, it did not go too well. Let us leave it at that. I dare not guess my results, so I think I will leave that to the day of release of the results!

Anyways.

As many of you already know, I was involved in a semester-long project for the past 14 weeks. Although we were given 14 weeks to complete everything, we found it hard to do just that, considering that we had three other subjects to cope with and also other problems.

For the uninitiated, here's a short brief on what the project was all about.

The Civil Engineering Project (that's the name of the subject lar...) students were separated into groups of six or seven, and this became our project group for the whole semester.

Group Ingeniero. (L-R): Me, Myo Thaw, Johnson (team leader), Murtaza, Aizuddin, Soon (crouching) Not in picture: Stefanie.

And the task?

*deep breath*

We were given the Kuching Waterfront and the riverbank opposite it. With this two huge pieces of land, we have to plan out their development, which must include a Hotel Tower, Office Tower, Shopping Mall, Basement Parking, Botanical Garden, Musical Fountain (with laser display) and a Pedestrian Bridge to link up the two riverbanks.

The map we acquired. Its actual size is about the span of my bedroom's width

Besides PLANNING the development, we have to write a full report which includes Architectural Concept Development, Design Considerations and Engineering Details. But that's not all! We also had to prepare the Contract Documents for at least one of the items in our construction plan, and give a presentation to 'sell' our development plan to a panel of judges (which comprises of real life architects, engineers, other lecturers and seniors).

The two main judges. The one with 'less hair' turns out to be my uncle!

But the best part is...

3D Model!

Yeah, we were expected to construct a 3D Model of our development plan, the likes of the kind you see at Developer Roadshows.

Lots of fun, very little of sleep. Now do you see why I neglected my blog? -_-"

To start off, we had to have a base on which all our models will sit on. But to know how big the base is, we first need to decide on the scale. After much debate, the group settled on the 1:1000 scale. This means that everything we build will be 1000 times smaller than the actual thing. Here's a better way to get a sense of the scale: the Fort Margherita is only about 20mm tall and the Khatulistiwa Cafe is about 25mm tall.

Elevation drawing of Jade Point. (L-R): Office Tower, Shopping Mall, Hotel Tower

However, given the size of the area, 1:1000 seems to be the logical logistical choice. Even at such a tiny scale, our base is 200mm x 60mm in size! The base could barely fit into my Kelisa. Later, we found out that no other groups selected a scale this small. Some of them did models at 1:500 (twice of our size) and 1:300 (more than three times of ours). Just imagine the sheer size of their models.

Having acquired a proper base (a piece of wood lying in my backyard), we were set to set up our terrain. I managed to get my hands on a contour map of the whole area in the proper scale. And the best part, I got it for FREE! I heard that the others spent like RM40 just to acquire one. Thanks mum!

Tracing and cutting of the contours

We did our terrain in this way. First, we cut out polystyrene layers to fit the shape of each contour level. Then we layered them on top of each other according to their levels. For example, the 5m contour goes on top of the 0m contour, the 10m goes on top of the 5m and so on.


As you can see, the 'steps' dividing the layers looks very unnatural for a hilly terrain, so we had to find some way of smoothing out these layers. Fans of 'Art Attack!' will find out methods very familiar.

First, we mixed PVA glue (ring a bell?) with water. Then, we dipped kitchen roll in this glue mixture and then moulded the tissue mess into the terrain. It was a messy job and the warm, sticky, white gooey mixture started to induce 'other' thoughts in our heads but it was great fun.


It took several days for all the glue to dry, including a whole night of me doing nothing but blowing it dry with my cousin's hair dryer.

After the terrain has been set up, we proceeded to construct our miniatures. Due to the fact that we chose to show the overall development area, we were faced with the daunting task of constructing all the existing structures of the Waterfront. If you have any idea how many structures are in the existing Waterfront, you will know how crazy this idea is.

Initially, we split up the areas that have to be built. Johnson (team leader) will construct the area of the Towers, while I will do the Pedestrian Bridge and help out with the Waterfront area. Myo Thaw (a member of our group, international student from Myanmar) was supposed to take charge of the Waterfront while the others were supposed to complete the Botanical Garden area. However, due to problems later into the project, Johnson and I took charge of the whole Waterfront riverbank, while the others did the Petra Jaya side.

I started off with the Pedestrian Bridge. Compared to the others, our bridge design is the simplest. In fact, the designs of all our structures are the simplest compared to the others. As this was my very first attempt at making models, it took me quite a while to finish just this one bridge. At first, I thought that I can finish it up in one night. I ended up spending three or four days just to prepare its basic shape!

The bridge at its bare-bones stage

Our helper, Fatimah Yong. Imported all the way from Indonesia. She helped us out a lot!

Later, I added details on the bridge, like benches, landscaping features, shades and, my most proud achievement, the hornbill statue on top of it.

The finished pedestrian bridge. Notice that the river hasn't been 'glazed'

The statue consists of an obelisk with a hornbill on top of it. However, the problem is that on our scale, the hornbill is only the size of HALF a grain of rice! If you leave it on the table, you can't even see it althought it is right in front of you.

Can you see the hornbill? It could have been a fly and nobody would be able to tell the difference

After the Pedestrian Bridge, I moved on to constructing the Waterfront existing structures. However, as a member of the opposing team has finished a very cute-looking Fort Margherita, I couldn't resist rising up to the challenge. So, I decided to build an EVEN cuter Fort Margherita! Here's mine:

Tada! Nice or not?

Like all my other latter models, I constructed this one with plain thick card. The base was made of cardboard (the kind used in postcards) with sand glued on for texture. However, I must admit that the sand I used was a little bit too coarse. But it was all I had at the time. The ridges at the top of the tower were painstakingly cut out one-by-one. And all the details were drawn on and colored by moi. At such a small scale, every cut and stroke has to be precise! It's not very difficult, just time-consuming, really.

See how small it is compared to a highlighter

The nights following the completion of Fort Margherita were taken up by the construction of the other miniatures. It took me around one and a half weeks to finish up the miniatures, before we moved the whole model project to Soon's house (before that, we were doing it at Johnson's place).

Some of the miniatures I built. I still prefer the Fort, though ;)

The Chinese Museum. To be honest, not my personal favorite

While I was doing the other Waterfront structures, Johnson was busy with his own part! He had to construct the Hotel Tower, Office Tower, Shopping Mall and the Basement Carpark. We call the whole thing 'Jade Point'. Simply because the green color reminds us of jade.


It took him a whole week just to finish those few structures, and another few days to finish up the Basement Carpark. He individually cut the windows for every floor and measured every dimension to perfection. For the window glass, he layered a green colored transparency over a piece of green tracing paper and then striped the transparency for texture.

If you look closely, there are mini poolside tables on top of the Shopping Mall. The tiny blue thing at the lower right corner is the parking booth. Also notice the street lights detail

As for the Basement Carpark, each floor was built individually and each parking space was hand-drawn. He even built a parking booth at the entrance to the underground parking! But sayang la, we forgot the exit booth.. Will add that in when we have time!

Basement Carpark, with cutaway layers to show each floor. Jade Point is placed on top of it and is detachable

Among other things on this side of the river are the musical fountains and a raised plaza behind the structures.

The raised plaza was a simple raised area that is supposed to serve as an extension to the Waterfront, as well as to become the link between the existing Waterfront with the new structures. The length of the plaza is a dedicated outdoor dining area where people can relax and unwind over some drinks while enjoying the view. Built this thing in around three hours. Quite simple, as its construction methods were rather similar to the pedestrian bridge.

Raised plaza, landscaping by Cynthia (another imported helper). Notice the river effects? ;)

As for the musical fountains with laser display, our group chose to renovate the existing fountains near the Waterfront Square Tower. The ring around the Square Tower is actually made up of 'screen fountains', whose purpose is to create a cylindrical water wall around the Square Tower onto which the laser show can be projected. The laser projectors are mounted on the Square Tower, which doubles as a control centre for the whole set-up. The four L-shaped fountains surrounding the Square Tower are the musical fountains.


If you look closely at the fountains, there are little streams of 'water' which illustrate the fountains in operation. Aizuddin did this by hanging UHU glue on a toothpick till half-dry before moving the gelatinous glue to the fountains. Genius.

Well, that concludes the City Centre Riverbank part of the model. Here are some shots of the finished model of the Waterfront.




Next time...

Minute Miniatures Part 2: The Botanical Garden!

Side order: The Business students may begin indulging in their freedom today. Congratulations! Meanwhile, we Engineering students have partied for almost a week already. =P Anyways, enjoy your holidays, people! As for those who are taking Summer Semester, well... Ehehe la.