Moving on from stairwell testing, I tested different ideas with the actual apartment, examining materiality with lighting. Below is exploration using acrylic and shaved pastel:
The acrylic and pastel made really cool shadows, through the use of the glue that held the acrylic pieces together. The PVA, when dried with the pastel, created strange and unexpected patterns. I may utilise this as walls in the apartment.
I also wanted to tested another concept I had for the flooring in the apartment. Gathering four classmates, I stood them with my sample of plaster, with three existing holes drilled into it, and powder delicately shaved into the bottom. On the placecard, besides the plaster, a pastel, a drill and a craft knife, was the number ‘3’. Although the ideal result was if all four testers followed the example and each drilled three holes, shaving bits of pastel into each hole, the goal was to see how they would react, as it would reflect how tenants residing in the apartment would also react.
From this, three types of tenants were found:
- The type who understands the instruments and instructions given and obediently contributes.
- The type of may or may not fully understand the process, and only partially contributes; in this case, it was drilling and filling just one hole, instead of three.
- The type who may or may not understand the process at all, and makes a mess for any future users.
A video of the experiment can be watched below:
