Skeleton and Skin

Almost everything constructed in nature, and constructed by us, is built on the skeleton and skin principal: a generally internal, supportive frame surrounded by an outer skin or layer.
My Creative Processes class professor Duane Elverum, who introduced this idea to us first-years, gave some examples last week (and I’ll add my own, too): buildings (frame and walls), tents (poles and tarp), humans (bones and flesh), trees (wood and bark), iPod (frame and glossy plastic), websites (HTML and CSS), etc.
So our first class exercise involved solving a given problem using (or at least vaguely keeping in mind) this idea, in conjuction with a three-part project methodology of strategy, goals and metrics, or measurable outcomes. But really we all got our hands dirty rolling and taping just heaps of newspaper.
The problem was to build a self-supporting structure, or “house”, with a roof that could contain four people. Our materials were limited to only newspaper and masking tape and our time limit was one hour.
It didn’t take long to figure out the optimum strategy, or the goals, and most group structures came to similar and successful conclusions. Part of the exercise’s emphasis, it was revealed during the post critique, was on the planning-to-production ratio involved in each completed structure, and the conceptual to technical skills brought to bare.
Overall Elverum, and first-year in general, repeatedly emphasize the “process of practicing creative endevour,” and as Elverum said, those three primary methods of project strategy will get you through any problem in life.
Some photos from the exercise, courtesy and copyright Duane Elverum.

One of the groups revisiting project strategy.

A group puts their skin in place.

My group worked in twos: one half on the skeleton, the other on skin, coming together at the end in a flurry of masking tape.

Project methodologies in the flesh.

My group’s completed structure (I am stuck in the back left).

Another group at home.

Another group at home.

Another group at home.