Assignment 2: Designing your Folly

For my assignment, I have explored themes and issues that are important to me and designed a Folly based on those ideas. Carrying out a mind map at the very beginning was an important task for me, giving me the chance to explore other words and feelings connected to those ideas, more in depth.

Firstly, I will explain a little on the background of my idea. I live in a small village in Somerset. The main road that travels from the nearest town of Yeovil to the A37, that leads to neighbouring towns of Dorchester and Weymouth, cuts through the bottom of the village, halfway along that road is Yeovil Junction Railway station. Over the last 20 years of living in the village I have noticed a huge increase in demand for traffic passing through the village or travelling to and from the railway station. The increase of traffic has taken its toll, not only on the state of the roads but the deaths of the animals that are also trying to cross the road have increased. During lockdown we sadly lost another cat, our beloved Maisie. She was an 8 year old tortoiseshell who mostly preferred to stay home. I’m convinced that because of lockdown, the roads were a lot quieter and so she thought she would take a chance and cross the road to explore the river on the other side. What makes matters worse for me, is that the driver didn’t stop and move her to one side. A different driver found her in the road, scooped her up, put her in a bag and knocked on a few doors of the terraced row I live in, a neighbour identified her and knocked our door with the sad news. We are a family of 5 and we would normally be working, at college, at uni or school but because of lockdown we were all home. That morning was very sad indeed, we carried her to our allotment, not far from our house and buried her. Since that day, in the space of two months, two of our neighbours have also lost their cats to the dreadful speeding of cars through the village.

Based on this sad story, I have designed a folly that is functional, durable, self-supporting and doesn’t need foundations or tethering. I have researched materials and found a material that isn’t the cheapest to produce but most importantly it is an environmentally friendly material, it is carbon fibre. My thoughts behind the actual build of the folly and the costs involved would be a discussion for the local community and I would look at fundraising ideas to cover that cost.

Whilst researching carbon fibre I found some interesting sites that explain its process.

Carbon fibre is manufactured by refining oil to obtain acrylonitrile and then spinning this acrylonitrile and baking the spun yarn. Due to the high baking temperature of 1000℃ or more, 20 tons of CO₂ are emitted to manufacture 1 ton of carbon fibre. Scientists have found that carbon fibre contributes significantly to curbing of global warming, the environmental impact of carbon fibre was evaluated using the LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) method over is life cycle from digging of material to use and scrapping of carbon fibre product. The result is as follows. When the body structure of a car is made 30% lighter using carbon fibre, 50 tons of CO2 will be reduced per 1 ton of carbon fibre over a life cycle of 10 years; when the fuselage structure of aircraft is made 20% lighter using carbon fibre, on the other hand, 1400 tons of CO2 will be reduced under the same condition. If passenger cars (42 million vehicles owned, excluding light automobiles) and passenger aircraft (430 planes owned) in Japan adopt carbon fibre to reduce weight and therefore improve fuel economy, 22 million tons of CO₂ will be saved. This corresponds to approx. 1.5% of total CO2 emissions in Japan in 2006 (1.3 billion tons), which clearly shows why this cutting-edge material is a “trump card” in reducing CO₂ and contributing to the global environment. (Toray, 2019)

The two main points for the design of my folly are environmental and local and taking into consideration my thoughts and feelings on the traffic speeding through my home village, I created a mind map. Such a simple task but one I find really helpful. My thought process behind the design of the folly not only has to look impressive and profound but will hopefully teach children and adults the dangers of speeding in a built up environment and remind those that do, to just slow down and take a bit more care and think about the consequences of their actions. Not only is this good for the mind and takes into consideration other peoples feelings and ultimately their loved ones, but pets can live a happier, less scary life.

The shape of the folly will enable people to sit and enjoy it, it won’t be weatherproof but can be used and enjoyed on the days when you don’t need to find shelter from the rain or snow. Ribbons will hang on the poles, in different colours, to represent the animals that have lost their lives in the village trying to cross the road. It will hopefully stand as a constant reminder to drivers to help them stick to the speed limit of 30mph, maybe their conscience will remind them that their speeding has an impact on other peoples lives when they are told their beloved pet has been hit by a vehicle. I’m also thinking that the folly can be used in several parts of the village, so with its lightweight structure, it can be moved easily on a regular basis.

The folly will have a plain black frame consisting of 3 tall carbon poles that meet at the top and showcase the whiskers. The bottom of the folly will be made of carbon fibre poles in a horseshoe shape that can be used as seating, the ribbons in their bright colours will represent the lost lives of the animals, their memories will then live on in the folly.

Here are a few drawings that I did initially, it wasn’t until I looked again at the scale and realised that I did them wrong, but it was good practise!

The following drawings are at scale 1:20, with correct measurements. Here you can see different elevations, front elevation, plan elevation and a section drawing of the base of the Folly. I have added a scale figure to show how the folly will be used. The last drawing also shows different colour ribbons that will represent the animals killed on the road.

Referencing

(Toray, 2019) What is carbon fibre? https://www.torayca.com/en/aboutus/index.html accessed 28.9.20