Tanya Eskander, architect, created a glass village with the help of FORMBOX

Tanya is a freelance architect based in London. He graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2017 and has since helped clients from all over the world bring their ideas to life. His work has often been awarded and quality is paramount in all his projects.

Clients are constantly asking her for more in a shorter period of time, so Tanya created her own pattern making workshop in her studio with the help of FormBox.

«FormBox is a key part of my ideation model. It’s extremely useful when I want to experiment with different ideas and play with all kinds of transparent materials.» – asked Eskander

CHALLENGE

Tanya collaborates with a London architecture firm developing a science park developed for a university research complex and which has been called the Eden project. He planned the development of a series of 10 microclimates. These would be encased in glass and provide a temperature-controlled environment for conducting a variety of environmental science research projects.

Tanya had to create the site layout to show the client how the domes would look and how they would be positioned in the science park. He only had a few days to prepare everything.

THE SOLUTION

‍Tanya And the architecture firm organized a working session with the client to define the requirements for the domes. They tried different ideas, such as working with wood and using local materials to create the site’s foundation. Ultimately, they decided to use a geodesic structure, which Tanya began working on.

‍Created a 3D model of the site in 3DS max and rendered to obtain approval from the architectural firm. At the same time, they needed the model in the shortest possible time.

Tanya used blue foam, a wire cutter, a 3D printer, a FormBox and other selected tools and materials to produce the model.

First he sculpted the ground with blue foam.

After adding grass, trees and other details, he used cardboard, paper and cocktail sticks to make a rough model and structure of the dome. When she was satisfied with the construction, she generated a 3D model of the entire site using the CAD package and scanner and created detailed drawings for the dome.

He fabricated a white resin dome negative overnight using the SLA 3D printer. The next day he used the resulting print as a template to create the glass for the domes.

He placed the dome in the FormBox and quickly made 10 copies of the master model from clear Mayku sheets. He used a scalpel to cut out the domes and added them to his model.

COST COMPARISON

Mayku FormBox

• • Installation costs – 3993 ron

• • Final costs of the glass dome – 7 lei

• • Prototyping time: 16 hours of 3D printing

• • Production time: 2 hours

If you outsource

• • Installation costs – 13125 ron

• • Final cost of the glass dome – 21 lei

• • Prototyping time: 2-3 weeks

• • Production time: 2 weeks

RESULT

• • Fully transparent glass-like mockups. Using FormBox, Tanya was able to work with perfectly transparent materials that could not be made with a 3D printer.

• • He managed to fit in in time. Combining 3D printing with thermoforming. Tanya managed to make a small batch of domes in just a few minutes.

• • Significantly reduced costs. Tanya spent 7 lei for each dome created with FormBox.