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    Coming Events:

    - We are excited to announce that April will be one of the 8 virtual speakers for CSU's 28th annual LA Days spring lecture series! Her talk, EAT-PLANT-DRAWDOWN, will feature APDW's climate positive projects on the west coast on March 3. Talks are free- register here: https://scasla.agsci.colostate.edu/

    - We are so honored that April Phillips Design Works has been awarded the 2020 Small Green Business of the year! Thank you San Rafael Chamber of Commerce.

    - April to speak on Eat Plant Drawdown: Why Designing for Climate Matters at the 2020 ASLA Oregon Annual Design Symposium at Oregon Zoo: Saturday, September 12th

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3D PRINTING PROCESS FOR THE DOG HEAD BOLLARDS AT 38 DOLORES

April 3, 2014 by April

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Our project at 38 Dolores (recently know as 2001 Market) is complete! The project site is becoming a busy hub on Market Street with residents and Whole Food’s customers enjoying all the amenities of the site. One unique aspect of the project is our dog bollards located on the busy intersection of Market and Dolores. The dog bollards add a sculptural element to the site, while giving the community a safe place to tie up their dogs. Check out the process below to see how a local artist designed the 3D bollards from scratch, starting with our conceptual idea to emulate the horse head bollards of yesteryear!

Here  is a sneak peak of the finished product

completed-bollard1

Step 1: FIND MODEL & GENERATE A PRINT FILE

Unable to find a 3D model of a dog head online, Chris was inventive with his process. He bought a dog head and scanned the head using a software called 123D. From there he took 20-30 photos of the dog head and converted the file to a 3D model. He then sent the file to his friend Ezra Conner, who cut the model and scaled it appropriately.dawgy

STEP 2: PRINT DOG

First, Chris made a few sample dog heads at a smaller scale, but realized printing a .50″ thick dog head would take up to 32 hours. He decreased the thickness of the dog head to .060″ and sent the file to print. The printer melted the material and repeatedly layered tiny pieces on top of each other to build the head. The final print took about 25 hours to complete.

dog-prints1

STEP 3: CAST BRONZE HEAD

The model from step two was taken to  Bronze Plus, in Sebastapol, CA.  They took the dog head, added several layers of molten wax, dipped repeatedly  into a vat of adhesive binder and plaster powder. This process took about a week until they had strong enough shell. Next, they put the whole piece into a kiln to burn the wax out. Last, they filled the void with bronze, let it cool and broke off the plaster to reveal the dog head. Finishing touches included grinding, polishing, patina work, mounting the head to the steel bollard and adding layers of lacquer.   We have photos that provide a glimpse of this process in action. Once complete, the bronze head will acquire a rich patina over time.

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and VOILA! Here is the final dog bollard.

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