More renders

In this render you can see the detail on the screen of the monitor.

This render shows the veiwing platform from the doorway.

Renders of the interior of the Tower using 3DS max 7

Here are some the renders from the digital model i made of the interior of the tower.

As you can see i have tried to make it as realistic as possible.

Below you can see that the construction of the legs is nearly complete and the bows have been put in place.

Here you see the upper part of the tower have been sanded drilled and glued together ready to be attached to the tower legs and bow.

Below you can see that i have sanded and filled the tower legs attached the bows and top part of the tower and even started threading the lighting system through the tower to make sure it will fit.

below you can see that I have started fitting some of the detail to the front of Gunwharf

Below is the oyu can see the tower with the spire and painted white. This is the point I got to at the time of the deadline. I was very annoyed with myself for not finishing it in time.

Construction photos cont..

Here is the construction of the base of the tower with the leg holes cut. I have also spent time finishing the surrounding buildings on the baseboard.

Here you can see i have made the roof of Gunwharf and one of the Balconies. I made the the roof using acrylic cut certain widths and then sanded at a 35 degree angle and glued together. This process worked well. I previously tried to cut the roof out of on soild piece of MDF, this however didn't work very well.

Below are the tower legs cast, ready to be sanded and drilled.

Construction photos cont..

Below is the construction of the harbour building to the side of the tower. To build this I used mainly MDF with a little styrene for the canopy.

Here is the cladding for the harbour building using 1mm acrylic and laser etched detail. I then heat bent them to the shape of the building using the vacuum formers.

Construction photos of tower

Here you can that I have made the base using MDF and also the contours for the base of the tower.

I made the pontoon out of 6mm clear acrylic using the laser cutter to etch the detail on aswell.

Found construction pics of the Tower

I was able to find these photos of the tower being constructed. Having looked at them again it was constructed in a very similar way to the way I constructed my model of the Tower. Building the base first, the legs in sections, building the bows and ribs and finally placing the spire on the top.

Gunwharf and surrounding buildings

As I was only given very limited plans from the architects, I had the task of finding out the sizes of the surrounding buildings myself. To do this I was advised to buy an ordanance survey map covering the area. After buying the map I realised that the area covered was very small on the map and still didn't open much light on the subject. It was then I decided to phone Portmouth council and see if I could gain any information on Gunwharf Quays and the surrounding areas. I was put in contact with guy called Andrew in the planning section tht was veery helpful. He wasn't able to supply me with printouts of the plans, but he was able to use a program that the council have that is similar to Google Earth. Using this program he was able to measure the heights of the parts of the buildings that I asked him for. This turned outto be a very valuable resource as i was able to phone him to gain other measurements if needed.

Lighting the Tower

After messing about with the different colours for the tower illumination i needed to figure out a way to fit the lighting effectively. I had decided that I wanted to use a blue coloured light as it would a nice effect in a dark room.

I looked first at using Led's in a similar that the tower is lit in real life. I found that although they would be cheap i most likely have to wire them up myself and fit the wiring inside the tower. I realised that this would create a headache as i could only fit soo much wiring inside the legs of the tower, this way would also possibly not work very well. Led fairy lights would not really be an option as as they too wouldn't fit up through the tower very well.

I also loooked in to using fibre optics for the lighting as they were slim and would be easy to fit up through the tower. The type of lighting i needed to use would have to be no more that 3mm in diameter as it would have to slide through the rung of the tower. I came to the conclusion that fibre optics wouldn't that beneficial as i could find any that were suitable. The lighting needed to be bendable and for this reason fibre optics wouldn't be great. Although fibre optics bend i couldn't guarantee that the light wold make right to the tip of the fibre. It was worth taking the risk.

After extensively trailing the internet for a lighting solution I came across some neon tubing on ebay for use on cars and motorbikes. I realised that this would be the best solution as it only had a diameter of 2.5mm, was just over a metre long and was a sealed unit with a 12v power supply. Another great characteristic was it was very bendy which it was ideal for feeding through the legs of the tower. The tubing came in an extensive range of colours including blue. I ordered it from Hong Kong and arrived within a week which was ideal.

Construction of the tower and materials

When constructing the tower i wanted to use my hand skills as much as possible as this was an area I felt I needed to improve on. I also wanted to try and keep the cost of materials low. To do this I decided that i would try use cheaper materials like MDF as it it is very easy to work with, and gives good results. I wanted to keep laser cutting to a minimum and only use it for detail on the model.

During this project one of my aims was to use processes that I hadn't used before such as moulding and casting. This would be particularly useful for making the legs of the tower. I had already decided that i needed to make them in sections as i would need to feed the wires for the lighting of the tower up through them. It was a good process to use because in the event the tower legs were damaged it would be easy to cast more.

During the construction of the tower I used quite a lot MDF as it very easy and quick to work with giving good results. I didn't want to use too much Chemiwood as it is very expensive and you can get similar results with MDF. I did however use chemiwood for making the former for the mould of the tower legs. This was agood idea as i was able to sand the chemiwood and sandseal it to a really nice smooth surface, perfect for the tower leg.

I only wanted to use acrylic mainly for the cladding and detail on the model. Having made the shapes using MDF e.g Gunwharf Quays it would be easy to clad the detail on using 1mm acrylic with etch. I also felt this would be quicker than making it any other way.

Drawing plans of Spinnaker

Having only been given the above elavations for the tower i was left with the problem of drawing the side elavations, rear elavation, front elavation.. This was a big challenge as i spent a lot of time trawling the internet for any information about heights of the tower. One of the hardest things to work out was the size and shape of the bows as the only information i had was from above. All of the pictures shown from the side didn't give a very accurate view of what size it was as it varied from the middle, top and the bottom.

Research into Architectural Models

Here are a selection of photos of models built by different modelmaking companies. This gives me a good idea of the quality I need to at industry standard.

This model was created by Pipers and is a very detailed model. It's a model of the British Embassy. I don't think I can relate my model to this as are no trees on my model as it is on the edge of the harbour in Portsmouth.

Below:- I really like this model but it covers a vast area and i imagine there must have been a large group of people working on this model.

Below is the proposed design for the football stadium for Portsmouth FC. It is a very high quality digital model.
I like the way the model is lit below. Would like to create a similar style in lighting ,my model.

More Millenium projects

Here are some more millenium projects.

The Millenium Bridge in London.

The Millenium Bridge in GatesheThe millenium Tower in Japan

A millenium tower in the USA.

Millenium projects

The Spinnaker Tower is a Millenium project to help regenerate Portsmouth. I've looked into other Millenium projects and shown them below

The millenium Cardiff Stadium in Wales.

The Millenium Dome or 02 Dome as it is now known in London.

The Eden Project in Cornwall.

The new Wembley Stadium in London.

HGP Greentree Allchurch Evans Architects

HGP Greentree Allchurch Evans Architects and Leonhardt Andra Architects were the companies chosen to design the Spinnnaker Tower. Together they came up with three designs that were then put to a public vote. The three designs were:- the Globe, the Spinnaker and the Triple Tower. The Spinnaker won the vote after 60% of nearly 13.000 people voted for it.

The reason behind building the Spinnaker was that it was a part of the millenium regeneration of Portsmouth Harbour to bring it upto date and celebrate Portsmouth's maritime history.

HGP Greentree Allchurch Evans Architects have a wide portfolio of work in many different areas such as:- Marine, Eduacational, Leisure, Conservation, Residentual, Retail and Commercial sectors.

HGP masterplanned Gunwharf Quays working alongside Portsmouth City Council as a lottery funded project directly next to the Spinnaker Tower.

Below are some photos of other projects that HGP have worked on:-

This building is from the commmercial sector, Heathrow car parks, Heathrow Airport.

This is the Admiral Lord Nelson school in Portsmouth from the Eduacation sector.

This is the new Hayling Island golf club from the Leisure sector.

Changing the scale of the Tower.

I have decided to change the scale of the tower to 1:200 as I feel it will be a better size to work. It will also create a very striking model. By making it larger I am able to insert the lighting into the ribs of the tower that will illuminate it.

Recieving plans and deciding on scale

I have finally received the plans for the spinnaker tower. Although i have only received elevations from above of the three viewing levels. I was able to find some dimensions of the tower on the Internet of the side elevations. From these plans i should be able to make the tower.

I have done some calculations from the plans and have finally been able to decide on scale. The scale i have chosen is 1:250, this make the height of the tower 660mm which i feel is about the best height. 1:200 would be too tall as the height of the tower would be 825mm without the base board.

Experimenting with lighting my model

Over the last few days i have built a digital model of the Spinnaker Tower using 3DS Max 7. The purpose of doing this was to work out which colours would be appropriate for lighting the tower. It was also a great chance to make the building and decide on the parameters i was going to use for the base board of the model. I only used low detail on the surrounding building as i just wanted to get a good idea of where they sit on the model.

After building the digital model, i then played about with lighting the tower and surrounding area. This gives me a good visual of how the tower will look with different colour lighting. I will need to build the lighting into the model as i construct it, for this reason it is essential that i experiment with the lighting now.

I used a few different colours as an experimentation, below i have shown them:-

I quite the blue as it is very striking. This is also one of the colours that is used to light the tower in real life.

I'm not sure i like the green as it looks a bit out of place.

The think the red lighting is nice as it gives a warm glow.

Here i have just used white light. The white light works well with the blue of the viewing platforms. Ideally i would like to use a selection of different colour lights, but in reality i think i will have to just one colour. My decision is definitely with the blue light.