After the Chennai trip, we realized that we didn't have much
time left till the end of the course. So we got into the finishing stages of
refining our domes and stuff. But along with this we also had to start building
our walls and thus come up with ideas for that. Now initially, there were
supposed to be four walls, one for each group, but looking at the amount of time
left, one wall was given to two groups collectively.
So my crew, The Hatchets collaborated with Chickichad Bamboo
and we started deciding on the design of the wall. We finally decided on a huge
octopus sculpture with its tentacles intertwining with each other and going
around and over the two sides of the wall. Our design also included bottles
shaped like fish, cut bamboo shoots as peep holes and a seating area with a
niche shaped like a seashell on the inside.
Once we started working, we realized that we didn't have
enough time and worked in overdrive. The mud making itself would take up a
majority of our time, and then our domes needed to be plastered as well. We got
our wall up and a basic structure of the octopus as well and we moved into the
next week.
So the next week had major things in the agenda. The main
two things were to finish the wall and to fire our smaller domes. So we fired
up the kiln for the two smaller domes of the lot along with some mud
sculptures. For the two bigger ones, we made an outdoor kiln ourselves. This we
made with a basic brick structure on which the domes were mounted. They were
packed with straw, leaves, branches and twigs fully and then covered with them
as well. Then they were covered with a mud mix plaster to seal off all the
gaps. Then the whole structure was lit up so that it would turn into
terracotta. As the fuel inside started to burn, the plaster began to collapse.
‘Plaster disaster’ as Jackson called it. But the fire kept going with someone
or the other checking on it.
The smaller domes were fit into the kiln in one way or the
other and sealed in with factory bricks. A pyrometer was plugged in to check
the temperature and all the gaps were filled in with clay. The wood was fed
into the fire continuously. This was to be done for more than a day. Meanwhile
we got ready for our big pizza party as we were staying late for the firing. We
prepared everything for it, right from the dough to the sauces to the toppings.
We baked them in Yohaan and Priya’s
outdoor oven and had them sizzling hot after a lot of fighting I must
add. The dessert was Akshaya’s chocolate and almond cake which was scrumptious.
We stayed back till it was dark and with a content stomach we headed back home.
The next day we were back to the wall. To our dismay, the
domes in the outdoor fire didn't survive the night, but the kiln ones still
needed a whole day. We realized that we won’t be able to plaster our domes AND
build the wall in the same day, as it was our last day before our break starts.
So we would have to come back to Terrapin after the break instead of what was
planned earlier. So we strove to complete our walls, this time with the fresh
mud dug up in Yohaan’s backyard which was simply beautiful. We completed our
Octopus, eight legs and all scaling their way across the wall. The bench was on
the inside with a cool side table with a bottle design on it. We worked really
hard to make the octopus look like an octopus and I think we succeeded in the
end. We had to hammer small pieces of
bamboo in the bamboo head and the tentacles for extra support as they were
quite heavy and may be prone to falling down during our break. As we would be
meeting our Doc Oc after almost two weeks, this was a risk that we were not
eager to take and thus the precautions. We finished much after the other group. But we were treated by Priya’s candied orange zest cake and tea before leaving.
As Design Earth almost comes to a close, I don’t know how to
describe it. It has been incredible and I wish that we do it justice in the
last three days that we come back here. Waiting…
