Almost Near the End

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…