Home Away from Home
November 2016
Wood, El-Wire, Assorted Hardware
5ft x 15ft Aprox.
This hotel sign is a piece of sculptural art used in a number of installations. It was proposed as an independent project while pursuing my degree at Carnegie Mellon. The piece is constructed of El-Wire and wood and is being continuously installed
Cheng Cheng Zhao an artist at Carnegie Mellon created an instagram in reference to this project with a miniture version that I crafted.
https://www.instagram.com/hotel_that_is_lost/
The design for this project started in Google Sketch-Up where a model was made so that the pieces could be laid out in preparation for cutting them on 3/8" Plywood.
The model was then taken to Adobe Illustrator and a rough color mock-up was created and placed in a picture of the university grounds. This allowed the scale of the piece to be understood.
Most of the letters were hand cut with a tablesaw and a jigsaw. The 3D model for the letter 'O' was taken into CAM software and tool paths for a CNC router were created. The automation of this piece allowed for a much more consistent curves then could be achieved by hand.
The entire piece was painted black and wooden pegs were added to elevate the El-Wire off of the interior of the letters. This would give the lights a much wider viewing angle. Soldering of the El-Wire, measuring and installation of all pegs was done with hand tools.
Some photographs copyright of Alex Falk 2016