Design Ecology CCA - Week 7 (Album 2, Pouring Plaster)

The clay prototypes are ready, plywood boxes built (see Week 7, Album 1), and we're ready to pour plaster to create molds from which we'll make multiple nest modules.

Plaster mixing is an art in and of itself – too thick and it dries too quickly, too thin and it's too soupy to control; insufficiently mixed plaster can cause cracks and weak spots, rendering the entire mold flawed and useless. But Nathan's expertise once again saves us, and now we're all plaster experts.

These molds will be enormous, taking about 150lbs of dry plaster each and measuring about 36 x 36 x 14 inches on average.

The molds will dry over the next week or so before we flip them over and remove the clay, leaving the hardened negative shape of each nest module's exterior embedded in plaster.