Astral Carpet Lounge
Design Blog, Concept, and Drawings by RoBo
Disorient: We've Gotcha Covered
Decked, side view
The brown and yellow tinted profiles have slightly different dimensions. Therefore, their decking follows suit. Gaps in decking will be covered with duct tape, except for the valleys for drainage. All decking and duct tape will be covered in some surface, represented by the hot pink astroturf. The goal is a smooth playing surface that won't pinch lounger's skin, but rainwater can easily drain and evaporate.
Underside
You are looking up through the ground plane and there are now 14 total ergonomic profiles.
The green cubes and boxes represent placements of 2x4s instead of the profiles' thin edges for fastening decking. In this drawing the yellow profiles do not have thickness or 2x4 blocks shown. They're not even placed correctly. The brown profiles show how the exposed 2x4s are flush with the edge of the decking. Therefore, the profiles are set back by the thickness of the 2x4s, which is 1.5".
Each color of decking represents cuts from the same sheet. They are all 4' wide and touch all or half of 3 profiles. 3 4' sheets form the 12' couch. Surprisingly, each 4'x8' deck board covers the flat "plateau" area, the 3 inclined planes, plus low vertical walls.
These walls add safety. They guard the edge of the 1' platform with over 2" of kickstop. They also seal-off the ends, and therefore the underside of the installation. A stray golf ball rolling under the iinstallation can quickly become quite inaccessible without danger. The walls prevents loss of stray balls and guests alike.
Here is the first rendering:
There are 12 wooden profiles. They will all have 2x4s flush with the profile edges for adhering the decking to, instead of the profile edges.
I plan to get 8 profiles out of a 4'x8' sheet of cheap board ($11) called OSB. I am currently planning out the surface dimensions to determine how the flat boards get cut out of their own 4'x8' sheets. This may slightly affect the profiles themselves, which would be visible in a future rendering.
The space in between the right and left groups of 6 profiles is created by the ground of the exhibition space. The distance can be adjusted to lengthen or shorten the overall length of the mini-golf hole, while trying to maintain the vibe between the 2 facing couches. I'd start with a few inches distance and perhaps increase it if there is shade over both sides for facing people to still maintain a connection.
I'm not really interested in delineating a golfing side vs. a relaxing side until people get bothered by golf balls hitting them. Then, it may be time for a simple 1x3 or 2x4 wall along the profile; setting the fairway at about 3' wide.
A cutting diagram:
I haven't yet updated the rendering of the 12 profiles with the color coded profiles. Basically, the light and dark coded profiles are VERY similar, but not exactly. This will be fine for our purposes- we'll just have the different designs create the 2 facing couches.
I tried to futz with everything so the dimensions aren't in sixteenths of an inch, as well as tried to get the dimensions of the "light" and "dark" color-coded profiles exactly the same. Oh well, they seem to mate well in this configuration: otherwise I started getting into weird spaces between the profiles. At least in this version, there is no double cutting between the profiles!
I know 1/16" sounds pretty accurate to some people, but the "kerf", which is the thickness of the sawblade, and the wood that becomes dust when a line is sawn through, will make everything kinda wacky anyway. My suggestion is to hopefully just cut everything out the same way and make up the difference with screwing down the decking well. The profiles we use on the playa have been cut with a jigsaw, so they are all a bit different. But they work. If we can get these cut out with a circular saw, the cuts should be straighter and faster.
