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June Art Challenge -- Albertese

Albertese

Commodore
Commodore
All right so I have myself an idea for this one. I'm gonna have the party at Starbase One! A historical attraction for the scholarly tourist by the time of TNG.

I'm gonna take this on as part model photography and part digital painting. Should be fun, I just got back from the store with the supplies I'll need...

--Alex
 
Okay, So I'm gonna make an image of the Star Fleet Headquarters "building" as illustrated by Franz Joseph in the good old Star Fleet Technical Manual. The final image will be a poster to advertise Starbase One as a historical tourist attraction, maybe to observe a historical anniversary like 125 years since it was built. This would put the station and my poster for it around the time of TNG. It may not seem like the first place someone might go for a vacation, but the idea is inspired by my dad, who is always wanting to go to tour some state capitol building or some nineteenth century fort or other similar historical locale. Why wouldn't there be Starfleet personnel who dig history too?


In all the long years since I first got the Technical Manual, I never tried to think of these buildings in the station as three dimensional structures, so here for the first time I've sketched the shape of this building in Photoshop. The final image will be based on a photograph of a model I'm about to build, but this is mainly to come to terms with what this thing might look like before I try to build it. In other words, this isn't anywhere near the final image, nor is it even what I have in mind for the composition of the piece, it just is really little more than a quick and dirty architectural sketch.




So has anyone else thought much about the interior of this station before? I'm curious about people's thoughts regarding the technical or aesthetic aspects of this thing.

--Alex

P.S. looking at the sketch for a few minutes now, I realize what's bothering me: the proportions are all wrong! everything should be at least 50% wider. Something to keep in mind when building the model...
 
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So has anyone else thought much about the interior of this station before? I'm curious about people's thoughts regarding the technical or aesthetic aspects of this thing.

--Alex

I remember thinking that the flat floors for each section set inside a round shell was odd, with those strange curved corridors connecting them. The design makes you think of rotational gravity but those floors would make it oddly variable at different places in each section. You might even want to consider being radical and making them curved while still having separate sections.
 
So has anyone else thought much about the interior of this station before? I'm curious about people's thoughts regarding the technical or aesthetic aspects of this thing.

--Alex

I imagined the lobby being grand and when looking up, you'd see all the floors. I also imagined the arced center set of windows actually are open-railing walkways connecting each side of the building. When on these walkways one side would consist of the exterior windows and the interior side would look down upon the lobby. Just my mind's eye view of course. :-)

I like your idea so far. Sort of like a trip to Washington, D.C. to visit the Capital, etc. Best of luck with your entry. :-)
 
...

I remember thinking that the flat floors for each section set inside a round shell was odd, with those strange curved corridors connecting them. The design makes you think of rotational gravity but those floors would make it oddly variable at different places in each section. You might even want to consider being radical and making them curved while still having separate sections.

I see what you're saying, but I think I'll keep to the flat decks. I don't think this design is a good candidate for rotationally simulated gravity. I went into some detail about why in an earlier thread which I'll reproduce here to save you the time of looking it up again:

Earlier I said:
Also the FJ starbase wouldn't have rotated for a centripetal gravity effect (though I'll concede that when FJ drew it he probably had something like that in mind). An equatorial cross section would show the outer decks as an enormous hexagon which would mean in a spin-gravity situation that "down" would only be experienced while standing in the middle of one of the open areas. The closer you would walk to the hexagon's points (where, I point out, all the major surface structures are located) you would be standing at more and more harrowing angles until you were nearest the point where "down" would feel like about 30 degrees away from perpendicular to the floor. That's a hell of a way to design your buildings. Also, if this were the case, the strength of the gravity effect would be felt most fully in those starship dock globes, which would mean that the ships would "fall" against the outer wall; or need to maintain a powered orbit inside the globe (which would seem to defeat the purpose of having an enclosed dock in the first place); or that the cables holding the ships in place are a lot stronger than I gave them credit for all these years. OTOH, the FJ cross section of the starship dock globe does call out "Work Cranes" which suggest the possibility of gravity being in place, but given the other problems with centripetal gravity simulation in this design, I'm willing to say these cranes are the inconsistency and say that the cranes are actually robot arms and not like conventional cable-pulls-something-up-and-lets-it-back-down cranes at all.

And Later in the Same Thread I said:
I took some quick measurements from the TM and ran them through a calculator linked from Atomic Rockets and came up with the following values. These illustrate another problem with spin gravity: there is a gradient of the force felt as one moves farther from the axis of spin. Assuming my measurements are basically accurate and assuming we're shooting for a target of 1G experienced on the "ground floor" at the center of each bay, then here are the numbers:

Bay Floor (800m from spin axis) = 1G
Outer hull of station (900m from spin axis) = 1.125G
"Top" of docking globes (1000m from spin axis) = 1.25G
"Bottom" of Docks (1300m from spin axis) = 1.625 G

The whole assembly would need to be spinning at a rate of a tiny fraction over one rotation a minute. This would give the docking bay doors a tangential velocity of 138.4 meters per second. In other words, you'd need to fly your possibly crippled ship into a hole just big enough for it that is moving across your axis of flight at nearly 310 mph.

Yeah, I think electrically generated artificial gravity is definitely the way to go here.

--Alex

Ensign Ro, that's a very interesting idea. I'm not sure right now how it'll work conceptually with my idea for for physically building this thing and on time for the contest deadline, but I really like the idea. I have a germ of an idea for a project greatly detailing the FJ Starbase and will almost certainly use that there. I'll think it over and maybe I'll be able to work this in to the model. I won't actually build any of it before next weekend so maybe I'll think of some way by then. You see, I only intend to build a simple facade, so having an inset bay with railings and stuff might be tough. But It would be quite cool.

--Alex
 
Cool, I agree about the rotational decision... it just wouldn't have worked though I think it was what FJ had in mind.
 
I've begun to build the structure for this thing. It's bigger than I imagined. No pics yet, but I'll post something probably this weekend.

--Alex
 
Okay, guys, here's the finished framework. It is 42x22x8.5". Big. Here's some pictures of it outside my back door:



Next step is to cover it. I'm gonna use poster-board to build a smoothly contoured surface which will have the windows cut into it. Then, once it's finished, I'll photograph it in the sunlight and then edit the photos to look like a full size starbase building! This is gonna be awesome!

--Alex
 
Woah! I was expecting a 3D rendering, not a physical model. That's looking awesome. I love physical models. I will enjoy watching your progression.
 
Yeah, I'm a big believer in physical models. I've tried my hand a little bit at CGI stuff but the results were quite primitive. I want this to look real, so model is the way to go.

In other news, I was working out the math for the windows and I learned that the decks on this thing are six meters high! This structure is bigger and bigger the more I look into it. Fascinating.

At this scale an average person would stand five or six millimeters tall. I was originally going to not have any people in the image, but maybe I will put some in, to make it clear how enormous this thing would be. The question is what uniforms ought they be wearing? If the picture is of the building when first used, then people should wear TOS uniforms. If its a 125th anniversary photo, then should TNG uniforms be there? To set the context? What do you guys think?

--Alex
 
Well, due to your time frame, the uniform in use would probably be TNG or TNG movie era uniforms. However, being a 125th anniversary celebration, it might be fun to use the TOS style. Sort of a founder's day type of celebration with the staff paying homage to their predecessors? The call is ultimately yours. :-)
 
Dang it!

I'm afraid I'll have to drop out of this month's contest. I've run into some problems with how I was gonna glaze the windows and I'm afraid it's just not gonna work out without a major re-design that I don't have time for what with all my RL responsibilities. At least not by month's end. However, given that I have this big thing in my apartment now, I don't think I'm gonna totally drop it. I intend to finish it, but it won't be this month, I'm afraid.

And I'll totally go TOS for the uniforms.

This project has really got me excited to go into some more depth with this station design, maybe do some more drawings and write ups. I have far flung visions of approaching it like a full-scale technical manual, but that will be a while off, if ever. Would anyone be interested in following such a project or would it just be for my own edification?

--Alex
 
Sorry to hear you won't make the contest, but count me in as wanting to see it grow!! :D
 
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