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Combine a sofa with a sundial, |
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But this isn't the only kind of sundial; there are nearly as many kinds as there are ways to reflect sunlight and cast shade (book).
For instance, during junior high school I made a sundial by placing a small mirror on the sill of my bedroom's south-facing window. My construction of this reflection sundial was not intended to tell time but to plot figure-eight-shaped analemmas on my bedroom ceiling (diagram). It took a whole year of Sundays to plot the analemmas.
I didn't have the mathematical skills then to compute the Sun's position accurately enough to match my observations. Now I think I could, but I'm too lazy. And so rather than doing lots of math, I'm going to create an inverted equatorial sundial like these.
Measuring for an equatorial sundial is easy: divide 360 degrees by 24 hours, and you get 15 degrees per hour. Simply allocate 15 degrees of arc for each hour along the circular hour scale of the sundial.
Of all the kinds of sundials, the inverted equatorial sundial casts the largest shadow. If you make one of these sundials big enough and add furniture, you have a shade structure! The furniture, when unoccupied, doubles as a projection surface for the sundial.
Sofas
I haven't yet mentioned that these kinds of sundials must be tilted at a specific angle. Fortunately, sofas that recline are comfortable, and the angle that is needed happens to be a comfortable one.
The "reclining sofa" that I refer to really is a wide version of a chaise longue (examples, wav). In particular, I like the example of the PK24 by the Danish designer Poul Kjaerholm.
Inspired by PK24, I would recline the back to the angle required for an equatorial sundial at Burning Man, and I would elevate the foot end to the "bench height" of 18 inches so that it could double as a seating area. I'd keep the leg support gently curved as it is, not only because it lets someone put their tired feet up, but because it lets a cross-legged person sit and face someone else on the sofa.
PK24 is constructed from stainless steel tubing covered with woven wicker (manufacturer). But the sofa for this project will be constructed from plywood and covered with thin cushions, attached to prevent them from blowing away.
Plywood
Making furniture from plywood is nothing new: just ask Ikea or Playatech. What is new is trying to use plywood for a sofa that has a curved shape, but doing so inexpensively without needing to laminate curved plywood myself.
My idea is to use plywood for the sides and for some drop-in-slot cross members, but I will consider another material for the curved top part that supports the cushions. Perhaps I'll cut the top plywood into strips; perhaps I'll use hardwood slats. In either case, the top will need to be attached using screws.
Hour Panels
The panels are held 8 feet away from the sofa, and so the shadows that they cast on the sofa become fuzzy (because the Sun isn't a singular point). The finest detail that one can create on the 24-inch by 48-inch panel is about 1 inch. So the word that should describe the theme's imagery is "simple".
 24x24-inch panel. |  Shadow cast by panel. |
One can simulate the effect of this blurring using an averaging filter in an image manipulation program like Paint Shop Pro (menu Adjust > Blur > Average...). Set the filter aperture to the pixels-per-inch of the panel's drawing. (If your program accepts a radius instead, then set the radius to one-half of the pixels-per-inch value.) Suppose that the carving in the 24 x 48-inch panel is represented by a 120 x 240 pixel image. That is 5 pixels per inch. So set the filter aperture to 5 (or the radius to 2.5).
If your program doesn't have an averaging filter, then use a Gaussian blur filter. But realize that the Gaussian blur filter isn't preferred because it doesn't correctly simulate the sharp edges of shadows cast by thin lines of the panel. (In the real shadow, the sharp edges are caused by the uniform brightness of the sun's disk; the brightness across the disk does not vary as a Gaussian curve.)
Developing a Theme
The most important task is developing an overall theme for the sundial's hour panels, and for the overall structure itself.
One idea is to look to the past and borrow symbology from, say, the Aztec or Mayan civilizations. For instance, the Maya used a base-20 numbering system, were early developers of the concept of zero, and made accurate astronomical observations. They knew about time, and so placing their imagery on a sundial would be appropriate. Patterns from other pre-Columbian art might be an inspiration. Looking back further brings Egyptian hieroglyphics and their pictorial stories.
Alternatively, look to the future, either our past view of the ideal future, as Art Deco images, or look at predictions of a post-apocalyptic society. A post-apocalyptic future could look almost like a past civilization. But too much of an apocalypse and the future might look prehistoric. Maybe the insects take over!
(What would a sundial of the Chasm people look like? Dare I ask?)
Whatever results, I'd like there to be some informed choice behind the image selection.
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