The Ramp Shade is designed to provide a shady space for students to relax, eat lunch, or have an outdoor classroom. This project is an origami shade That uses weatherproof fabric in-between a robust structural frame. 

At the beginning of the semester, the idea was to create a shady pace within campus since a once-popular academic building, Foster, is now shut down.  Currently, there is not a cool place for students to eat lunch outside besides the library. We stuck with the vision and did not change it any time throughout the process. 

This project is an excellent idea because everyone on campus wants a place to hang out outside. Later, the prototypes will include picnic tables so students can eat lunch outside without having to sit on the concrete. On the prototypes, there was trouble with the idea of the frame and the design of the origami.  The project first had a pulley system that pulled a large piece of wood to create the shade.  The shade was too heavy and large for the simple and weak pulley system,  and later designed lightweight origami to help. The students were trying to decide between a wooden or acrylic frame.  Although wood would work,  using acrylic to laser cut the frame would be more durable and is overall more aesthetically-pleasing.

Throughout all of these prototypes and ideas, the final project was straightforward and light origami design that will give maximum shade coverage.  The final shade design proposes covering the area closest to the chapel by attaching to the new pedestrian bridge. There is still one problem, that is coming up with a way of fastening the shade to the bridge.  During the final presentation, a teacher had a critique bring up the idea about water, which is a good idea to think about.  The project also can  have poles and have wires stretched out across the area so the shade and be extended out manually by students.