BTJ 3/2008 - Baltic Transport Journal

modern port
The above approach has been the basis for developing designs in tug
boat architecture, which due to its small scale and high level of complexity
is an excellent field for designers in their search for innovative
architectural solutions.
The aim of students, apart from designing a functional arrangement
of the superstructure, is to improve the safety of navigation by enhancing
the working conditions of a wheelman and, first of all, by attributing
these qualities to the traditional architecture of a tug boat that will turn
it into a showcase of the modern port.
***
The first design features an apparently traditional form of a tug boat.
Nevertheless, it encompasses several new and unconventional solutions
for the routine problems in tug boat architecture.
The shape of the superstructure is subordinated when providing
a wheelman with optimum visibility, i.e., the primary factor that
guarantees the safety of navigation. The designer has analysed both
the operation of a crew and a boat and then proposed a number of
innovative solutions.
The body of the wheelhouse does not feature typical cants in the corners.
The number of load-bearing structures has been restricted to the
four main pillars and has shaped the wheelhouse such that its structure
minimizes the generation of a dead field. The most interesting element is
the solution of the chimneys which limit visibility. They have been shaped
so they are within the “shadow” cast by the wheelhouse structure. This solution
has been generated in 3-dimensional models of the tug boat body.
In spite of its saturation with innovative architectural solutions, the design
has maintained the traditional image of tug boat architecture.
***
The second project differs considerably from the above solution. The very
appearance, which does not remind one of a typical tug boat, indicates the
innovative approach. This design comes with the wheelhouse resembling a
crane or an excavator cabin, in which an operator occupies his seat in a small
one-man cabin that provides full visibility of the working site. This design is
an attempt to adapt a solution to the needs of a tug boat. The drop-like shape
3 rd design: a carusel tug boat by Daniel Januszewski
Report
of the wheelhouse provides a wheelman with excellent visibility of the water
surface, the equipment on the deck and upwards, of any larger vessels.
This design also contains the proposal for obstructing the visibility
by chimneys. However, in this case the author has decided to minimize
the bodies of the chimneys. One of the mufflers has been located in the
power plant with the other in the stern section of the superstructure
below the wheelhouse. Exhaust gasses are discharged on one side only,
while the other side remains unobstructed. The new image of a tug boat
is supplemented with a new interior design, the body of the superstructure
and the shape of the bulwark and the guard rail.
***
In both presented models the colour design and deck equipment
have been purposely omitted in order to exhibit the body of the superstructure.
Both designs contain some concepts that require further technical
development.
In 2007 new architectural designs for an innovative carousel
tug boat were developed. This time the task of the students was to
verify the possibility of designing original architecture that would
be characteristic for this type of tug boat. By combining the innovating
tugging technology (developed at Novatug, a Dutch company)
with the original architecture we decided to create an easily
recognisable new class of products.
The technical novelty of carousel tug boats involves placing the
tug winch on a ring, on which it can rotate freely. The ring of a winch
is the main limitation when designing a superstructure which has to
be enclosed inside of it. Moreover, a wheelman or a winch operator
should be able to watch the head of the winch in any position. These
limitations, which are characteristic only for carousel tug boats, require
unusual architectural solutions.
The aim of this carousel tug boat design has been to provide easy
communication for the crew on the open deck. The design features a
novel and unique spatial structure. Under the winch ring there is a
circular corridor and the first cylindrical storey of the superstructure.
A second storey of the superstructure has been placed on the winch
level along with the inputs of air to the power plant and the chimneys.
The wheelhouse occupies the top position.
An important element here is the special colour arrangement for
this body whose aim is to improve the visibility of the boat on water, as
well as to emphasize the characteristic architecture of this design.
***
The presented designs provide new architectural concepts and prove that
pattern designing is not only about the superficial development of forms, but
about the whole products, stepping into their bodies and the internal tissues.
Pattern designing is one of the chief elements of innovation. It is the basis both
for the development of individual sectors and the economy as such, and with
creative cooperation between the engineers and the designers should result
in developing really innovative products, not only better than those of the
competitors, but ones which will lay out the new development roads of tug
boats as the showcase of a port. And since no port can live without tug boats
any way, why let them be just tug boats and not something more?
Paweł Gełesz
The author is an industrial designer, an assistant of Professor
Andrzej Lerch at the Naval Architecture Studio at the Academy
of Fine Arts in Gdańsk.
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