So I was wandering around and found a bucket of some heavy gauge fittings similar to the ones used with guard rails and fencing, had a play with them and thought that turning up and polishing some 2 inch dia. dowel could make a for a bed frame and other things, then I thought gazebo and why not a whole house? You'd need to either shape (for the corners) some inset wood panels/windows or cast aluminium frames (inset) or bolt some box section steel to the inside/outside and screw all the cladding to that.
Heres a pic of something similar though I think it'd look good all white with Farnsworth like proportions, might need a heavier gauge pipe and more uprights and diagonal bracing. Bolted in place and then welded throughout?
http://www.simplifiedbuilding.com/blog/museum-exhibit-fabrication-materials-case-study/
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Rodney Kinsman did a range for his company OMK in the early 70s using this type of joint. I have a couple of sets of shelves from the range with plate glass tops,tubes finished in red enamel and untreated joints. Mine are packed away but I found this pic from Google from the same range, though rather less succesful in the gold treatment of the joints though.
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Thanks for all the thoughts, the scaffolding stage of a construction is almost always nicer to look a than the hideous that usually results, imo anyway.
The fittings I'm using are somewhat more brut than Paulannas example but tighten up for a very rigid construction and compress into the wood just a little, looking around at demolition yards the pipe and fittings are just everywhere and very cheap and could be sheathed in hyde, bent, upholstered using those pool noodle things, powdercoated or the pipes substituted for wood like in this project.
Pictures soon.
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