An Italian Renaissance Palazzo Sand Castle Mold

thingiverse

Not all castles conform to the traditional sandcastle mold. It's time for some unconventional historical architectural 'castles' to hit the beach (and #BuildACastle) - like the Renaissance Italian palazzo or palace. Blockier and featuring a single complex bell tower, an Italian palazzo base is relatively easy to replicate in a sandcastle, but the towers present a significant challenge. This mirrors the original mathematical and physical feats that architects tackled when constructing their own castles. This particular sand castle palazzo was modeled after Florence, Italy's central Palazzo Vecchio ('the Old Palace') - a multi-generational feat of esoteric engineering that pushed the boundaries of mathematics. A standard sandcastle mold wouldn't accommodate the intricate multi-tier crenelations or top-heavy tower, so this palazzo's sandcastle mold was designed as a spring form. Each piece is crafted as a partial mold with one side detached and an open bottom, allowing for easy compression and release without compromising the final architecture. The base mold features a specially crafted stamp that will carve out the top castle crenelations rather than relying on a traditional mold format. Here's a crucial tip I learned the hard way: ensure sandcastle pieces are printed large enough to accommodate the crenelations (about half an inch or larger). Use the crenelation size as a starting point for the print size - even if it means printing larger mold sizes in multiple parts. The original model of Palazzo Vecchio was split into various parts, crafted from a high-resolution point cloud of the front of the castle. This mesh was then extruded and manipulated to ensure a variant that could handle the gravitational demands of working with wet sand. As an educational model, a palazzo sand castle offers students opportunities to explore the physics of sand, the mathematics of architecture, and the history of diverse castles from around the world.