Fast Making #3 - Cardboard Tree Stump for Guinea Pigs

I’ve been spending too much time trying to think of what to make instead of actually making things. The premise of this project, to make things very quickly with many different materials, is easy enough to me. But trying to implement a singular idea (objects for pets) and imagining a unique project to make a model of seems almost impossible. My previous two fast-making are only vaguely related to do with what I’ve said out loud to be my goal in this MA course—to make functional things for pet owners. I’m starting to think it’s far too specific of a goal now, because I have a hard time thinking of practical designs easily, and also because so far it seems difficult to research.

I’ve picked up two books specific to the subject: “For the Love of Pets” and “Pet-tecture.” They share most of the same projects in them, the majority of which are interior design ideas for cats. I think maybe cat owners are more creative people than dog owners, or at least cats are more flexible than dogs and easier to make projects for. Either way, I’m not interested in adding to the dozens of cat projects in these books because I’m allergic to cats. Anyway, the latter book has more interesting projects for more interesting animals, like bees, birds, bats, and rabbits. Most of the projects for the “B” animals were pieces that interacted with human environments in order to blur the lines between wild animal and human habitat, like this roof tile bird house by Klass Kuiken:

There were also a few projects which blurred the lines between the animal and the design object, like this bed specifically made for a Bichon Frise made by Kazuyo Sejima, my favorite project in the book:

I love both of these ideas where the design is meant to “blend in” with something else. I don’t know if I want to make this a main focus in my own projects, but it’s definitely a theme I want to add.

So, after seeing all the animal related architecture in these books, I began on another model, and I started by gathering as much cardboard as I could find.

I started off knowing I wanted to make a tree stump shape. I chose this shape for a few reasons—I wanted to make a curvy form with cardboard, and I’m interested in making things that put domesticated animals back into faux wilderness. This isn’t a new concept for guinea pig designs—in fact I used to have a similar hidey for my guinea pigs—but I’d like to make a bigger, more complex wooden version of this specifically for digging/rabbit dogs like dachshunds.

I think it’s easy to see how I assembled it to this point. Box cutter & hot glue gun. I had imagined the outside as curvier, but I didn’t really commit to the shape. I cut the opening size as I saw fit as I went up the shape. This took a lot longer than I thought it would…

I decided at this point to add a hay hutch. Some generic, pet store guinea pig hidey designs incorporate hay storage already, but it’s usually on the side of the house, whereas here the piggy can hide & eat at the same time. I just used wooden chopsticks and stuck them into the holes in the sides of the card board, hot gluing the holes shut. Since I wanted this to be actually functional as a hutch rather than just a model for a different project I used as little glue as possible and placed it where the pig will hopefully not be able to reach until it’s thoroughly destroyed.

Then I created a separate top, secured to the bottom piece (picture above) by sticks not visible here, closing the hole off as I went along like so…

With baby guinea pig plushies for reference, this is how the hay hutch works. You simply place hay into the top then place the bottom onto the top. The sticks go into holes in the sides, and the chop sticks stop too much hay from falling down.

And then that’s it. The only major flaw with it is that, especially since it has food, guinea pigs will easily flip it over and cheat to get at all the hay at once.

I’m really hoping to turn this into a more refined, bigger project, though this one stands on its own as a difficult DIY guinea pig house. I can see this as a reference for laser-cut wood projects, though it’s a bit flimsy (if I push down on it, there is some bounce) maybe that wouldn’t happen with a wood project—but I’ll probably have to incorporate vertical structure to it rather than horizontal pieces of wood & glue.