The TARDIS Interior |
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As fans of the show know, a TARDIS is famously bigger on the inside (just check the definition in a modern dictionary). Whereas our architectural skills do not yet extend to trans-dimensional engineering, the illusion of a substantial, working TARDIS interior adds immeasurably to the ambiance of a Doctor Who party . The workshop at the rear of the house lends itself to the task — it has its own basement and stairs, and it's the one place where we can set up a large project and work on it for months at a time. (right, BBC's interior) The main central console with its Time Rotor. This is however just one element that characterizes the TARDIS interior. |
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Making the Doors… The blue doors of the TARDIS are an iconic part of the show, through which new companions enter an infinitely large interior world… |
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| Adding trim to recycled flush bi-fold closet doors to give them the appearance of panel doors. | Testing the fit. It's convenient for the TARDIS doors to remain in place all year long, rather than removing them to store. | ||||||
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| British police boxes in the 1960s (the model for the TARDIS exterior) had working phones in a box in the door. | Using hollow-core doors provides an easy way to conceal the phone wire. All the lumber is scrap. | ||||||
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| Making the windows the cheater's way, by gluing the muntins directly onto the acrylic panels. | |||||||
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The Hexagonal Console… |
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The skeleton of the six-sided console is made of plywood pulled out of the dump when the attendants weren't looking. They hate when you do that. Everything is all white inside because TARDISes are sci-fi, not lumber. |
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| Hidden inside the console is our fog machine. Inventing it involved a hot water kettle from Goodwill, an old computer fan, sump pump hoses and the re-purposed reflector out of a recessed light. We load it with dry ice and water via an external fill-tube. | The concept for the original incarnation of this TARDIS was as a relatively quick-to-make party piece. So all of the interactive parts were thrift-store finds, the obvious selection criteria being that they 1) look and feel interesting/cool and 2) emit either sound or light or both. | ||||||
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| Because the kids are getting taller, now the console has a raised footer as a base. New for 2017: an embedded subwoofer. | The flower-like shapes carved into the footer's underside hold a string of blue LED holiday lights. Footers (not shown) raise the base so it appears to float on light. | ||||||
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The unique oval porcelain sockets that I've been carting thorugh my life for decades have finally found a use! The lights pulse in time to the Dance Emergency music. The circular base helps visually disguise the fact that, unlike most of the other elements, only the console ittself is hexagonal. |
The base gives the console stability and makes it now demountable/portable. The 'power column' — an octagonal end-table cabinet from St. Vinnie's — pulses inside with up-streaming holiday lights . Fog emerges from the re-purposed car speaker grilles. | ||||||
Creating the Space… |
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| The walls of every version of the TARDIS feature lighted roundrels of some kind (no one knows why). Fitting ours into the shop windows' glass panes makes them look built-in. | Our round things are made with spray-paint, plastic picnic plates, recycled fluorescent light lenses, cardboard, foil and stick-on LED puck lights. | ||||||
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| Among the basement's attractions are pulsing Temporal Engines—the transluscent poly cistern tanks fitted with holiday lights, an old stainless steel water softener tank, UV light and a glowing ultrasonic mister. | The Engine Room is identified by a hegagonal window written in Circular Gallifreyan; the room also conveniently provides a translation tutorial via a lightbox. | ||||||
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Gabriel applies his considerable metal fabrication skills to crafting a safety gate for the stair hatch. And after her hit Weeping Angel statue and basement painting of 2013 (see the video), Sue Thering crafted lots of hanging wires and lights in the basement for 2016.
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| (above) Scott Cherry, a New Mexico natural builder helps with the gate installation. Scott spent much of a 3-day visit in 2013 generously diving in and creating the Temporal Engines. | |||||||
Brother James sent a large traffic signal light (a rummage sale find) with green LEDs, and an unusually shaped stand for a computer monitor. With a bit of fabrication to join them, they become a ceiling-mounted indicator light. For 2017 it will light showily when the TARDIS takeoff audio declares "Prepare for departure in 5…4…3…2…1". |
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| The Time Rotor… | |||||||
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Over the years of the show the TARDIS interiors is always changing, but the Time Rotor always appears in some form . As it moves, it tells the audience that the TARDIS is in flight. Our Time Rotor actually began life as a NASCOWW prop (you'll recognize it as the Cabinet of Memories). It was inspired by gifts from Jude: first 6 wooden drawer frames from an old sewing machine cabinet and then later a Goodwill spice rack. With the challenge, "I'm sure you can make something out of these". The light-pulsing tubes are not fluorescent lights, but rather painted plastic cylinders with LED holiday lights inside. The rotating light atop is a "disco dance" toy from St. Vinnie's, (shown below in the 2013 'clock-top' version) |
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Update Summer 2016, below is a brief video of our fun and revealing Game Testing in July. A dozen friends of various ages gathered to help us troubleshoot the hardware and the the gameplay sequence. Although a number of elements still are not fully operational, this is the first time that a group has played, with gameplay manuals and hands-on directions from game meister Day, with assistance from Jason.
Boxing Day: To free up the shop space for other projects involves disassembling the TARDIS elements in order to pack them away for the next New Year's Day party. We decided to make the effort to construct trapezoidal boxes for the console panels as the only way to safely store such oddly-shaped, electronics-laden things. All mis-matched or course, being of scrap lumber pulled from curbsides and such. (And to be able to transport everything. Y'know, for that time in the near future when someone hears about this amazing prop and gets in touch and offers to rent it for a goodly sum. Whereupon we rent a truck and arrive — all dressed in lab coats, safety glasses and official PartyTardis Tech I.D. badges — to set it up ready to play. To general acclaim). |
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| Our TARDIS under constuction, vs.… | …one of the BBC's TARDIS sets. | ||||||
Comments? lou@designcoalition.org