Project Brief:
The third studio exercise of the core program will focus on establishing precise and reciprocal relationships between two dimensional representations and three dimensional models, and between components and systems. Transforming planar material into spatial and structural organizations will be the means by which students address the programmatic mandate to “mediate” — light, views, air — in a site-specific context.
Methodologically, the exercise will initially bias the bend, the crease, the fold, as techniques for inducing rigidity in otherwise pliant materials. The precise and systematic manipulation of sheets will provide a way of developing novel material organizations with relative “thickness” from conventional materials of relative “thinness”; a necessary transition from surface to volume which will facilitate methods of three-dimensional structural patterning. This exercise has immediate ties to the allied Geometric Disciplines and Architectural Skills course, adopting descriptive geometry, particularly orthographic projection, as the platform from which to extrapolate, speculate and verify relationships across different representations. From point to line, from line to plane, and from plane to volume, students should establish clear and demonstrable relationships between the act of projecting geometry and the process of constructing structural components. As a process, students are asked to design interactively between measured drawings, digital models, and physical models in order to test concepts via empirical observations.
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NOSEDIVE:
Our Project sought out transformative components through a rigorous series of folding studies. Our resulting component was one that transformed in three axes while organizationally abiding to a triangulated grid. This allowed us to deploy our component to any number of surfaces through simple triangulation and later a by applying a hexagonal grid.
The timeline for this project was 3 weeks with one for final design & fabrication and 12hours for assembly. This tight timetable directly informed both our material choice, fabrication technique, and amount of surface variation. The material chosen was .01″ Aluminum. The choice provided the necessary fire resistance required by the site and also allowed us to fabricate 20 components simultaneously by stacking the material.
Each component connects to it’s three neighbors through ’slots’ and is zipped tied together. Cables spiral down through the form along the grids regulating lines forming an internal diagrid.
The process was parametric throughout and resulted in a model informed by structural capabilities, material deformation, surface analysis and relaxation, and finally fabrication processes. The process was automated from generic from to cut sheets with individual perforation patterns.
Final project was composed of 500 parts, 1200 zip ties and numerous band aids!
Project Team Included:
Design:
James Coleman
Andrew Manto
Craig Allen Boney
Assembly Specialist:
Aaron Willette