TETRA

TETRA is an installation that exploits the potential of mass participation to create a form that emerges from the interactions of hundreds of people with the construction system over a number of days.

Inspired by the work of R. Buckminster Fuller into space-packing polyhedra, it explores the unique three dimensional geometrical properties of the regular tetrahedron and related ‘tetrahelices’ [also known Boerdijk–Coxeter Helices]. Their geometries provide an invisible framework for the participants to work within. The modular tetrahedral construction system will be used by the participants to create forms that automatically diverge from one another.

These in turn provide spaces separated from other participants for individuals to pause and reflect on the location and nature of their surroundings. TETRA’s position out on the edge of Black Rock City means that once the structure starts to take shape, participants will be able to climb to positions that afford views across the city. Just as Burning Man asks participants to take a step back from the consumer capitalism, so TETRA allows participants to step back and view Black Rock City as a whole

TETRA is a modular kit of parts that are assembled by participants into a structure that changes form over the course of the festival. There are 160 modules, each one a tetrahedron made from four equilateral triangle shaped pieces of CNC cut exterior plywood. Each triangular face has a hole cut from its centre which, as well as decreasing the overall weight of the module, allows the modules to become rungs in a structure that can be climbed up, on, in and through.

The ply edges of the four plywood triangles are bound together with rope to ensure a joint that can transmit loads in tension from one sheet of ply to the adjacent two. There are pre-drilled re-enforced holes near each vertex to allow for adjacent modules to be bolted together with bolts and wing-nuts by participants.

Each module is designed for one person to carry while climbing sections of the structure already built. The participants are able to climb any of the structure that is already built, and bolt their new module onto the existing structure. Once built, participants are able to climb up, select a module to remove and move to another place. This means that the overall form is not set by the designer, but emerges from the collective desires of a large group of participants.

Because of the intrinsic geometry of tetrahedra and tetrahelices, the form will always contain diverging branches with inhabitable spaces within them.

Centrifugal Pavilion by Clavel Arquitectos

How much does your building weigh?, asked Buckminster Fuller. Now again the curator of the Biennale Terence Riley asks the same question to all six international teams invited to the project “Ultra Lightweight Village” for the 2011 Shenzhen & Hong Kong biennale of urbanism\architecture.

Clavel Arcquitectos’ installation is composed by three circles of waterproof light fabric of 7.8, 6.4 and 5.4 meter of diameter spin around their axis at only 1.5 turns per second. In the biggest one we can reach to cantilever of nearly 4 meters with an only 2 mm roof thickness. It is interesting to check how similar is the movement with the animal aquatic one. Thanks to the rotation the gravity apparently disappears and only aerodynamical forces shape the fabric. The soft waves produced on the surface create a smooth breeze that improves the thermical conditions behind during the hot and sunny days.

The pavilion creates a specific place for children that can experiment with the centrifugal forces, generate electricity to open the structures and activate the lighting. The faster the children chairs rotate the brighter the structure will be.

Above: Centrifugal Pavilion by Clavel Arquitectos

Click on the following link for the full video:

http://www.dezeenscreen.com/2011/12/21/pabellon-ultraligero-centrifugo-by-clavel-arquitectos-filmed-by-cristobal-palma/

Marco Cochrane’s Bliss Dance

Below is an interview of Marco Cochrane, the sculptor who designed Bliss Dance, the 40 feet (12meters) high dancing woman at the Burning Man Festival 2011. People used his I-phone app to control the lighting inside the art piece.

Above: The Bliss Dance Sculpture at Burning Man with Light controlled by I-Phone App. 

Colourscape Festival by Cwmni Colourscape and Eye Music Trust

Below is an amazing reference for anyone looking either at inflatable structures, light, colours, acoustics, performing arts etc. The Project  is entitled “Colourscape” and is organised several times a year by Eye Music Trust while actual spaces are designed and built by the renowned artistic partnership of Peter Jones and Lynne Dickens (see video below).

By linking music, colour, light, space and movement the festival aims to give new dimensions to public perception and new understanding of contemporary music and performing arts. Even though exterior of the building (especially from aerial view) is not particularly aesthetically pleasing, the effect of sunlight and colours is unbelievable while you are inside. Also, pay attention to how cleverly they solved the issue of entering an inflatable building.

Another quite recent similar example (on a larger scale though) is Anish Kapoor’s “Leviathan” in Grand Palais, Paris (see pictures below).

Above: ”COLOURSCAPE” by Cwmni Colourscape

 

 Above: ”LEVIATHAN” by Anish Kapoor

 

Generative Design Work

Processing is an open source programming language and environment for people who want to create images, animations, and interactions and created by Casey Reas and Ben Fry.

It has been used  by Architect, Graphic Designers, Jewellery makers and anyone interested in Generative processes based on simple rules with a beautiful graphical and interactive output. Below are a few examples:

First lets start with the creators of “Libraries” which are like Plugins one can add to Processing in order to use pre-determined functions such as 3D viewer or Physics. One of the most famous libraries, Toxiclibs, is developed by the self-taught designer Karsten Schmidt, director of PostSpectacular.

Above: Kartsen Schmidt’s work exhibited at the V&A as part of their Cult Of Beauty aestheticism exhibition. 

N-E-R-V-O-U-S is a design studio which uses Processing to generate jewellery and furniture based on natural systems and simple laws. Thanks to an online Processing interface and Toxiclibs library, the “product” is generated according to the buyers’ wishes and then fabricated using a 3D printer. Below are images and videos of their work:

Above: Image and video of Laplacian Growth System

Above: Hele-Shaw Cell experiments with Paint and Plastic

Above: Hyphae Growth Process Diagram and Lamp Images

Biothing is an Architectural Practice led by Alisa Andrasek and Jose Sanchez, below is a project they have developed with the large scale 3D printer D-Shape based on the Turing Patterny:

Above: Turing Pavilion by Biothing using Processing   

One of the AA DRL Masters team (Thiago Mundim, Sanhita Chaturvedi and Esteban Colmenares taught by Marta Malé-Alemany,Daniel Piker & Jeroen Van Ameijde), developed a revolutionary technique to knit on a building scale:

 Above: the Knitectonics Project Interface, using Processing and the Toxiclibs Library

 

 

CAST – Center for Architecture and Situated Technology

Students from different resarch groups at the  CAST – Center for Architecture and Situated Technology, School of Architecture and Planning of the University at Buffalo have worked on the very inspiring projects below (more to come):

-Open Columns:

“Open Columns is a system of non-structural columns, made from composite urethane elastomers and can be deployed in a variety of patterns to reconfigure the space beneath them. The system is a mutable architecture that responds to its inhabitants by changing its shape based upon the carbon dioxide (CO2) content in the air. It is capable of learning about its environment by directly acting within it. The genesis of this research and design comes out of an interest in self-organizing systems, which exhibit phenomena of nonlinearity, instability and adaptability. 

Open Columns is part of a research project exploring computationally inspired and augmented materials for responsive architecture. 

Project Team: Omar Khan (director), Laura Garofalo, Joseph D’Angelo, James Brucz, Nick Bruscia, Brian Clark, Dennis Cook, Raf Godlewski, Ashley Latona, Brian Podleski, Vail Rooney, Mike Wysochanski ”

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Processing Resources

Ways to start learning the Processing Programming Language:

-Have a look at Open Processing where people share their sketches.

Above: Field Line Designer, a Sketch by bitcraft

-The Plethora Project,  Video Tutorials by Jose Sanchez, partner at Biothing

Above: Processing Video Tutorial 1 by Jose Sanchez

And of course, The Processing Forum

Arduino website

http://arduino.cc/

This is the arduino website where you can find very useful information on what an arduino can do, and how to use it. You can download the processing sotfware for free and browse and post comments and questions on the forum.

http://fritzing.org/ 

This is the fritzing website, which is a sotfware that helps you design your circuit, share information and learn about interactivity

Bartlett-Unit14 2010 ‘Performance’

These air-supported structures were filling up with air according to visitors’ presence around them.
For more images visit Unit14 blog: http://bartlettunit14.tumblr.com/tagged/Performance

2010 AA Biodynamic Structures Workshop

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These are some pictures from the 2010 AA Biodynamic Structures Workshop.

The project concept developed by our team was an interactive acoustic wall that reacts to different sound frequencies. The higher the frequency sensed the more the balloons inflate and the brighter the LEDs enclosed in the balloons become. The balloons inflation is controlled by valves that open and close through the use of servos.
We had one night and half a day to build the whole prototype and in the end unfortunately it was not fully functional.