“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I will learn.” Xun Kuang (312-230 BC)
WeWantToLearn.net at Burning Man 2015 – A video by Freddie Barrie
“We believe that Architecture should be fun and in giving our students the opportunity to build projects in the real world. We want them to dare to be naïve, curious, and enthusiastic, to think like makers and to act like entrepreneurs, creating an architecture of joy. Burning Man is the playground for our dreams.” Toby Burgess and Arthur Mamou-Mani, DS10 Studio Leaders, University of Westminster
Team: Toby Burgess and Arthur Mamou-Mani (tutors), Tobias Power (Designer of The Infinity Tree), Jon Leung (Designer of Bismuth Bivouac), Lorna Jackson (Designer of reflection), Maialen Calleja, Andrei Jipa, Josh Potter, Aaron Porterfield, Aigli Tsirogianni, Alex Fotherby, Andrew K Green, Ben Brakspear, Ben lloyd Goldstein, Charlotte Chambers, Deepak Krasner, Eira Mooney, Eliana Stenning, Elizabeth Ripps, Felix Thiodet, Garis Iu, Jack Hardy, Jasmine Low, Jon Goodbun, Lianne Clark, Maria Sobrino, Martin Brien, Matthew Lee, Michelle Tanya Barratt, Neale Shutler, Phil Olivier, Ricky Chandi, Sarah Stell, Toby Plunkett, Tom Jelley, Elan laplain, Innes Shelley, Jake Spruyt, James Abbott, Jasper Sauve, Joe Leach, Julian Sauve, Klina Jordan, Joshua de Matteo, Maria Vergopoulou, Kris Leung, Ben Metcalfe-Penny, Willem Ossorio, Sebastian Sauve, Tim Hornsby, Tim Martin
Engineers: Format Engineering (The Infinity Tree and Bismuth Bivouac) Price & Myers (Reflection)
Special Thanks: BettieJune Scarborough, Ben Stoelting, Brody Scotland, DaveX, Harry Charrington, Thomas Ermacora, Betty Lam and to all our Kickstarter Backers.
A quick update from Burning Man’s dusty “Playa” on which three Diploma Studio 10 students have built their academic projects together with a team of 60 volunteers from the University of Westminster and beyond. You can follow our Instagram account for more pictures of the journey and we will post more details and pictures on our return. Thank you so much for your support and hope that the projects will inspire you!
The Bismuth Bivouac designed by fourth year student Jon Leung
The Infinity Tree designed by fourth year student Tobias Power
Reflection designed by fifth year graduate Lorna Jackson
We had our final crit today! Great projects concluding our brief2B:Realize. Here are couple pictures. Thank you very much to our external critiques Daewha Kang (Associate Zaha Hadid Architects), Lawrence Friesen (GenGeo), Stephen Melville (Director Ramboll UK), James Solly (Buro Happold), Michael Clarke and to our colleagues Anna Liu and Roberto Botazzi.
Joe Leach’s Burning Man TempleJoe Leach’s Burning Man TempleAndrei Jipa’s 3D printed fractal cityAndrei Jipa’s 3D printed fractal cityJosh Haywood’s Pop-Up Mosque in Trafalgar SquareGaris Lu’s Mont St-Michel’s Chanting BridgeLorna Jackson’s Surreal Dali MuseumLorna Jackson’s Surreal Dali MuseumWilliam Garforth-Bless’Bamboo Tower for the Damyang festivalCharlotte Yates’ London Fasion Festival Origami CatwalkCharlotte Yates’ London Fasion Festival Origami CatwalkSarah Stell’s Zipped BuildingSarah Stell’s Zipped BuildingGeorgia Collard-Watson’s Burlesque Festival Pop-Up structureNaomi Danos’ joyful wall breaking media centre in Israel/PalestineJessica Beagleman’s Kabbalah CentreGeorge Guest’s Fringe Festival BridgeSarah Shuttleworth’s Promenade Concerts in Hyde ParkDhiren Patel’s twisting hexagons bamboo structure for Durja PurjaMark Simpson’s Artificial Diamond Funerarium
Click the image below for a site packed with information on global festivals. With the location of this years brief open to personal choice, it provides a good place to start:
We’re back from the desert! Very proud to have completed two beautiful projects at the Burning Man festival 2013 with our DS10 students and guests from the Architectural Association, Columbia University and UCL.
Credits to the team:
Team: Toby Burgess and Arthur Mamou-Mani a.k.a. Ratchet and Baby Cup (Project Directors), Thanasis Korras (Designer of Fractal Cult), Georgia Rose Collard-Watson (Designer of Shipwreck), Jessica Beagleman (Food & Meals), Natasha Coutts (Camp and Rentals), Sarah Shuttlesworth, Andy Rixson, Luka Kreze, Tim Strnad, Philippos Philippidis, Nataly Matathias, Marina Karamali, Harikleia Karamali, Antony Joury, Emma Whitehead, , Jo Cook, Caitlin Hudson, Dan Dodds and Chris Ingram.
Special Thanks: BettieJune, Ben Stoelting, Kevin Meers, Caroline Holmes, Chloe Brubaker, Papa Bear,
Photos by Jo Cook, Arthur Mamou-Mani, Toby Burgess, Luka Kreze, Thanasis Korras, Antony Joury.
Back view Just before burning ShipwreckFront view of the Fractal Cult timber pods and Scaffolding
Here are couple more pictures of the finished projects:
A view of the Shipwreck with the man and a fish Art CarEnjoying the sun on the shipwreck – back viewThree french burners on the hammockA burner relaxing on the Fractal Cult scaffoldingView of timber pods and festival inbackgroundView of timber pods with shipwreck and man in backgroundInterior of the Fractal Cult during Day timeFractal Cult at night time
Some images of the construction of Shipwreck, from the collection of the pieces all the way to the assembly
The group in front of Shipwreck
Construction process, the shipwreck hammock cantilever being erectedA view of the construction before adding the hammock stripsBuilding the shipwreck – finishing the cave part.All the Shipwreck parts unrolled on the desert floor before assemblyThe shipwreck flat packed in the 24ft truck.
Images of the construction process of Fractal Cult until the burn:
Burning Fractal Cult in the Communal BurnToby, Luka and Tim assembling the scaffolding for Fractal cultFractal Cult’s scaffolding assembly is based on this smaller physical modelThe scaffolding being assembled in the middle of the podsAssembling the first podThe Fractal Cult pods being assembled.Getting the ground anchors in for the podsGetting the scaffolding in the 24ft truck
Finally, how we made our camp look more like a home and less like a refugee camp:
Our camp as it looked at the endProtecting ourselves from a dust storm!Assembling the HexayurtsThe group in our kitchenOne of our two food runs in Reno – Feeding 20 people in the desert.Getting the camp from a lockup in Reno
A beautiful view of the festival itself at sunrise:
Burning Man Camps and Playa at Sunrise
Here is a text that we wrote about the experience:
Diploma Studio 10:
Diploma Studio 10 at the University of Westminster is led by Toby Burgess and Arthur Mamou-Mani. They both believe that involvement is key to the process of learning and therefore always try to get their students to “get out and build” their designs in the real world. The studio starts the year with the study of systems, natural, mathematical and architectural systems of all sort, paired with intense software training in order to build up skills and a set of rules to design a small scale project which they will be able to build during a real event in the summer. Throughout the year, they build large scale prototypes and draw very accurate technical drawings, they also need to provide a budget and explain how it makes sense within the wider context of the festival, some of them will event start crowd-funding campaign to self-finance the projects. Our ultimate goal is to give them an awareness of entrepreneurship in Architecture and how to initiate projects as this is for us the best way to fight unemployment in our profession. Burning Man and the 10 Principles:
The Burning Man festival takes place every summer in Black Rock desert, Nevada. It is a “participant-led” festival in which the activities are initiated by the people attending it. There are around 60,000 “burners” every year building a giant temporary city in which they create a social experiment which follows the 10 principles of Burning Man. They conclude the festival by burning a large sculpture of a Man.
What interested Toby and Arthur are the 10 principle which guide the “burners”: Radical Self-Reliance, Radical Inclusion, Gifting, Leaving No trace, to name a few. Designing with these rules in mind help students understand basic issues of sustainability. Designing for Burning Man also helps the students to design with “playfulness” in mind, as all the structures have to be climbable and interactive. We are not the only one inspired by these rules, Sergei Brin, co-founder of Google, asks all his staff to follow the principles when they come up with new ideas. The Story:
On our first year at Westminster we found out that our student could submit their Burning Man proposals and receive a grant from the organizers. After receiving 20 submissions from the same school, the organizers were very intrigued and decided to contact us. The director of the Art Grant told us that she loved the project but that all of them were just not possible in the context. She decided to visit us in London to explain what we could do to submit better projects the following year which we did. On the second run, the festival chose two projects, Shipwreck by Georgia Rose Collard-Watson and Fractal Cult by Thanasis Korras.
These two projects are representative of the way we run our studio: Thanasis looked at Fractal on Brief01 and Georgia looked at ways to bend and assemble strips of wood together. They both explored these systems before submitting a project with a very strong narrative which fitted perfectly the burning man philosophy. Thanasis linked his Fractal to the symbol of “Merkaba” whereas Georgia told the story of a shipwreck which offered shelter from the dust storms.
Once the project got chosen, we partnered with an engineer, Ramboll and started researching for suppliers and fabrication facilities in the USA. We took the 3D files from concept all the way parametric models for fabrication. We started a Gantt chart with every step to take from rental of 24ft truck, collection of item all the way to demolition.
One of the main aspect that required a lot of planning was the camp. We had to plan every meal and food that would not perish under the extreme condition. We also found a way to rent a whole camp equipment from past burners. On site:
The team grew little by little, many of our student could not afford the trip or could not take such a long time off so we asked around if anyone else would like to join us and thanks to our blog posts and active social networking online, students from the Architectural Association, Columbia or UCL started showing interest and joined the team.
Our first surprise on site was the power of the dust storm. One of our Yurt flew away and some of us got stuck in different places of the site seeking shelter. We were terrorised. Sleeping in tents was also extremely hard as you would be awaken by temperatures approaching 40degrees celcius, at the end of the construction, a lot of us would sleep in the foam hexayurts in which we were storing equipment at first. We learned so much.
Thank you so much everyone – We received funding onKickstarter! You can still help us by donating on our Paypal button:
The past couple weeks since our last updates were very busy. We have sent all the fabrication files to our contact next to San Francisco. To make sure the files were alright we had several meetings with our engineers and made a lot of physical tests.
The team has shrunk so if you are keen to join us from the 18th August until the 6th September,you can email us at info@WeWantToLearn.net
Shipwreck final files sent to fabrication – Updated Render 1 – Note: The sail and light might change – File by Georgia Collard-Watson, Arthur Mamou-Mani , Chris Ingram and Toby BurgessShipwreck final files sent to fabrication – Updated Render 2 – Note: The sail and light might change – File by Georgia Collard-Watson, Arthur Mamou-Mani , Chris Ingram and Toby BurgessShipwreck final files sent to fabrication – Updated Render 3 – Note: The sail and light might change – File by Georgia Collard-Watson, Arthur Mamou-Mani , Chris Ingram and Toby BurgessShipwreck – Fabrication Files – File by Georgia Collard-Watson, Arthur Mamou-Mani , Chris Ingram and Toby Burgess6mm wood bending tests – Does it bend enough? Study by Georgia Collard-WatsonMaximum Radius on wood structure – Study by Georgia Collard-WatsonRamboll Structural Analysis by Harri Lewis – showing new location for ropesRamboll Structural Analysis by Harri Lewis – showing new location for ropes
FRACTAL CULT
Extract from the Fractal Cult Assembly Sequence by Dan Dodds after feedback from Harri Lewis
Click Here to see the full Assembly Sequence Diagrams
Extract from the Fractal Cult Fabrication Files from Dan DoddsCost Savings – New dimensions of the Fractal Cult – Study by Thanasis Korras and Toby BurgessFractal Cult’s new scale and new netting strategy – Study by Thanasis Korras and Toby BurgessFractal Cult’s new scale and new netting strategy – – Study by Thanasis Korras and Toby BurgessFractal Cult scaffolding test model – Study by Thanasis Korras and Toby BurgessFractal Cult scaffolding test model – Study by Thanasis Korras and Toby BurgessToby presenting the Scaffolding Structure at Ramboll – Picture taken by Harri Lewis
After a long day of work with Chris Ingram, Dan Dodds and Thanasis Korras yesterday, we have nearly finished 3D modelling the two projects. The Fractal Cult was redrawn using rules defined by the hinge connection suggested by Ramboll. There are 5 different types of piece that make up each of the four fractal cults. Extracts from the rules as specified by Dan Dodds and Thanasis Korras:
The Acute angles on all triangles all have bolt holes with an offset of 32mm
The Obstuse angles all have bolt holes with an offset of 22mm
For each Fractal Cult pods:
12x Large AAO [Acute,Actute,Obtuse] : Side length 1241mm
18x Medium AOO [Acute,Obtuse,Obtuse] : Side length 608mm
9x Medium AAO [Acute,Actute,Obtuse] : Side length 591mm
54x Small AOO [Acute,Obtuse,Obtuse] : Side length 283mm
108x Small AAO [Acute,Actute,Obtuse] : Side length 266mm
See iimages below:
View of the 3D model of Fractal CultOffset Ply Model on Grasshopper by Dan DoddsCNC Layout for Quote – Fractal Cult – Dan DoddsHinge specification defining the rules for the parametric modelThe Module being repeated for the 3d model with hinges by Thanasis KorrasView of the hinges in the module by Thanasis KorrasHinged model of triangle by Thanasis KorrasHinged model of triangle by Thanasis Korras
The Shipwreck now has more support on the ground which will help with the cantilever. The supports being more pronounced, we used this as an opportunity to create a bench. We are planning to finish the fabrication files this afternoon. We are still missing some notches, thickness as well as labelling and unrolling all the pieces.
Shipwreck ribs and spinesShipwreck ribs and spinesShipwreck ribs and spinesShipwreck ribs and spinesShipwreck – Work in Progress – Aerial View – Showing the new benchShipwreck – Work in Progress – Side ViewShipwreck – Work in Progress – Front ViewShipwreck – Work in Progress – Back ViewShipwreck – Work in Progress – Back View
Hello! Couple technical updates on our Burning Man Projects for the team, donators and potential collaborators:
We have developed the structure, geometry and details of the two projects with the help of Ramboll Computational Design (RCD). See drawings and analysis below.
We have signed the contract with Burning Man and received the first grant payment 20 of us are signed in to go.
We have sent our first fabrication files to get an initial quote on CNC milling all the pieces on 2440mm x 1220mm exterior grade plywood sheets of 9mm (for Fractal Cult) and 3mm (For Shipwreck). Our hope is to collect the pieces on the 19th August.
We will start small models to test the new structures
The Shipwreck now has a parametric model which outputs all the cutting profiles.
Please help us continue the work, even £10 helps – Donate Now –
You can also comment on this page to make suggestions on the fabrication – We need more quotes for the CNC and/or Laser cutting job in the U.S. West Coast (Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Sacramento, Fresno, Reno preferably) . We also need quotes for the scaffolding structure.
Stephen Melville of Ramboll RCD sketch for the Shipwreck structureShipwreck – Looking at different Versions with Parametric modelShipwreck – Looking at different Versions with Parametric modelShipwerck – Low ViewShipWreck View from aboveCurrent Profiles for ShipwreckCurrent Laser cut Profiles for Fractal CultHinged Connection for Fractal Cult by Thanasis Korras with RambollRamboll’s suggestion for Fractal Cult’s Scafolding structureFractal Cult Build PlanFractal Cult Build PlanRamboll Ground Reaction Wind Analysis
The academic year finishes very soon but we are getting ready for the Burning Man festival!! After two years of research, we are so proud and excited to finally go to the festival and build the two beautiful projects, Ship Wreck and Fractal Cult.
We will be there from the 19th August until the 3rd September. On the first week we will build the Ship Wreck and the Fractal Cult and at the end of the second week we will burn all the wooden parts and disassemble the scaffolding used on Fractal Cult.
Although we won a grant to pay the materials, we still need to purchase several expensive items such as a generator for the lights, pay for some of the fabrication for the pieces, for food and water on site, the tents…etc…Our aim is to reach £3000 for all of it. Therefore we need your generous help.
You can now donate money on our page using the donate button on the top right of our page or by clicking below
Every pound helps!
Your name and website will be added below the donation button until the end of September. The names will be ordered according to the amount donated. You will benefit from our 1,000+ visitors a day having a direct link to your website.
WeWantToLearn.net 