Near Unison | Dan Dodds | Kinetica Art Fair 2013

Near Unison, my project exploring harmonographic traces is currently being shown at Kinetica Art Fair. The exhibition is in Ambika P3, the exhibition space attached to the University of Westminster on Marylebone Road. For more information on the exhibition, and details about tickets and opening times please visit the Kinetica Art Fair website.

The exhibit features a prototype of the interactive harmonograph swings that could form part of the larger installation proposed for Burning Man Festival, along with casts of the harmonographic traces left in sand, and photographic work documenting the process.

“The 5th Kinetica Art Fair returns February 28th – March 3rd 2013 at Ambika P3, as one of London’s annual landmark art exhibitions and a permanent fixture in the Art Fair calendar, renowned as the UK’s only art fair dedicated to kinetic, robotic, sound, light, time-based and new media art.

Kinetica is hosting the work of over 45 galleries and art organisations nationally and internationally, with representatives from UK, France, Russia, USA, Poland, Holland, Spain, Italy, Hungary, Indonesia and Japan, collectively showing over 400 works of art.

A huge interactive light sculpture from Dutch artist Titia Ex will greet visitors as they enter the impressive Ambika P3 venue, and giant 3D sculptures from Holotronica will hover above the main space of the Fair. Other highlights include an exoskeleton hybrid of mananimal-machine by Christiann Zwanniken; a giant three dimensional zoetrope by Greg Barsamian; and a life-size ‘Galloping Horse’ made of light by Remi Brun”

Kinetica Art Fair Press Release

Gravity Stool

shaping magnetic forces

Check out the following: http://jolanvanderwiel.com/

Olympiapark München

These are photos from my trip to Munich Olympic Stadium, designed by Günter Behnisch and Frei Otto for the 1972 Olympic Games.

The trip included a walk up over the top of the lightweight cable-net roof structure of the main stadium.

The main drivers for the design of the event spaces were the desire to have a ‘green’ games, a compact games, and use the notion of transparency and light. The green element of the games is manifested in the fact that the stadium and other events spaces were set in a large expanse of newly created parkland [the site was previously an airfield related to the adjacent BMW factory]. The compact element came through in that the athletes were able to walk from their accommodation to all events except sailing.

The idea of transparency and light was born primarily out of two factors:

– A desire to have a set of venues that contrasted absolutely with the heavy monumental Nazi architecture of the 1936 Olympics

-The fact that the 1972 Olympics were the first to be broadcast using colour TV cameras, which took 8 seconds to adjust from shooting in sunlight to shooting in shade. The transparent roof of the stadium minimised the contrast between shaded and non-shaded areas, allowing continuous filming as the cameras panned around.

The structure itself is based on a cable net pulled into shape by cables attached to large hollow steel columns. These columns take so much compressive force that they have to rest on 35m deep concrete foundations. Protection from rain is the primary function of the roof over the stadium, and for this purpose it is covered in 4mm plexi-glass sheets.

As shown in the photos below, these are attached directly to the cable net grid by flexible neoprene connectors about 100mm long. The sheets are clamped along their edges to neoprene strips which create 100mm wide flexible movement joints connecting them to each other. The  plexi-glass sheets currently in use were put in during a refurbishment in 1994-99, and were taken up to the roof as 3m x 3m sheets which were then cut to size in-situ.

The thinness of the plexi-glass combined with the flexible movement joints allow the cladding to move as the structure moves with wind, snow and thermal expansion loading. The steel columns rest on rubber lined ball and socket joints, allowing them to move freely in every direction. The tops of the columns can move by up to around 1m with large snow loading. A demonstration of the flexible tensile nature of the roof came when we were told to jump up and down on the walkway running over it – the whole roof behaved like a trampoline, deflecting about 200-300mm vertically as we jumped.

The swimming pool is the only enclosed building that I photographed the interior of. Also on the site is the indoor arena. The interior space is defined by a tensile membrane that hangs about 1m below the cable net. The walls are made from curtain walling supported by exterior space-frames. The connection between the membrane roof and the curtain walling needs to be flexible enough to take up the movement of the cable net, and is provided by an ETFE cushion.

 

Bending Curves on Kangaroo

As part of an investigation into gridshells I posted in the Grasshopper forum to try and find a solution to a definition using the bend force component through the Kangaroo plug-in for Grasshopper.

My intention was to deform a grid into lathes using a bend force whilst maintaining the overall length of each lathe (or curve) as a representation of how gridshell are constructed on site, where they are raised or lowered into position from an originally flat grid, and deform or bend due to their own self weight.

Daniel Piker the creator of Kangaroo replied with a very useful script component that allows the user to easily find the correct inputs for a divided curve that is plugged into the bend component.

He also very kindly finished the definition for me.

The files including the C# script component can be found in the forum post here if you would also like to investigate the bend force.

http://www.grasshopper3d.com/forum/topics/kangaroo-bending-1 

Above: Video Capture showing the curves bending in Rhino with Kangaroo

Social Forces, Literally !

Nathan Miller, creator of Slingshot has used Kangaroo and his own plugin on Grasshopper to import his Facebook friends as a  network of lines and applied different physical forces between them depending on the level of connectivity between friends.

Interesting way to start designing a building?

Video Below:

More Information on Nathan’s blog The Proving Ground.