Studies on self assembling structures continue, as Skylar Tibbits and Dr. Arthur Olson of MIT in collaboration with Autodesk Research present project Biomolecular Self Assembly at this year’s TEDGlobal 2012: Radical Openness.

While programmable self-assembly has been studied at the molecular level for some time now, this project promotes the idea of using energy to interactively reassemble molecular structures. Instead of using smart robotic systems to construct these structures (like Gramazio & Kohler did in their flight assembled tower), kinetic energy found in extreme near-zero gravity environments or places of high altitudes, space, or underwater, could cause polarized particles to self assemble. “Imagine using wave energy underwater to trigger the self-assembly of multistory structures, or parts dropped from high altitudes to unfold fully erected structures, or even modular, transformable and reconfigurable space structures!”

Three components–geometry, energy, and attraction–are needed for self assembly. Particles assemble as in a biological model of enzymes to specific geometries, creating the most stable geometrical structure after a process of weeding out bad bonds and re-assemblies. Read the rest of this entry »

Designed by Heatherwick Studio, these seating structures are made from a single piece of aluminium. Without any fixtures or fittings, the component is created through a specific aluminium-extrusion process, resulting in unexpected forms of raw and sculptural qualities.

The aluminium extrusion process is usually used to make smaller section components for façade systems, train carriages, automotive parts and so on. A large press capable of exerting up to ten thousand tons of pressure creates the extruded sections by squeezing aluminium through its die (the opening that forms the shape of the profile to be created). The aluminium emerges in a raw unpolished finish which is then cut and sometimes shaped; each cut piece of bench then undergoes 300 hours of polishing. If pieces of the extrusion are not used they are melted down and made into further billets. With technological advancements, this principle finally found its application in the design industry, making it possible for the eighteen years old idea for the Extrusion Project to be realized. Read the rest of this entry »

Orange stained Finnish hardwoods wrap an egg shaped pavilion dubbed “My Green World” designed by 2D3D. The project took only 6 months from concept to completion using roboticly precut wood members with a resulting woven exterior reminiscent of a seed. The building was commissioned by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation for the Floriade 2012 Expo in Venlo, the Netherlands.

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Created through collaboration between Sebastien Leoon Agneesens, New York-based French musician and artist, and Situ Fabrication, the sculpture was produced as an exhibition piece for B Brian Atwood’s New York showroom. Named after a medieval mythological poisonous snake, the Leontophone is a sound sculpture aiming to poetically hypnotize its audience through visual and sonic stimuli.

Born from the encounter of op art and glam rock, the 32-foot long piece is composed of 174 mirrored aluminum keys reflecting distorted images of reality. The Leontophone plays a looped original melody created on a vibraphone filtered with electric guitar pedals.

The sculpture consists of 174 hexagonal, polished aluminum tiles which form a 30 ft. long serpent-like figure. To fix each individual tile in a precise location and angle, Situ Fabrication designed a plywood armature that supported threaded rods with swivel fittings.  The positions and lengths of the threaded rod as well as the angle of the swivels were all coordinated so that the complex, tessellated form could rise from a simplified plywood armature. Read the rest of this entry »

Most people believe cardboard is the mundane material that is used to make boxes, after which, carelessly thrown away. Yet, this thin shell structure, made by the professor and students at University of Minnesota, along with help of MATSYS, uses that exact material to produce a walkway installation for the school. The students completed the project within a 4-day workshop focusing on parametric/thin shell structures, student team design competition, fabrication, and assembly.

The hex shell deals with the design aspect of parametric process. Using tools provided by MATSYS, the students generated the form  in response to the circulation of the area. To guide and reinforce circulation, dimensions of the structure coincide with traffic flow and usage density.

The structure itself challenges the conventional thinking of materials and their properties. The team uses cardboard, which is very deformable and often lack aesthetics appeal. However, knowing the limits of the material being utilized, the design exploits the properties and compensates for the weakness. Throughout the installation process, the team used the cardboard’s ease of manipulate as an advantage in terms of assembly and reshaping. In the final product, the design utilizes a method of folded plate to compensate for lack of structural integrity. In doing so, the structure is not only reinforce but also provided the units with attaching point for construction. Read the rest of this entry »

Chroma[RED] is an interactive installation designed by architect Carlos Moncada at Sci-Arc which has placed in public and semipublic spaces in Los Angeles, California. This project is focused on the perception of the object inside the space in order to stimulate people to experience a new recreation of it through interaction. Each individual experience makes invisible tangible limits, developing a dialogue that induces the observer to create new limits, dynamics and interpretations of the space. Read the rest of this entry »

The site-specific installation for the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is part of a larger body of work, experimenting in space, social relations and collectivity. The geodesic dome has been built from sixteen interconnected modules in the Museum’s Iris and B. Gerald Cantor roof garden, measuring fifty-four feet long, twenty-nine feet wide and twenty-eight feet high structure. The angular and bubbled form of the piece is comprised of glass segments cut in non-identical geometric shapes held in place by steel joints, reinforcements and steel cables.

The structure consists of a 28-foot-high aggregate of 16 interconnected 12- and 14-sided polyhedrons the size of small rooms that are made of polished steel and clear plexiglass. By being reflective or see-through, they deform and rearticulate the experience of the structure and everything around it. Read the rest of this entry »

Attempting to assume a fresh approach to digital fabrication, the project combines indigenous, traditional craft techniques of Marrakech with current algorithm software programming. Traditional Moroccan weaving  techniques are used to render physical the forms designed in programs such as Rhino and Grasshopper. The process is, as the architects state, a nonlinear one, going back and forth between the physical and the digital.

The Moroccan weaving technique involves a wood frame loom and a process of organizing wool or cotton yarn into an array of linear lines of yarn warped through a loom weaving and tying in order to produce a woven fabric surface. The frame of the loom is recognized as a deployable architectural element, holding the yarn in place as a series of parallel lines that form a surface. These surfaces are actually three-dimensional volumes stretched over a series of fixed frames. The ultimate site for our work, the ruin at the Mosque Koutoubia, informs and locates the proposed project and establishes a scale for the work. Read the rest of this entry »

Israel-based product designer Hilla Shamia has created a collection of furniture made of damaged materials. Burnt wood is reused in combination with aluminium, while retaining its organic appearance. Whole trunks are incorporated into metal tables, chairs and stools. The design combines organic material with abstract forms, “intensifying the artificial feeling, and at the same time keeping the memory of the material”. Created by using industrial techniques, these pieces of contemporary furniture evoke the feeling of Brutalist aesthetics, revealing the texture of the wooden forms used for the in-situ casting. Read the rest of this entry »

The sculpture designed by Xie Zhang at the School of Architecture of the University of Pennsylvania is conceived by manipulating  lunar craters’ geometry. The diversity of depths for each crater generates different lengths and curvatures, allowing a  smooth transformation from surface to tentacles. The process of growing which results in forms and patterns implies a metaphorical analogy that a lifeless form being infected and eroded by organism, a chaotic relationship between organic and inorganic. Read the rest of this entry »