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Approxymotion by Peter A Vikar

Rodrigo — Sat, 12 May 2012 03:28:22 +0000

Approxymotion is research project focusing on motion based forming. Its an attempt to apply the logic of digital design into the physical space.
Traditionally in architecture forms are transferred from paper/virtual space to building through fixed shaped moulds or as an assembly of many elements. My goal was to set the mould into motion, while maintaining the parametric nature inherited from the digital model. The result is a motion-form that computes between the initial motion input, the built geometry and its material properties.
The nested relation (corner cutting) from rough to smoothened layers display the gradient condition from the accuracy of robotic motion control to the averaging behavior of the elastic net.

Resonant Chamber by RVTR

Rodrigo — Tue, 08 May 2012 03:26:41 +0000

Resonant Chamber developed by RVTR is an interior envelope system that deploys the principles of rigid origami to transform the acoustic environment through dynamic spatial, material and electro-acoustic technologies. Our aim is to develop a soundsphere able to adjust its properties in response to changing sonic conditions, altering the sound of a space during performance and creating an instrument at the scale of architecture, flexible enough that it might be capable of being played.

The project is developed through three streams of iterative research and development in both computational testing and full-scale prototype installation: Dynamic Surface Geometries; Performative Material Systems; and Variable Actuation and Response. Resonant Chamber is funded through the 2011 Research through Making Grant, U-M Office of the Vice President for Research, 2011 Small Projects Grant, U-M Center for Wireless Integrated Microsystems, Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada Research Creation Grant.

Patterned by Nature

Rodrigo — Wed, 02 May 2012 03:41:47 +0000

Patterned by Nature was commissioned by the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences (naturalsciences.org) for the newly built Nature Research Center in Raleigh, North Carolina. The exhibit celebrates our abstraction of nature’s infinite complexity into patterns through the scientific process, and through our perceptions. It brings to light the similarity of patterns in our universe, across all scales of space and time.
10 feet wide and 90 feet in length, this sculptural ribbon winds through the five story atrium of the museum and is made of 3600 tiles of LCD glass. It runs on roughly 75 watts, less power than a laptop computer. Animations are created by independently varying the transparency of each piece of glass.
The content cycles through twenty programs, ranging from clouds to rain drops to colonies of bacteria to flocking birds to geese to cuttlefish skin to pulsating black holes. The animations were created through a combination of algorithmic software modeling of natural phenomena and compositing of actual footage.
An eight channel soundtrack accompanies the animations on the ribbon, giving visitors clues to the identity of the pixelated movements. In addition, two screens show high resolution imagery and text revealing the content on the ribbon at any moment.

Patterned by Nature was created by
Plebian Design – plebiandesign.com
Hypersonic Design & Engineering - hypersoniced.com
Patten Studio – pattenstudio.com
Sosolimited – sosolimited.com

Photophore by Kollision

Rodrigo — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 23:55:19 +0000

In celebration of the Luminale 2012, in Frankfurt Germany, Kollision , together with Martin Professional , and light designers Katja Winkelmann and Jochen Schröder, developed an interactive media facade, Photophore (2012). Photophore is a five storey veil of light situated along the river Main at the unique Seven Swans multi-functional restaurant, bar, office and hotel. Here, in the heart of Frankfurt, everyone is invited to take part in the festival of light. By scanning a QR code mounted on the facade the users are brought to a website [kollision.dk/public/wind/], which allows them to interact with the veil. The website invites you to swipe your finger across the touch screen of your smart phone, which will make the veil of light act as if it is being pushed, pulled, and thrown in response to input from the people on the street. The texture and dynamics of the veil adds a tangible materiality to the Seven Swans and gives the unique building a both ethereal and vivid expression when darkness falls.

Noisy Jelly

Rodrigo — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 18:28:47 +0000

Noisy jelly is a game where the player has to cook and shape his own musical material, based on coloured jelly.

With this noisy chemistry lab, the gamer will create his own jelly with water and a few grams of agar agar powder. After added different color, the mix is then pour in the molds. 10 min later, the jelly shape can then be placed on the game board,and by touching the shape, the gamer will activate different sounds.

Technically, the game board is a capacitive sensor, and the variations of the shape and their salt concentration, the distance and the strength of the finger contact are detected and transform into an audio signal.
This object aims to demonstrate that electronic can have a new aesthetic, and be envisaged as a malleable material, which has to be manipulated and experimented.

Author: Raphaël pluvinage pluvinage.eu
& Marianne Cauvard (mariannecauvard.fr)
at L’Ensci Les ateliers (ensci.com)

Project done in the semester course of François Azambourg and Clémentine Chambon
Thanks to Roland Cahen for his help (especially sorting out with Max/Msp)

HYDRAMAX by Future Cities Lab

Rodrigo — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 19:10:29 +0000

Future Cities Lab’s HYDRAMAX Port Machines project proposes a radical rethinking of San Francisco’s urban waterfront post sea-level rise. The proposal renders the existing hard edges of the waterfront as new “soft systems” that would include aquatic parks, community gardens, wildlife refuges and aquaponic farms. A synthetic architecture is introduced that blurs the distinction between building, landscape, infrastructure and machine. Using thousands of sensors and motorized components, the massive urban scale robotic structure harvests rainwater and fog, while modulating air flow, solar exposure and intelligent building systems.
Design: Jason Kelly Johnson & Nataly Gattegno
Project Manager: Ripon DeLeon
Project Interns: Gavin Johns, Cameron Eng
Collaborative Sponsor: MIGA Motor Company (Dr. Mark Gummin)

Interactive Model Description
A network of infrared proximity sensors has been integrated into the four sides of the physical model. These sensors record the distance of gallery visitors to its edges. Information from these sensors is used to actuate the white feather-like “fog harvesting robots” and control the brightness of embedded LEDS. This model is an example of what Future Cities Labs call “live models”. Live models use the interaction of people to explore and simulate the potential effects of environmental forces such as fog, wind and sunlight.
Model Materials: Cast and thermoformed acrylic, custom printed circuit boards, Arduino based microcontrollers, infrared sensors, shape memory alloy motors (Courtesy of Miga Motor Company).

THIXOTROPES by TROIKA

Rodrigo — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 23:22:08 +0000

‘Thixotropes’ is comprised of a series of eight illuminated mechanised structures, each of them shaped as a composition of intersecting angular and geometric forms that are made of thin tensed steel banding lined with rows of LED’s.
The constructions continuously revolve around their own axis thereby materialising the path of the light and dissolving the spinning structures into compositions of aerial cones, spheres and ribbons of warm and cold light while giving life and shape to an immaterial construct.

‘Thixotropes’ combines Troika’s interest in art and science and stretches the boundaries of a long history of light painting photography that can be traced back to 1914 when Frank Gilbreth, along with his wife Lillian Moller Gilbreth, used small lights and the open shutter of a camera to track the motion of manufacturing and clerical workers.
Merging technology with their artistic practice, Troika’s moving structures explore the intersection of scientific thought, observation and human experience in a rational and rationalised world, and describes how logic and reason live in the presence of the metaphysical and surreal.

‘Thixotropes’ was commissioned by Selfridges London.

Dragon Skin Pavillion

Rodrigo — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 03:08:12 +0000

Dragon Skin is a collaboration between architects Emmi Keskisarja, Pekka Tynkkynen, Kristof Crolla (LEAD) and Sebastien Delagrange (LEAD), is an ongoing project exploring the use of post-formable plywood in digital design and manufacturing. Its origins are in a workshop the authors held for Finnish architecture students at the Tampere University of Technology in the autumn 2011. A pavilion was designed and built in the workshop in just 7 days and was exhibited at the Finlayson gallery in Tampere. Having been selected among thousands of applicants for the Hong Kong biennale, Keskisarja and Tynkkynen crafted a second version in collaboration with LEAD, together with an international team consisting of material and structural engineers.

Innovating parametric design and digital fabrication, the structure consists of 163 post-formable plywood components. The pieces were manufactured at the Tampere University of Technology in Finland, with the help of PIPU Ltd. The components were shipped to Hong Kong, where the team assembled the pavilion for the exhibition situated in Kowloon Park.

Hong Kong & Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture is a double biennale organized in both Shenzhen and Hong Kong, and as such one of China’s most important architecture events. What makes the Dragon Skin pavilion quite special among this year’s exhibits, is that it is the only human sized structure that can be entered by visitors.Made out of birch plywood, the pavilion is quite and exotic sight in Hong Kong, where the prevalent natural material in use is bamboo. It has quickly become one of the biennale’s main attractions.

The exhibition was opened for public on the 16th of February and continues until the 23rd of April. 70.000 visitors are expected during this time. Among the exhibitors are renowned architects such as OMA, Steven Holl Architects, MVRDV and Reiser & Umemoto Architects.

Self-Assembly Line

Rodrigo — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 17:51:48 +0000

A collaboration between Skylar Tibbits, MIT and Arthur Olson, The Molecular Graphics Laboratory, The Scripps Institute, CA.

The Self-Assembly Line aims to construct a large-scale version of self-assembly virus modules as a user-interactive and performative structure. This is an installation that builds installations, where people engage the assembly process by rotating the enclosure, changing the speed/direction and adding parts to influence the performance of self-assembly at macro-scales.

The Self-Assembly Line represents a large-scale version of a self-assembly virus capsid, demonstrated as an interactive and performative structure. A discrete set of modules are activated by stochastic rotation from a larger container/structure that forces the interaction between units. The unit geometry and attraction mechanisms (magnetics) ensure the units will come into contact with one another and auto-align into locally-correct configurations. Overtime as more units come into contact, break away, and reconnect, larger, furniture scale elements, emerge. Given different sets of unit geometries and attraction polarities various structures could be achieved. By changing the external conditions, the geometry of the unit, the attraction of the units and the number of units supplied, the desired global configuration can be programmed.

Project Team:
Martin Seymour, Andrew Manto, Erioseto Hendranata, Justin Gallagher, Laura Salazar, Veronica Emig, Aaron Olson

Forma by Quayola and Memo Akten

Rodrigo — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 01:38:13 +0000

Forms is a series of studies on human motion, and its reverberations through space and time. It is inspired by the works of Eadweard Muybridge, Harold Edgerton, Étienne-Jules Marey as well as similarly inspired modernist cubist works such as Marcel Duchamp’s “Nude Descending a Staircase No.2?. Rather than focusing on observable trajectories, it explores techniques of extrapolation to sculpt abstract forms, visualizing unseen relationships – power, balance, grace and conflict – between the body and its surroundings.
The project investigates athletes; pushing their bodies to their extreme capabilities, their movements shaped by an evolutionary process targeting a winning performance. Traditionally a form of entertainment in todays society with an overpowering competitive edge, the disciplines are deconstructed and interrogated from an exclusively mechanical and aesthetic point of view; concentrating on the invisible forces generated by and influencing the movement.
The source for the study is footage from the Commonwealth Games. The process of transformation from live footage to abstract forms is exposed as part of the interactive multi-screen artwork, to provide insight into the evolution of the specially crafted world in which the athletes were placed.