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.

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)

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).

Invited to the project by Hermann Weizenegger – an industrial designer and design professor running his studio haw in Berlin – I was responsible for designing the overall interface between the music by composer and violinist miki and the production process of the robot. Together with the incredibly talented chris jeffs, who provided me with the audio analysis and musical advice as well as Wolf Deiss and Roman Kühnert of artis gmbh we realized what to me was one of the most complex, challenging and inspiring productions I was part of to date.

Hermann’s vision of the overall performance consisted of five variations of a musical piece by MIKI represented in five objects. To address this vision, wax was chosen as a base material, since it allowed rapid manufacturing through milling and application of heat as well as a possible further use for casting. Thus, the performance was conceptualized as a two stages production process showing MIKI and a pianist along the robot manufacturing the objects. In a pre-performance process, the wax base shapes were milled to reflect the musical atmosphere, in the second process the robot finalized the objects with the use of a Bunsen burner in reaction to MIKI’s play.

Given my initial lack of experience with product design and the related manufacturing processes, I teamed up with steffen fiedler to create a formal concept that will work in the timeframe we had. Even though this initial design process happened in Java/Processing with the help of Chris’ analysis tools made in SuperCollider, we realized quickly we would need an entirely different toolset to create data for such a high performance manufacturing process. Thus, the formal concept to match the requirements of the short timeframe for milling was implemented in Rhino/Grasshopper. The concept consisted of a fluent terrain being distorted according to the music. The terrain was chosen to provide the greatest flexibility for how the robot would manufacture it. This translation process is also shown in a minimal dynamic visualization I created in Processing mainly for the audience to understand the process. It was integrated into the lights control done by Chris as well. The large scale renderings for the exhibition were made in sunflow – a fabulous open source renderer written in Java.

Alexander McQueen (1969-2010) was one of the most influential and provocative designers of his generation. His clothing challenged the generic and conventional parameters of fashion to express culture, politics, identity. McQueen saw beyond clothing design physical constraints its ideological and conceptual possibilities, addressing questions related to race, gender, religion, sexuality and environment. During AA School Paris Spring 2012, McQueen’s evolutionary design will act as prompts for embryos’ naissance within the [Fashion+Architecture] body of work.

Within a framework of 10 days-germination, AA school Paris participants will take part of a collective embryo-genesis engaging McQueen’s DNA and legacy onto a novel and crucial debate about fashion in the Post-McQueen Era.
Featuring the most iconic and radical designs of his prolific career, AA embryos will grow and develop a self-intelligent état d’âme informed by a set of social, contextual, operational and performative parameters, such as: mass production driven by advanced capitalism; temperature variations in the globe, clothes’ adaptability in urban milieus, among other.

Post-McQueen Embryos seeks to eradicate the non-responsiveness within clothing design by reviewing Alexander McQueen’s alienated proportions, aiming at busting fashion design out of its commercial destination. Intended to become a design research laboratory, AA School Paris ultimate target is to keep growing the potential for meshing both disciplines [Fashion+Architecture] onto a digital/ physical cross-over studio helping to reaffirm AA School Paris research material.

The Paris Experience
Discussions, debates and lectures will take place on site with expertise on a day to day basis. By placing fashion designers at the centre of the process, the workshop seeks to challenge much more than just clothing design. At the core of Spring 2012 our solely goal is of consolidating the AA emerging discipline: bodily-architecture.
The AA Paris Fashion School will take in an exclusive insightful retrospective at the Exhibition ‘MARC JACOBS- LOUIS VUITTON’, to be held at the Les Arts Décoratifs- AA Paris Headquarters.
Post Mc-Queen Embryos is strengthened by a large network of Parisian Patronage, from industrial, publishing and collaborative links, taking the form of sponsoring inputs to the course.
The workshop is open to current architecture and design students, PhD candidates and young professionals. All applicants should submit a CV and portfolio to Jorge Ayala at info@ayarchitecture.com

Links:
Website: http://aaschoolparis.tumblr.com/
AA School Microsite: http://www.aaschool.ac.uk/STUDY/VISITING/Paris-part2
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/AA-School-Paris/175947042439516

Applications Link:

https://www.aaschool.ac.uk/STUDY/ONLINEAPPLICATION/visitingApplication.php?schoolID=68

Faculty:
Jorge Ayala, Director and Founder at [Ay]Architects
Isaïe Bloch, Collaborator Designer at Iris Van Herpen
Riyad Joucka, AA MA Emergent Techonogies Graduate
Santosh Kumar, Architect, Hernan Diaz Alonso Studio EXCESSIVE, Die Angewandte University, Vienna
Kibwe Tavares, Director and Founder at FACTORYFIFTEEN
and more.

Cocoon Lamp by Voxel Studio

For some time the terms “generative manufacturing”, “rapid prototyping”, “stereolithography” or simply “3D printing” are no longer solely known by experts. At the latest through the designs by Assa Ashuach for MGX Design or Karim Pashid for Freedom of Creation the process engineering is well known.
The digital drafting process through CAD systems offers unimagined possibilities. The seemingly absolutely geometrical free creation marks the beginning of a new era of design.
Objet geometries takes it up to another level. Through the polyjet technologie they gain the possibility to print an object with more than only one material. This way the designer can variegate the object’s color and physical character (hard, flexible, transparent, soft etc.) as needed.
Inspired by Nery Oxman`s „the Beast“, who impressively demonstrates the possibilities of the technology.
The result was supposed to be a solely digital planned and automatic manufactured product on the basis of polyjet technology. With the friendly support by objet geometries it was possible to realize this project. (http://www.objet.com)

A cocoon is a shell, which larvae of varies insects, particularly caterpillars, are building for their metamorphosis. The caterpillars use for this a liquid which is pressed out from their spinneret and hardens in the air quickly.
The conceptual idea comes from this parallel to the PolyJet technology, at which a liquid photopolymer is applied out of nozzles and hardens through UV-light.
The adaption of the construction and the clean design of a cocoon lead to the emergence of the inner element. Its geometry is formed by spun threads, which wind protectingly around the light source.
The white and hard material „VeroWhite“ is perfectly suited for this construction, because it provides the required rigidity and disseminates, through its reflective surface, the light further into the space.
A dark layer „TangoBlackPlus“, which is applied to the surfaces of the side of the lamellae, provides the desired color contrast and protects the surface. At its lower end a special fitting is formed, to which the holding element can be connected to.
This way the cocoon can be connected to the mounting element.
This organic form proceeds in swings around the cocoon enclosing it. Being printed out of “DigitalMaterial” of the PolyJet matrix technology, based on the mixture of “VeroWhite” and “TangoBlackPlus” materials, results in a gray, neither completely stiff nor completely flexible construction
arose.
Additionally, very soft, linear elements follow the surface and assure protection, skid resistance, and a comfortable haptic, when applied around the luminaire.
This can be turned, laid or hung up in different positions. The optical appearance or the desired effect can be defined by the user.
The design should have the potential, arising from the PolyJet production process, to exhibit geometrically on the one hand, but also to display the different properties of the material combination in terms of rigidity, reflexion and feel of the surface.

Flight Assembled Architecture is the first installation built entirely by flying robots. Designed as an architectural structure on the scale of a “vertical village” of 600 meters, Assembled Architecture Flight tests a new paradigm of design and manufacturing, through a physical process of automated dynamic training. This project builds on the simultaneous use of multiple mobile agents. Considered as tools for adaptive production, these flying robots are programmed to interact and to capture, transport and assemble the modules to build architectural structures. They synthesize and the pragmatism of Gramazio & Kohler Architecture and visionary approach to Raffaello D’Andrea in engineering dynamics. The FRAC Centre supports this new project, which will ad up to its collection devoted to experimental architecture. This collaborative project will be exposed in the FRAC Centre in Orléans.

Dodecaudion is a spatial audiovisual controller based on such technologies as infrared distance sensors, arduino, bluetooth, processing and osc , developed by panGenerator one of the main ideas behind the project according to its designers ‘was to explore a new interface that stands as an alternative to traditional controllers (like knobs and buttons) that simply don’t provide much room for performers’ gestural expression.’

DODECAUDION is right now on its Alpha stage but should be ready for production in following months and will be available via HEDOCO online shop.

Dodecaudion is totally opensourced project licensed by an MIT license – source code & Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA) – form design, PCB layout & everything else.

You can find all the open source code source code, CAD documentation and PCB schematics on github

The madMeshMaker is a generative surface modeling environment created by Golan Levin’s Interactive Art and Computational Design course at Carnegie Mellon University, and has the intention to be an intuitive and fun introduction to fabrication with computer-numerically-controlled (CNC) table routers. CNC routers have become a staple of institutions related to digital design and manufacturing for their ability to rapidly fabricate models, furniture, interior systems, and other prototypical assemblages. However, because of the inherent 3D-modeling knowledge needed to both virtually and physically design, the machinery still remains an ‘advanced topic’ in academic curriculum. The madMeshMaker dissolves this notion, allowing any novice to digital technologies to easily create a virtual model embedded with the information necessary to communicate with a CNC router.

The application is intended to be distributed to freshmen architecture/design/art students, allowing them to rapidly explore and experiment with integrated digital design/fabrication technologies. With the madMeshMaker lowering the barriers-of-use, students are able to experiment more freely with the limits of what the fabrication technology can and cannot do … getting them to explore a surface through various materials, toolpaths, toolbit profiles, etc. By incorporating the application as a pedagogical tool in the beginning stages of their formal education, the goal of the madMeshMaker is to enable future designers to push beyond the conventional uses of the technology, and cultivate novel methods of design and production.

You can download the application from HERE