Category: architecture

  • 20JanThe Breathing Wall

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    The Breathing Wall is a Kinetic Installation that shows a wall reacting to the public space. Made out of architectural objects that work independently or dependently of one another, it deploys and retracts soft fabric

    This picture shows the mechanics and electronics of our Breathing Wall piece.

    On this picture I create shadows on the light sensors to have the Breathing Wall react to my presence.

    During our conceptual phase, we thought of an assembly of cloth cubes that would form partial transparency. When densely packed, they form a privacy cloud or mist enclosure. When they retract they close the view they were enhancing. The idea is to use these kind of elements to define more diffuse borders in architecture. Soft edges resembling the spatial limits one finds in nature and in the landscape.

    Our concept



    Inspiring research

    We would like to think of it on a scale of a huge wall, where the experience an outsider has of the activities going on inside is shifting constantly by the affordances of the changing architectural surface.

    Process of implementation

    First round







    Second round





    I have created this kinetic piece with Ana Aleman. It is our final assignment for the Kinetic Architecture class taught by Dr Kostas Terzidis.

    Review process summary

    For the first assignment of this class I had designed a Memento Box as an attractive passage from door to space. The door leads to your souvenirs and is always slightly opened. A bright light shines in the back of the box clarifying a few objects and pictures around it. However, whenever your hand tries to grab what captures the eye, the door closes onto your hand in front of you and all is dark again. Whenever you go away for a tiny bit, the door opens up and more lights shine into some parts of your souvenirs and you can travel though them from far away …



    Picture of the Memento Box

    For the second assignment of this class I had designed the Ambient Peacock/Chameleon explorer with Philip Vriend as a serie of mobile units connected to a headquarter that display environmental visual on each of their shell. Real time connecting to the headquarter allow the head to ask for specific data gathering and collection of the environment. This project was blogged by Pasta and Vinegar.



    Picture of the ‘air’ mobile unit

    By Cati in kinetic architecture


  • 02OctSketch furniture

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    Sketch furniture by Front allows sketching onto space to become an object.

    Motion Capture translates motions into 3D-files and are used in this project to simply record the tip of a pen when people draw pieces of furniture in the air. Rapid Prototyping is a technique that materializes 3D-files. A laser beam builds the 3D-file layer by layer within a liquid plastic material. Every 0.1mm the liquid harden by a laser beam. After a few hours, the 3D-files come out as materialized pieces. The Sketch Furniture project in Japan is made in collaboration with Barry Friedman Ltd. Tokyo Wonder Site Aoyama and Crescent.


  • 13AugA nice place to hang out

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    Falling Garden, San Staë church on the Canale Grande, 50th Biennial of Venice, 2003

    A nice place to hang out … in 2003!

    The Doge (Mocenigo) needed a church so as to be able to have a monumental tomb built for himself, the church (San Staë) needed a saint so as to be able to be built, the saint (San Eustachio) needed a miracle so as to be pronounced a saint, the miracle needed a stag in order to be seen, and we built the garden for the reindeer.
    The visitors lie on the bed above the doge’s gravestone, and the garden thinks for them.

    More info


  • 15JanRapid manufactured textiles

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    Macedonia Tray design by Janne Kyttanen, 2007.

    Following up on this thread about rapid prototyping and mass customized objects, Jiri Evenhuis came up with the concept of Rapid Manufactured textiles in 1999 opening new frontier of possibilities for the production of textiles in the future. The first commercial products were launched by FOC in 2005.



    City Hall, Amsterdam. Ramon Albers. 3D computer graphics enable designers and architects to envision very complex creations at … the miniature scale

    Posted by Cati Vaucelle

    Architectradure


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  • 07MarSpam architecture

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    The images from the Spam Architecture series are generated by a computer program that accepts as input, junk email. Various patterns, keywords and rhythms found in the text are translated into three-dimensional modeling gestures. Created by Alex Dragulescu.

    Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure
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  • 10MayA chair to peel

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    A chair to peel

    The Cabbage Chair, 2008

    Nendo designed the cabbage chair for XXIst Century Man exhibition curated by Issey Miyake to commemorate the first anniversary of 21_21 Design Sight in Roppongi, Tokyo.

    Miyake asked the designers to make furniture out of the pleated paper that is produced in mass amounts during the process of making pleated fabric, and usually abandoned as an unwanted by-product. The designers’ solution to his challenge transformed a roll of pleated paper into a small chair that appears naturally as you peel away its outside layers, one layer at a time.

    Peeling

    Resins added during the original paper production process adds strength and the ability to remember forms, and the pleats themselves give the chair elasticity and a springy resilience, for an overall effect that looks almost rough, but gives the user a soft, comfortable seating experience.

    Opening

    Photo by Masayuki Hayashi

    Since the production process is so simple, the designers thought that eventually, the chair could be shipped as one compact roll for the user to cut open and peel back at home. The chair has no internal structure. It is not finished, and it is assembled without nails or screws. This primitive design responds gently to fabrication and distribution costs and environmental concerns, the kinds of issues that face our 21st century selves. Thus, the cabbage chair fits active, optimistic and forward-moving “21st century people”, the kind of people who, to borrow a concept Miyake expressed during a meeting with Nendo, “don’t just wear clothes, but shed their skin”.

    Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure


  • 10MayA chair to peel

    If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed to receive the latest Architectradure’s articles in your reader or via email. Thanks for visiting!

    A chair to peel

    The Cabbage Chair, 2008

    Nendo designed the cabbage chair for XXIst Century Man exhibition curated by Issey Miyake to commemorate the first anniversary of 21_21 Design Sight in Roppongi, Tokyo.

    Miyake asked the designers to make furniture out of the pleated paper that is produced in mass amounts during the process of making pleated fabric, and usually abandoned as an unwanted by-product. The designers’ solution to his challenge transformed a roll of pleated paper into a small chair that appears naturally as you peel away its outside layers, one layer at a time.

    Peeling

    Resins added during the original paper production process adds strength and the ability to remember forms, and the pleats themselves give the chair elasticity and a springy resilience, for an overall effect that looks almost rough, but gives the user a soft, comfortable seating experience.

    Opening

    Photo by Masayuki Hayashi

    Since the production process is so simple, the designers thought that eventually, the chair could be shipped as one compact roll for the user to cut open and peel back at home. The chair has no internal structure. It is not finished, and it is assembled without nails or screws. This primitive design responds gently to fabrication and distribution costs and environmental concerns, the kinds of issues that face our 21st century selves. Thus, the cabbage chair fits active, optimistic and forward-moving “21st century people”, the kind of people who, to borrow a concept Miyake expressed during a meeting with Nendo, “don’t just wear clothes, but shed their skin”.

    Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure


  • 15MayA stackable electric city vehicle

    If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed to receive the latest Architectradure’s articles in your reader or via email. Thanks for visiting!

    I had previously posted on cars that fly, swim or shrink. I mainly referred to the retractable scooter that Bill Mitchell showed us at the Media Lab Open House’08. It is an impressive piece of gear that I cannot wait to get!

    cars.jpg

    However the city car is pretty neat as well …

    City car

    The City Car is designed by the smart cities group at MIT Media lab directed by Prof. Mitchell. The project is created by Ryan Chin, Wayne Higgins, Mitchell Joachim, Will Lark, Raul-David “Retro” Poblano, Peter Schmitt, Andres Sevtsuk and Franco Vairani at MIT.

    The City Car is the coolest idea: a stackable electric city vehicle for use in dense urban areas! Vehicle Stacks will be placed throughout the city to create an urban transportation network that takes advantage of existing infrastructure such as subway and bus lines. By placing stacks in urban spaces and key points of convergence, the vehicle allows the citizens the flexibility to combine mass transit effectively with individualized mobility. The stack receives incoming vehicles and electrically charges them. Similar to luggage carts at the airport, users simply take the first fully charged vehicle at the front of the stack. The City car is NOT a replacement for personal vehicles, taxis, buses, or trucks; it is a NEW vehicle type that promotes a socially responsible and more effective means of urban mobility!

    I looked at the process and strategy used by Will Lark, one of the researcher working on this project. He studies and constructs physical representations of architectural details of varying sizes and materials, then apply shape grammar rules for new geometry generation. His strategy is to use the software CATIA, a parametric modeling CAD program, used to design the complex geometry. The shapes are then fabricated through various media: 3D rapid prototyping, 2D rapid prototyping with 3D assembly, and full manual construction. Comparisons are then made between the automated and manual construction.

    Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure


  • 15MayA stackable electric city vehicle

    If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed to receive the latest Architectradure’s articles in your reader or via email. Thanks for visiting!

    I had previously posted on cars that fly, swim or shrink. I mainly referred to the retractable scooter that Bill Mitchell showed us at the Media Lab Open House’08. It is an impressive piece of gear that I cannot wait to get!

    cars.jpg

    However the city car is pretty neat as well …

    City car

    The City Car is designed by the smart cities group at MIT Media lab directed by Prof. Mitchell. The project is created by Ryan Chin, Wayne Higgins, Mitchell Joachim, Will Lark, Raul-David “Retro” Poblano, Peter Schmitt, Andres Sevtsuk and Franco Vairani at MIT.

    The City Car is the coolest idea: a stackable electric city vehicle for use in dense urban areas! Vehicle Stacks will be placed throughout the city to create an urban transportation network that takes advantage of existing infrastructure such as subway and bus lines. By placing stacks in urban spaces and key points of convergence, the vehicle allows the citizens the flexibility to combine mass transit effectively with individualized mobility. The stack receives incoming vehicles and electrically charges them. Similar to luggage carts at the airport, users simply take the first fully charged vehicle at the front of the stack. The City car is NOT a replacement for personal vehicles, taxis, buses, or trucks; it is a NEW vehicle type that promotes a socially responsible and more effective means of urban mobility!

    I looked at the process and strategy used by Will Lark, one of the researcher working on this project. He studies and constructs physical representations of architectural details of varying sizes and materials, then apply shape grammar rules for new geometry generation. His strategy is to use the software CATIA, a parametric modeling CAD program, used to design the complex geometry. The shapes are then fabricated through various media: 3D rapid prototyping, 2D rapid prototyping with 3D assembly, and full manual construction. Comparisons are then made between the automated and manual construction.

    Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure


  • 16MayLiving in a robot

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    5_reboot_interior_victor_vetterlein.jpg

    1_reboot_site_victor_vetterlein.jpg



    Victor Vetterlein
    ’s Reboot is a self-sufficient and eco-friendly house. The building is constructed with a space frame, and the outer skin increases structural strength through double curvature. The skin system consists of a vapor barrier, dense foam insulation, and metal sheathing where the exterior face is glazed in solar cell paint. The surface of the building serves as a solar energy collector.

    House

    Supplemental electricity is provided by on-site wind turbines and energy is stored in batteries on Deck 1. Wind power is also used to pressurize a large canister to operate the hydraulic elevator and the water treatment system. The smooth outer skin of the building acts as a foil against adverse weather conditions, and the rooftop serves as a water collection surface where rainwater runs into a drain located above the resin laminated glass windows. The water is stored in holding tanks positioned below the Main Deck and managed by an in-house water treatment system on Deck 2. Natural ventilation is provided by operable vents located at the top and the bottom of the structure. Lastly, the building’s mechanical systems are stacked on two floors above the Ground level eliminating the need for massive ground penetrations and a large site footprint.

    See also his robotic furniture design!

    Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure