Projects
Zero/Fold Screen
Year: 2010
Size: 10′ x 10′ x 3′
Location: Kasian Gallery, University of Calgary, Canada
Description: Although digital fabrication has allowed architects and designers to explore more complex geometries, one of the byproducts has been a lack of attention to material waste. Often digitally fabricated projects are generated from a top-down logic with the parameters of typical material sheet sizes being subordinated to the end of the design process. This project attempts to reverse that logic by starting from the basic material dimensions and then generating a series of components that will minimize material waste during CNC cutting while still producing an undulating, light-filtering screen in the gallery.
Diploid Lamp Series
Year: 2009
Size: 36″ x 12″ x 12″
Description: The Diploid Lamp series explores multiple patterns inspired by nature such as scales, honeycombs, and barnacles. Using parametric modeling, scripting, and digital fabrication, the light’s geometry is created, refined, and produced. Each lamp is custom designed and hand assembled from digitally fabricated paper components. The series is composed of five individual lamps and is an ongoing project.
Horseshoe Cove
View South towards Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco
Siteplan
View of the waterfront park
Elevation
Competition Boards
Year: 2009
Location: Marin Headlands, California
Collaboration: David Fletcher of Fletcher Studio and Nenad Katic of nenadk.com
Description: For over 100 years, Horseshoe Cove has undergone massive spatial, programmatic, and ecological change. From its early years as grazing land to its long military use, the Cove has evolved to its current status as one of the Bay Area’s most significant cultural, educational, and recreational sites. However, the site has been developed in a piecemeal fashion that has resulted in the abandonment of the water’s edge. Although other sites such as the Cavallo Conference Center and the Bay Area Discovery Museum draw large groups of visitors, the water’s edge has remained in a state of neglect and disuse.
This proposal for the redevelopment and restoration of the water’s edge starts with the concept creating a dynamic, mixed-use site. The Cove is unique in its combination of recreational, military, and educational uses and the goal is to support and grow this programmatic diversity. This is accomplished through the construction of an interdigitated landscape between land and water. Like the fingers of two hands interlocked, the project stitches together the larger landscape into the San Francisco Bay. Land is pushed out into the water and water is pulled back into the land. Although the overall “horseshoe” shape of the cove is retained, a much more dynamic and diverse water’s edge is created. Understood biomimetically, the folding of the water’s edge increases its overall surface area and becomes a better filter between the land and water.
The folded joint between the land and water acts as the central circulation across the site. Its meandering geometry extends the promenade and connects it back with several important site features. The interior of each fold houses the primary functions of the site. From providing improved fishing piers to creating a bermed earth outside amphitheater, this project spine connects and redistributes the activities of the site. In addition to a warming hut containing restrooms and a waterfront café/restaurant, one of the new landscape piers houses a community event space that can be reserved by the public for things such as weddings, reunions, and other social gatherings. Finally, the inland landscape folds contain programs such as a National Park Service Visitor Center and Shop as well as a bike and boat rental/repair shop.
Beyond the programmatic diversity of the project, there is also a strong desire to integrate the ecological diversity of the site into the project. Several methods have been used to restore and enhance the ecological footprint of the project. Starting on western side of the site, the existing underground drainage system is daylighted, creating a new stream that would support flora and fauna as well as providing an opportunity for interpretive walks from the discovery center. This stream would exit into a newly constructed estuary on water’s edge. In the center of the site, a newly created wetland and bio-pool would process and store the graywater from the site while providing for educational and recreational opportunities. A contemporary interpretation of the famous early-20th century Sutro Baths across the bay, the bio-pool would quickly become a Bay Area icon of health, ecology, and recreation.
The project proposes two energy generation strategies through the use of wind and solar power. The Horseshoe Cove and Discovery Center parking lot will be covered with photovoltaic solar panels. Not only will these panels provide the project with energy, but they also provide shade for the cars below. Wind power is provided through a series of wind turbines sited near the historic Fort Baker bunker in a prime wind corridor. The turbines would be painted to match the Golden Gate Bridge as a reminder of the link between 20th and 21st century infrastructure of the Bay Area.
This plan for Horseshoe Cove recasts it as a place of life, energy, and education for the region. Providing much needed amenities for the thousands of annual visitors, the project stitches together land and water to create a new hybrid edge condition.
P_Wall(2009)
Year: 2009
Location: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Size: 45′ x 12′ x 1.5′
Description: P_Wall (2009) was commissioned by the SFMOMA Architecture and Design Curator Henry Urbach for the exhibition Sensate: Bodies and Design. The wall, part of a series started with P_Wall (2006), is an evolution of the earlier work exploring the self-organization of material under force. Using nylon fabric and wooden dowels as form-work, the weight of the liquid plaster slurry causes the fabric to sag, expand, and wrinkle.
From the exhibition text written by Henry Urbach:
Andrew Kudless’s P_Wall, commissioned by SFMOMA for this exhibition and its permanent collection, marks a radical reinvention of the gallery wall. Typically smooth, firm, regular and, by convention, “neutral,” the gallery wall has shed its secondary status to become a protagonist in the space it lines. Made of one hundred fifty cast plaster tiles — individually formed by pouring plaster over nylon stretched atop wooden dowels — the new wall possesses an unmistakable corporeal quality. Bulges and crevices; love handles and cleavage; folds, pockmarks, and creases: these are among the characteristics of human skin that come to the fore. Contemporary in its effort to capture dynamic forces in static form, P_Wall nonetheless has its origins in the experiments of earlier, 20th century architects including Antoní Gaudí and Miguel Fisác, both of whom investigated the potential of cast material to yield unique, sensual and, at times, bizarre shapes. P_Wall replaces the modern gallery wall with an unwieldy skin that can only approximate the fleshy enclosure that we, as human beings, inhabit throughout the course of our lives.
SFMoMA also produced a short video about the design and fabrication of the wall.
Credits: Andrew Kudless, Chad Carpenter, Dino Rossi, Dan Robb, Frances Lee, Dorothy Leigh Bell, Janiva Ellis, Ripon DeLeon, Ryan Chandler, Ben Golder, Colleen Paz
Weathering (P_Wall)
Seed in the studio
Year: 2009
Location: Not in a gallery
Description: The process of weathering is often intentionally resisted (if not completely forgotten) in most contemporary design. This is a legacy of Modernism and its fascination with minimal, timeless, and antiseptic materials. David Leatherbarrow and Mohsen Mostafavi have done an excellent job of mining this ground through architectural history in their book On Weathering (1993). They reveal in this book a long tradition in the design world of working with the act of weathering in a way that enhances the design concept over time. Rather than design in a way that presents the Sisyphean task of negating the influence of time on a project, they document other strategies architects have taken to accept that their buildings will have a life of their own after the drawing board.
This concept has been hovering in the background during the evolution of P_Wall (2006 / 2009) over the last 3 years. When people see the wall, they seem to have an inherent desire to touch it. The hint of softness, the evocative forms, the fabric textures all draw people in, seducing them to feel its rounded curves and deep creases. After each time it has been exhibited, a certain patina can be seen on the pieces: fingerprints here and there, scuffs from handling, etc.
This projects explores the potential weathering of P_Wall. Beyond the simple marks of humans in a gallery environment, the wall is located outside, open to the elements. The undulating forms would collect dust, pollen, soot over time. Moss would take root in the subtle groves of the fabric texture. Birds and other creatures would make the holes their homes.
This is not an exercise in Romanticism. The goal is not to produce a picturesque image of the wall. Rather, there is something about the wall that craves to be touched, to be made unclean, to be used, worn, soiled. Throughout the fabrication of the tiles, spiders would constantly be found making the holes their traps. A fine layer of soot, plaster and saw dust seemed to be constantly attached to the forms. This project accepts these intrusions on the “pure” form and makes them apart of the design. No more resistance, P_Wall accepts the life of the world and changes with it.
SFMoMA July Update
The wall for SFMoMA is done! Or at least my part is pretty much done. The great art movers from Atthowe started crating all of of the panels today and delivering them to the museum. Since the last update we’ve sealed all of the panels so they easier to clean and some of the minor surface discolorations are muted. But, the cast texture of the fabric formwork is still very visible as you can see in the photos.
The opening reception at SFMoMA is on the evening of Thursday, August 6 and the exhibition is open from the following day until November 8th. Here’s the press release from SFMoMA on the larger show: Sensate: Bodies and Design.
SFMoMA June Update
Panels drying in the studio.
Morning sun on the drying panels
The new hexagonal tile pattern.
A nice detail of the folding, twisting forms
Detail of a crease. Notice the surface texture left by the fabric form.
Matsys was commissioned by SFMoMA to produce a wall installation for the upcoming exhibition Sensate: Bodies and Design. After many months of research and prototyping, production on the final wall began in early May and is nearly complete. At the moment, all of the panels have been cast and we are just waiting for them to fully dry. Check back soon for more images of the final installation.
Sietch Nevada
Sectional perspective of underground city
View of the urban life among the water bank canals
Site plan
Plan, above ground (left) and below ground (right)
Site model
Detail of site model
Year: 2009
Location: 37°46’20.10″N, 117°31’57.38″W
Exhibition: Out of Water | innovative technologies in arid climates at the University of Toronto
Description: In Frank Herbert’s famous1965 novel Dune, he describes a planet that has undergone nearly complete desertification. Dune has been called the “first planetary ecology novel” and forecasts a dystopian world without water. The few remaining inhabitants have secluded themselves from their harsh environment in what could be called subterranean oasises. Far from idyllic, these havens, known as sietch, are essentially underground water storage banks. Water is wealth in this alternate reality. It is preciously conserved, rationed with strict authority, and secretly hidden and protected.
Although this science fiction novel sounded alien in 1965, the concept of a water-poor world is quickly becoming a reality, especially in the American Southwest. Lured by cheap land and the promise of endless water via the powerful Colorado River, millions have made this area their home. However, the Colorado River has been desiccated by both heavy agricultural use and global warming to the point that it now ends in an intermittent trickle in Baja California. Towns that once relied on the river for water have increasingly begun to create underground water banks for use in emergency drought conditions. However, as droughts are becoming more frequent and severe, these water banks will become more than simply emergency precautions.
Sietch Nevada projects waterbanking as the fundamental factor in future urban infrastructure in the American Southwest. Sietch Nevada is an urban prototype that makes the storage, use, and collection of water essential to the form and performance of urban life. Inverting the stereotypical Southwest urban patterns of dispersed programs open to the sky, the Sietch is a dense, underground community. A network of storage canals is covered with undulating residential and commercial structures. These canals connect the city with vast aquifers deep underground and provide transportation as well as agricultural irrigation. The caverns brim with dense, urban life: an underground Venice. Cellular in form, these structures constitute a new neighborhood typology that mediates between the subterranean urban network and the surface level activities of water harvesting, energy generation, and urban agriculture and aquaculture. However, the Sietch is also a bunker-like fortress preparing for the inevitable wars over water in the region.
Credit: Andrew Kudless (Design), Nenad Katic (Visualization), Tan Nguyen, Pia-Jacqlyn Malinis, Jafe Meltesen-Lee, Benjamin Barragan (Model)
Resonant Field
Overview of garden
Garden section
Day 001 of the garden installation: Mounds are hydroseeded
Day 365: The seed mounds have bloomed
Garden Plan
Construction Sequence
Year: 2008
Location: Jardins de Metis, Canada
Description: Resonant Field is a self-organizing incubator for local ecologies, and a super soil generator. The Field celebrates the life of the garden and it’s ecological context, seen and unseen, by appealing to all of the senses. It will evolve and change through time, providing a visceral panorama of experience. The Field embodies and celebrates the natural cycles of life and death, growth and decomposition.
The Field will be composed of the gardens pure constituent parts: soil, sand, manure, organic debris, etc. Each material constituent will be randomly piled in the allotted space, approximately 10m by 30m, varying in height from 1m to 3m. The field of material cones will then be hydro-seeded with a mix of native seeds, selected from the many ecologies that surround the site: woodland, meadow, grassland, and ripairian.
A sequence of varied compost core-areas will be established within the field of material piles, which will receive constant material generated by the Redford Garden campus and beyond. A gravel pathway system will connect the composting cores. Native species will become established, through a process of facilitated succession, and will express themselves according to the varied slopes and exposures of the Resonant Field. The field will become a generator of biomass and a seed bank. Fauna will feast on the nectar, seeds, and nuts which will be spread to revegetate the local ecologies with native species. Upon the projects completion, plant materials can be harvested and redistributed, and the entire garden will be mixed and piled to provide fertile substrate for future gardens and ecologies, extending it’s life in the form of future fruits and flowers.
Credits: Joint submission by Andrew Kudless (Matsys) and David Fletcher (Fletcher Studio)
S_Window
Year: 2008
Location: London
Description: Matsys was asked to submit quick sketch designs for temporary window installation in a London department store. Several windows were considered with potential designs for each. The design for the corner window explored self-organizing branching structures through the use of elastic cords and free nodes. The structure’s shape would be determined by the location of the upper and lower constraints and the self-organization of the individual members.
The side window builds off of the research in the R_Screen and Sky Rail projects. The bone-like wall opens and closes view into the store according to the direction of travel on the sidewalk.
Sky Rail
Final Prototype (Image by SUM Arch)
Final Design (Image by SUM Arch)
Site Diagram (Image by SUM Arch)
Process: Step 1: Select Guidelines
Process: Step 2: Mesh creation through script
Process: Step 3: Convert to Polysurface
Process: Step 4: Convert to Mesh and Weld Seams
Process: Step 5: Smooth Mesh
View inside the railing of the twisting holes
Prototype image showing the angled aperatures
Year: 2007-2008
Location: San Francisco
Description: Matsys was hired as a computational geometry consultant by SUM Arch on this residential project to help create tools to design a stair railing. Using a series of user-generated guidelines, the script builds a irregular cellular pattern of apertures on the railing. Based on a field of attractors, the apertures rotate in the plane of the railing causing the entire railing to open towards certain views as a person walks up or down the stair. Dozens of script iterations were explored before the final design was achieved.
Branching HyPar
At the event. Photo: Craig Scott
Video projections by Chris Larson
Branching points at balconies
Plan
Early renderings of design
Year: 2008
Location: Berkeley Art Museum
Description: From artists such as Naum Gabo to architects such as Antoni Gaudi, Felix Candela, and Frei Otto, the geometric entity known as a hyperbolic paraboloid has emerged as something that is both formally evocative and easily constructible. Although composed of only straight lines, the hyperbolic paraboloid traces a complexly curved surface. For this installation, the central space of the Berkeley Art Museum is tied together with a series of HyPar surfaces that emerge from the upper levels and then bifurcate at each balcony, framing a series of video projections.
The installation was created to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Matrix, the contemporary art department of the Berkeley Art Museum. Although it was only commissioned for a one-night party on April 25, 2008, the curators of the museum decided to keep it up for a few months. The installation consists of around 15,000′ of nylon rope, 4 steel frames, 4 laser-cut acrylic column braces (affectionately knowns as the “armadillos”), and 4 amazing videos created by Chris Lael Larson of Natural Lighting in Portland.
Design and Fabrication
Andrew Kudless of Matsys
Design Collaborators
Lisa Iwamoto and Craig Scott of IwamotoScott
Steel Fabrication
Joel Hirschfeld of Hirschfeld Fabrications
Motion Graphics Design
Chris Lael larson of Natural-Lighting.com
Engineering Consultation
Andrew Sparks
Installation Team
Michael Chang
John Kim
Thien Mac
Pia-Jacqlyn Malinis
Ashley Matsu
Natsuki Matsumoto
Plamena Milusheva
Azadeh Omidfar
Colleen Paz
Aaron Poritz
Eleanor Pries
SmartCloud
Physical prototype by Cook + Fox
Digital prototype: natural light
Digital prototype: artifical light
Digital prototype: night lighting
Labeling system for prototype
Ceiling plan of built prototype
Unrolled cells for laser-cutting
Early design prototypes
Early Design Prototypes: Scripts were created for each scenario for design team exploration and testing
Early Design Prototypes: Fabrication issues
Early Design Prototype: Fabrication diagram
Early Design Prototype: Plan of Scheme 5
Early Design Prototype: Section through Scheme 05
Year: 2007
Location: New York
Description: Matsys provided computational design consulting for Cook + Fox on this project. The project was sited in the lobby of a fashion designer’s studio in a Manhattan tower. The design team needed tools to help them model, visualize, and fabricate their design. Matsys created several rhinoscripts that could be used by the design team to iteratively explore their design concept.
R_Screen
Recursive Subdivision between 5 source lines
Year: 2007
Location: New York
Description: Over the last 5 years there have been a large number of projects dealing with the population of components on a surface. To a large extent, most follow a simple UV (distorted grid) across a curved surface. Even most projects that do not appear to use a rectangular grid (like my very own Honeycomb projects) are still tied to the UV grid. This short research project explored a tiling system that does not use a regular UV grid as the underlying framework for the component population. Instead, the system works with a series of user-generated frames and recursive sub-divisions within that frame. The user sets how many generations of recursion as well as the number of subdivisions at each generation of recursion. The result is a highly non-uniform cellular pattern that still allows easy component population.
The script was further developed for the Sky Rail project.
N_Table
N_Table at KSA
N_Table with C_Wall in background
Detail
On site
In use
Ronnie stacking the cells
Year: 2007
Location: Columbus, Ohio
Description: This table was designed for small video installation by Norah Zuniga Shaw. The table is made from roughly 200 individual folded paper cells. Using a variation of the rhino-qhull algorithm, each voronoi cell face is further triangulated to create a more rigid structure. The geometry of cells becomes increasingly irregular from bottom to top. The top of the table is covered with rear-projection fabric while the projection and audio equipment and computer are all contained at the bottom of the table.
Credits: Andrew Kudless and Ronnie Parsons
EOES
Image from performance. Photo: Joel Thorson
Photo: Joel Thorson
Photo: Joel Thorson
Photo: Joel Thorson
Photo: Joel Thorson
Photo: Joel Thorson
Tahni lifting. Photo: David Clark
Testing in Tahni's studio
Tahni checks the set out for the first time
Natural light in Tahni's studio
Chris testing strength of plastic
Chris inside
Welding the plastic
Lifting the half-size prototype
First view of the half-size prototype
Prototype of welded texture
Diagram of welded procedural texture
Diagram of folding and layering of multiple sheets of plastic
Original inspiration image
Full Title: Endless Ocean Endless Sky Set Design
Year: 2007
Location: Portland, OR
Description: This project was commissioned by emerging choreographer Tahni Holt for her performance Endless Ocean Endless Sky. The set was designed in response to several design criteria relating to both the evocation of the choreographic aesthetic and the limits of financial and logistical constraints. From the very beginning of the design phase, we were interested in creating a minimal set that could be built and transported easily that was also able to create an evocative and mutable space for both the performers and audience. Relying heavily on the work of Ant Farm and their inflatable constructions in the 1970’s, a small 20′x40′ space was made using standard polyethylene. Additional seams and creases were welded into the plastic in order to avoid the typical balloon aesthetic of inflatables. Rather, there was a desire for the installation to be able to evoke both things that were simultaneously heavy and light (massive icebergs floating in the sea, 747’s flying through the sky, etc.). A generative algorithm was developed that would allow a fragmented pattern of creases to emerge on the surface without having to laboriously transcribe a predefined pattern on to the surface.
A short video of the last half of the performance can be found here. Other videos of the piece: 1, 2, 3.
Credits: Andrew Kudless with help from Ronnie Parsons and Chris Walker.
Constellations
Constellation_04 (10,000 circles) with each separate network differentially colored
Constellation_06: Neighborhoods
Constellation_06: Circles
Constellation_06: Network lines
Constellation_02
Constellation_02 Detail: Circles
Constellation_02 Detail: Just network lines
Constallation_02 Detail: Circles
Year: 2006
Location: Columbus, Ohio
Description: Although I have been interested in circle-packing for a few years and did physical tests exploring it earlier projects (1, 2), I had never actually worked on any packing scripts until this spring. One of my students in my Processing Matter seminar at OSU was interested in it and that got me started on helping her write a circle-packing script. It was a lot easier than I expected, or at least my version of it was. Here’s a much more sophisticated version by David Rutten.
The pseudocode of the script works like this:
Input: maximum radius of circles, number of circles to pack, boundary condition
- Find a random point within the boundary
- If any circles already exist, test if the point is within any of their boundries
- If not, find the distance between the point and the closest circle
- If the distance is greated than the maximum radius add a circle at that point with the maximum radius. This creates a new “root”
- If the distance is less than the maximum radius, add a circle at that point with the measured distance. This creates a new circle that is tangent with the closest circle. Draw a line between the new point and the centerpoint of the closest circle.
- Repeat steps 2-6 until the desired number of circles are created.
Credits: Andrew Kudless and Laura Rushfeldt
Sykada Soundscape
Site for Sykada V1, the Banvard Gallery at OSU
Diagram for V1 site (by Ronnie Parsons)
Jitter Interface for Sykada V1
Jitter Interface for Sykada V1
Site for Sykada V2
V2 site diagram (by Ronnie Parsons)
Site diagram (by Ronnie Parsons)
Jitter Interface for V2
Jitter Interface for V2
Year: 2006
Location: v 1.0: Banvard Gallery, Knowlton School of Architecture, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
v 2.0: The Digital Exchange, Synthetic Environments Conference (ACADIA 2006), Louisville, Kentucky
Description: This project was originally conceived as an interactive audio environment for the Cell exhibition at OSU. Specifically, it was designed as a partner to the P_Wall (2006) wall installation. The goal of the project was to create an anxious atmosphere informed by the movement of the gallery visitors as well as the ambient sounds of the gallery. As the soft, sagging, undulating forms of P_Wall draw visitors into the space, Sykada begins to interact with visitor. A motion tracking system records the distance between the wall and the visitor and modifies a constantly updated audio feed from the space itself according to this distance. When the space is vacant, Sykada hums to itself, however human movement and sounds can cause it to enter a violent feedback cycle.
Credits: Andrew Kudless (concept), Ronnie Parsons and Brandon Zeeb (design, programming, and fabrication)
Audio Samples:
Note: V1 audio files are much louder, rougher, and violent than V2. These files are actual files recorded in the space. The site for V1 was a large concrete box and V2′s site was a small, metal shipping container. As the audio was based on the actual ambient recordings within the space, the space had a huge effect on the audio.
V1: Very Angry
V1: Calm
V2: Awake
V2: Awakening
V2: Dormant
C_Wall
View from outside the gallery door
C_Wall with shadows on floor
The zigzag plan of the wall creates an increased structural stiffness
Dense pattern of shadows
Process diagram
Year: 2006
Location: Banvard Gallery, Knowlton School of Architecture, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
Size: 12′ x 4′ x 8′
Description: This project is the latest development in an ongoing area of research into cellular aggregate structures that has examined honeycomb and voronoi geometries and their ability to produce interesting structural, thermal, and visual performances. The voronoi algorithm is used in a wide range of fields including satellite navigation, animal habitat mapping, and urban planning as it can easily adapt to local contingent conditions. Within our research, it is used as a tool to facilitate the translation and materialization of data from particle-simulations and other point-based data. Through this operation, points are transformed into volumetric cells which can be unfolded, CNC cut, and reassembled into larger aggregates.
Credits: Andrew Kudless and Ivan Vukcevich with Ryan Palider, Zak Snider, Austin Poe, Camie Vacha, Cassie Matthys, Christopher Friend, Nicholas Cesare, Anthony Rodriguez, Mark Wendell, Joel Burke, Brandon Hendrick, Chung-tzu Yeh, Doug Stechschultze, Gene Shevchenko, Kyu Chun, Nick Munoz, and Sabrina Sierawski, and Ronnie Parsons
P_Wall(2006)
Oblique View
Front Elevation
Side View
Transformation of image into constraint points through the use of custom rhinoscript
Year: 2006
Location: Banvard Gallery, Knowlton School of Architecture, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio
Size: 15′ x 9′ x 1′
Description: This project investigates the self-organization of two materials, plaster and elastic fabric, to produce evocative visual and acoustic effects. Inspired by the work of the Spanish architect Miguel Fisac and his experiments with flexible concrete formwork in the 1960-70s, p_wall attempts to continue this line of research and add to it the ability to generate larger and more differentiated patterns. Starting from an image, a cloud of points is generated based on the image’s grayscale values. These points are then used to mark the positions of dowels which constrain the elasticity in the fabric formwork. Plaster is then poured into the mould and the fabric expands under the weight of the plaster. The resultant plaster tile has a certain resonance with the body as it sags, expands, and stretches in its own relationship with gravity and structure. Assembled into a larger surface, a pattern emerges between the initial image’s grayscale tones and the shadows produced by the wall.
Team: Andrew Kudless and Ivan Vukcevich with Ryan Palider, Zak Snider, Austin Poe, Camie Vacha, Cassie Matthys, Christopher Friend, Nicholas Cesare, Anthony Rodriguez, Mark Wendell, Joel Burke, Brandon Hendrick, Chung-tzu Yeh, Doug Stechschultze, Gene Shevchenko, Kyu Chun, Nick Munoz, and Sabrina Sierawski, and Ronnie Parsons
Tulum Site Museum
Aerial view of museum with Tulum city and ocean in the background
Site location
Site Circulation
Strata
Surface Density
Site Plan
Floor Plan
Aggregate structures
Year: 2005
Location: Tulum Mayan Ruin, Mexico
Description: This competition entry for an archaeological museum outside a Mayan ruin on the Cancun peninsula continues our research into cellular aggregate structures.
Site Location
As an extremely important archeological site, the primary concern at Tulum is the minimization of human impact on the landscape and historical artifacts. This is achieved through the relocation of the museum site to align with the existing flow of movement. This location avoids clearing large areas of forest as well as places the museum between the existing entrance and exit to the ruins.
Program + Circulation
Through the relocation of the museum site, a series of parallel circulation routes are established in relation to the program. The zone closest to the city wall will remain as the main path to the city entrance. The next band out is the museum which is considered as an alternate path to the city. Visitors enter on one end and exit near the entrance to the ruins. The outer band of program contains the offices, toilets, and cafeteria.
Strata
A series of concrete strips are arranged perpendicular to the flow of circulation. These strata are the foundations for the museum above and as retaining walls on the sloped landscape. In addi¬tion they choreograph a spatial rhythm that is experienced as the visitor moves through the site. Visually, they appear as submerged walls, echoing the existing ruins on the site.
Surface Density
In between the strata a paving system is laid whose geometry is based on the density of movement on the landscape. Areas of high density and low density circulation are paved with a differenti¬ated pattern that allows for both small and large size tiles simultaneously.
Aggregate Structures
The museum walls and roofs are composed of a 3D voronoi tile system which explores the nature of aggregate structures through voids rather than mass. The structure relates directly to the stone aggregate walls of the Tulum site: the structure could be considered as the materialization of the voids between the individual stones. Thus, the museum structure refers to the existing tectonic yet renders it lightweight and airy. It is the invisible made visible.
Voronoi Morphologies
Prototype testing algorithm
Prototype detail
2.5D surface voronoi drawings
2.5D surface voronoi FDM model
2.5D surface voronoi FDM model
3D voronoi drawings
3D paper prototype
3D paper prototype detail
Plaster prototype
Plaster prototype
Year: 2005-2006
Location: Columbus, Ohio
Description: Voronoi Morphologies is the latest development in an ongoing area of research into cellular aggregate structures. The voronoi algorithm is used in a wide range of fields including satellite navigation, animal habitat mapping, and urban planning as it can easily adapt to local contingent conditions. Within our research, it is used as a tool to facilitate the translation and materialization of data from particle-simulations and other point-based data into volumetric form. Through this process, it becomes much easier to produce highly differentiated structures that are responsive to local performance criteria.
The project was developed though both 2D and 3D voronoi cellular structures. In both cases, a field of points is used to determine regions of space, or cells, that are closer to a certain point than any other point. As the cells are not constrained by a fixed geometric topology, the cells properties can be tuned in much more specific ways than a tradition rectangular or hexagonal cell arrangement. A custom-designed script was written to connect Rhino with Qhull which did the actual voronoi calculations. The script also digitally unfolds, labels, and prepares the geometry for CNC fabrication.
This technique was developed in collaboration with Jelle Feringa of EZCT Architecture and Design Research in Paris.
For more information about computing convex hulls, voronoi diagrams, and other triangulations, check out the qhull website. Qhull is used in Matlab and many other computational geometry applications.
Suture Chair
strong>Date: 2005
Description: An extension of the Honeycomb Morphologies/Manifold research project, the Suture Chair project uses a double-layer honeycomb system to provide both strength and flexibility to the chair. The shape of the chair itself is developed through multiple sources. The chair is designed to enable rocking and also multiple seating configurations. The outside boundary of the chair is in the shape of a suture curve, the same curve used to stitch tennis balls and baseballs together. This ring provides a boundary on which a mathematically defined minimal surface known as a Enneper surface spans. Through an iterative process whereby different variables were used within the equation, a design was established which had a desired maximum thickness at the edges and a minimum thickness at the center. Thus, where the honeycomb is the least dense, its cell depth is greatest. Likewise, the center of the chair has the highest density of honeycomb members and thus requires the least amount of structural depth in the cell.
Honeycomb Morphologies
Manifold Installation at the AA Projects Review 2004, Photo: Francis Ware
Variable transparency of the wall
Detail of Manifold
Floor detail of Manifold Installation
Manifold Installation
Manifold Installation rendering
Cut files for Manifold
Manifold Installation process
Honeycomb prototypes
Honeycomb Prototype detail
Honeycomb Prototype exploring cell depth and curvature parametric link
Plaster form-finding model
Plaster form-finding model
Date: 2004
Location: London, UK
Description: This research was pursued as part of a MA dissertation in Emergent Technologies and Design at the Architectural Association. The central aim of the research is the development of a material system with a high degree of integration between its design and performance. This integration is inherent to natural material systems for they have been developed through evolutionary means which intricately tie together the form, growth, and behavior of the organism. In industrial material systems, the level of integration is far lower resulting in wide and potentially problematic gaps between its means of production, its geometric and material definition, and its environmental performance. This research explores integration strategies for a particular industrially produced material system for use in architectural applications.
This research develops a honeycomb system that is able to adapt to diverse performance requirements through the modulation of the system’s inherent geometric and material parameters while remaining within the limits of available production technologies. The Honeycomb Morphologies Project is based on the desire to form an integrated and generative design strategy using a biomimetic approach to architectural design and fabrication.
The system developed in this research presents an open framework through which the designer can work, enabling a more integral relationship between the various conflicting and overlapping issues in the development of an architectural project. The research represents a tool, waiting to be actively used with specific project data and embedded in a built artifact.
The Manifold installation was a large scale prototype constructed for the AA 2004 Projects Review. The installation explored the research developed in the Honeycomb Morphologies Project and extended it to a more architectural scale.
Credits: Andrew Kudless with help from Jayendra Sha, Nikolaos Stathopoulos, Giorgos Kailis, Matthew Johnson, Ranidia Lemon, Muchuan Xu, Grace Li, Scott Cahill, and Wongpat Suetrong.