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.

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

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

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.

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.