http://arandalasch.com/works/night-drawing/

Concrete Casting Project

"materialAgencies employs mass production in order to explore how assembly may be utilised as a generative design process. 600 identical elements connect to one another with no rigid joints in any axis of connection. The project argues for designed materiality to be conceived of as an organisational exercise - where materiality emerges from the organisation of smaller scale parts. In materialAgencies, relatively simple elements cooperate to produce a supple textile-like surface from heavy precast concrete elements. The goal was not to produce an optimal structure, but rather to explore a variation in material properties that are able to be part self-supporting and part draped - embodying a material excess as affect. The variation of these properties is derived from the organisational relations of the parts alone. The supple assemblage has no inherent structural abilities yet formal and structural order arises from within the organisational relations of its parts and their connections. The installation may be understood as a tectonic experiment in hybridising cable-net suspension with post-tension compression along with the fashion concept of drapery. The project was developed through computational simulations and numerous scaled physical model prototypes of the assemblage and the geometry of the parts. The generative capacity of the assemblage was intrinsically related to the geometry of the part. The part was therefore designed for its capabilities in producing affects and behaviours within the assemblage. Material Agencies suggests how complicated surfaces may be built from generic, economical assemblies, challenging the often wasteful and expensive reliance on complex formwork within the building industry."

Website: Kokkugia

Bone - Surface Hybrid Trial 1

First Installation in a series of attempts to begin to tackle the challenge of hybrid surface/structure

module. The component provides a planar-surface condition but will also achieve rigidity in ideal locations to carry out a load transfer from one component to another. This component takes a triangular geometry using an equilateral triangle thus acting in a 120 degree relationship with each side. Due to the flexibility with casting aluminum the piece leverages on both the versatility and structural performance that a double curvature surface can provide.

A first and amateurish pass at component aggregation ideas that would potentially be made of aluminum casting.

 Idea one speaks about having a genealogy of forms where each form is unique but they all belong to the same family. This system provides intriguing results however, it is not as efficient for a fabrication.

Idea two speaks about having an identical component that gets reproduced repeatedly. This system is the most efficient in terms of material costs and fabrication time because we would potentially only need one mold. This system however when aggregated will produce a much more repetitious and perhaps banal condition. 

I think that we need to find a balance between these two (this is the ideal vision, more likely we have one characteristic that is more prominent but, both should be present in the work) in which we can achieve an intriguing aggregation, that provides for a high degree of flexibility but at the same time is not inefficient in terms of amount of necessary molds, time to create, and cost. 

Idea one: inspired by the human spine, tower idea

Idea two: field Aggregation, inspired by the number three. Three connections (two output, one input), all faces have three sides. Some sort of complex joint system that could provide for a degree of flexibility but also a degree of accuracy within the socket that receives an incoming component. 

A robot hand w/ a delicate touch. Based on vacuum suction of granules (sand?).

On Projection in Architecture

Here is a great (but dense) excerpt I found in a book called Architectural Representation and the Perspective Hinge:

“Projective drawing need not be a reductive device, a tool of prosaic substitution.  Projection evokes temporality and boundaries.  Defining the space between light and darkness, between the Beginning and the Beyond, it illuminates the space of culture, of our individual and collective existence.  Closer to the origins of our philosophical history, projection was identified with the space of representation, the site of ontological continuity between universal ideas and specific things.  The labyrinth , that primordial image of architectural endeavor, is a projection linking time and place.  Representing architectural space as the time of an event, the disclosure of order between birth and death, in the unpredictable temporality of human life itself, projecting is literally the hyphen between idea and experience that is the place of culture, the Platonic chora.  Like music, realized in time from a more or less ‘open’ notation and inscribed as an act of divination for a potential order,  architecture is itself a projection of architectural ideas, horizontal footprints and vertical effigies, disclosing a symbolic order in time, through rituals and programs.  The architect’s task, beyond the transformation of the world into a comfortable or pragmatic shelter, is the making of a physical, formal order that reflects the depth of our human condition, analogous in vision to the interiority communicated by speech and poetry and to the immeasureable harmony conveyed by music.”

Alberto Perez-Gomez and Louise Pelletier; Architectural Representation and the Perpective Hinge; 6-7

I think this is a great summary of why projection is important in architecture, and why it is a fascinating subject for our thesis.  It might take multiple read-throughs to grasp its significance--I've already gone through it 3 times myself--but I think it's a great addition to our current conceptual foundation.

"The objective was to 'materialize' tension in a sense, to make the notions of weight, distance and angle palpable..."

Sculpture Title : 35 Degrees
Artist: Fabrice Le Nezet
website: http://www.fabricelenezet.com/