MAA Students: Diego Lopez Ibarra (Mexico), Gamze Gunduz (Turkey), Viraat Kumar (India)
Studio Instructor: Marta Malé-Alemany
Studio Assistant:Brian Peters
Technical Expert: Victor Viña
Project Summary:
Kry(n)stallation is a construction process that mixes two wasted phenomenons found in nature in order to model and rigidify inhabitable temporary spaces of low cost and reusable materials. Floatation and crystallization.
It’s geometrical shaper method takes advantage of the force of floatation on lineal soft elements (like threads or ropes) in order to lift some parts and sink other ones, achieving a desired form. These spaces are dictated by the position of the threads on a base and the placing of some punctual items that improve or reduce the buoyancy effect on the thread, such floats and weights.
The second natural process is the stiffening of those threads and it happens thanks to the particles of floating crystals in the solution, triggering the growth of crystals on the submerged group of threads under a supersaturated solution. Crystals would cover each thread in a specific period of time, merging the crystals layer of one thread to the closest layer, creating a single crystal “stone”.
This supersaturated solution can be produced under controlled conditions (like borax or sugar) or can be simply find on site in the Dead Sea owning to the fact it’s waters contains a particular amount of salt that crystallizes
Before the submersion of the threads a pre-treatment of them is done, a half automated, half manual.
The computerized part prints an “instructive” on the thread itself and on the base where it will be placed. This information is generated on a computer and is communicated by a kit of portable devices described next.
A machine colors with dots where the floats, weights and connections to other threads should be placed on the thread. A fourth color indicates the initial and final edges of the thread that should be connected to the frame or to other thread. These edges are labeled by a small label printer, that relates the threads to a frame printed on a continuous paper printer and pasted on a solid surface (like wood).
The dipping technique of the group of threads would depend of the supersaturated solution (a manufactured tank, a site filled with the solution or the Dead Sea) and will result, after the crystallization, in a temporary resistant structure. The material can be reused after the melting, even the crystals.