duygu kirisoglu // jesus zabala

The main idea is based on the usage of both sides of the bench. To do so, the bench has been divided into two in the middle. The form of the bench is generated mainly with plug-in called t-splines which allows to manipulate the surfaces smoother. In order to do that all the surfaces are converted to t-spline surfaces. Commands in t-splines such as manipulator, grip selection, smooth toogle etc are applied on the object. After the design is completed all surfaces are converted to rhino polysurfaces in order to make the ribs of the waffle structure. Contour command is applied in both x and y axis with different distances. Thereafter,  to have the notches on the intersection of the ribs’ surfaces, a grasshopper skript is used. Finally Project cplane command is applied on the surfaces to get all the pieces on the same level to print in lazer cutter.

Assignment 2: Laser cutter

By Carolina Aguirre and Carolina Miro

In addition to the challenge of 3D visualization introduced by the first assignment, this second assignment required the skill of decomposing a 3D design into 2D elements.  Furthermore, it was important to note that not only would our designs comply with certain boundary conditions, but also that the various designs were to be placed in continuation of each other, forming a fluid whole.

Starting out, control points were added to the provided element template in order for it to assume our unique design. As it was a polysurface, the command ‘cage edit’ in rhino provided us with a bounding box, which allowed us to manipulate the shape of the seating element. Many designs followed from the experimentation with the shape. However, our final design was chosen based on the criteria set both by the machinery to be used for the fabrication process, as well as the design purpose of creating a whole with the designs of other groups. The result was a dynamic, smooth element, providing a very welcoming, broad seating surface. The fluidity of the piece provided excellent prospects for successful fabrication as also its integration with the other designs.

After the 3D shape of the element was designed it was modified to be produced using the laser-cutting machine. The surface of the design was offset and contours created in both the x and y directions. Intersecting surfaces were made from these contours. Each intersection was modified by placing columns in the panels of each direction, which were placed and modified to create voids in the elements. This was done in order to be able to mount the panels once cut by the laser cutter. The intersection slots were made to be 2.8mm wide, creating a snug fit for the mounted panels. Lastly, the various pieces needed to be separated and projected, side by side, onto a cplane which had the same dimensions as the wooden panel to be placed in the laser cutter.

Once the 3D design had been translated into a 2D waffle structure, its file was exported to the laser cutter. A 3mm thick wooden plank was cut into the various waffle pieces. The cutting process was closely monitored in order to comply with the necessary safety precautions, such as ensuring that the cut pieces didn’t obstruct the machine while it was still in progress and of course to control a possible fire. After the pieces were cut successfully and without any incidences, these were assembled to produce the final product.

DESIGNERS’ CRITIC

Despite the bench was modeled with a sitting skeleton superimpose to have an idea of the human body proportion related to the bench, we don’t have the certainty that the curves correspond to the human ergonomics. The images with the human scales using the bench only shows the idea of how it could be used. We could have investigated more on the proper curvatures that the bench needed, or we could have played more with the modeling of the object but because of the early deadline we didn’t have the chance to do it. Despite, the idea and the general form is quite good, and the dense amount of ribs we gave to the bench emphasis the smoothness and simplicity of the object.

Group: Liliana Viveros Diaz- Maria Margariti

The aim of this assignment was to design a bench that would constitute part of a collaborative furniture project and construct a model of 1:2 scale using the waffle structure and a Laser Cut machine. The bench should be designed by transforming a given model in Rhino within a bounding box of 500mm x 500mm x 350mm but keeping the end sections untouched in order to connect with the different benches.

Designing the bench model

As a first step in the design of the bench we exploded the initial model in order to separate the top surface and transform it. In order to do that we rebuilt the surface by putting 10 point counts to both U and V and keeping in mind that this surface is not only going to be the sitting surface of the bench, and therefore it should be comfortable, but also that it should fulfill our aesthetic criteria we activated the control points of the surface and started to move them at will.

We begun by hollowing the arched initial surface so that to create two pits that will consist the main sitting areas (more accurately, one sitting area for two persons), but keeping the back of the bench so that it is more comfortable. Then we moved vertically the control points of the back of the left side of the bench until the borders of the bounding box and we repeated the process horizontally by extruding the right part of the bench until the bounding box and at the same time hollowing the left, so that in one hand it would amplify the waving form and on the other hand it will enlarge the right sitting area and turn it towards the other. Afterwards, with the command Surface, Extrude curve, Along curve, we closed the shape, and by typing Boolean2objects we union the different surfaces. The final result acquired a biomorphic form that serves as a hug, as a nest for the users.

The waffle structure

After completing the form of the bench we started the procedure of the waffle structure system. We used the contour command in both X and Y axis in order to produce sections on the form every 50mm. Then, with the extrude curve command we extruded 50mm the curves of the y axis and due to the fact that the curves on the x axis form loops we used the command offset to offset them also 50mm and we created the surface by typing PlanarSrf.

Afterwards, we selected the ribs from both directions and using Curve Curve from object, Intersection, we intersected them. On each of the intersection curves we created pipes of 2.8mm thickness, we moved them vertically from the end point to the midpoint and then we copied them from the top end to the bottom and putted them in a different layer. Therefore we were able to intersect the different pipes from the according axis of ribs and delete the small part of the intersection by using the split command on each rib and the curve that was created by the intersection. With that procedure we completed the design of the ribs of the waffle structure.

In order to prepare the parts for the Laser cut machine (we used the Epilog Laser cut machine of the Fab Lab Bcn at IaaC) we unrolled each rib, we duplicated their borders and we fitted them in rectangulars of 450mm x 900mm that represent the plywood material of 3mm that we were going to use for the laser cutter.

After cutting each piece we assembled them with the help of the numbers that we engraved on them and we constructed the model of the bench.

The final model