The joints were designed to take advantage of the 3d printer’s ability to create small, yet detailed 3-dimensional objects. Each joint has multiple holes to allow rods to fit in 8 different directions.  The dynamic movement of the structure resembles that of a curtain. The structure can take several forms by sliding the joints through the rods: the looping (side) rods slide along a central rod arc. The transition exposed in the photo overlays is between two basic positions: one where the side rods are lying flat on the board and one where they form a full scale volume following the arc.

We created joints of 3 different sizes. Each of the two largest joints connects half of the side rods, so that they are able to rotate from a common point, whilst the smaller joints fix the ends of the rods, allowing linear movement along the arc that passes through the central joint channel.

Printing on the z-corp machine (composite powder) limited the joint’s strength, so further experimentation on possible forms was challenging due to the joints breaking, but nonetheless, we discovered the component’s tension thresholds and exploited its capabilities.

GROUP 02
Karl Francalanza
Dimitrios Aidonis
Tobias Grumstrup Lund Øhrstrøm

Moving rods – movie

Rods are still

Structure in full shape

Joints on the structure

The printed joints

The final dimensions of the scratch joint were determined by the material’s flexibility as well as the joint’s arm length.  The 3mm wood gave us optimal flexibility to bend pieces and form connections adding strength through tension and compression.  The scratch tower went through many iterations: first, we looked at the geometry of a spiral. Creating a spiral configuration would provide us with maximum strength, but left us with less opportunities to play with the system.  Secondly, we combined a spiral base with an organic flow that formed an unstable tower.  Final build experiments taught us that we could achieve a more stable structure as long as we had a strong base, this allowed us to grow our tower from a ridged base and explore the possibilities of natural form using one component as well as experiment with the tower’s maximum height.

Start from Scratch!