As the purpose of the exercise was to create tile pieces to cover the school’s patio floor, we decide to create an image concept to represent what we think is the essence of the school and the advance architecture at Iaac: The students.

That’s why we decide to create “Topography Faces”, a trilateral symmetry design that represent thinkers of the new architecture.

With 3 diferentes face designs in 3 different corners of the tile, the design becomes a complex pattern formed by the rotation of the title to match with the next face and finally forming a topographical surface for water flow.

Rollercoaster Configuration

The idea of Rollercoaster was to achieve two configurations by sliding and locking into position the joints fabricated in the 3D printer. Four joints were created by twisting a pipe which would be joined with itself to create different angles of sliding as well as different amounts of cables running through. This joints would then be coupled with each other by a female-male joint that, aided by the tension of the wire, would lock in place. The different configurations would be achieved by clipping different joints together and sliding the wires to change the inflection point.

Several problems came evident once the joints were printed. First was that the female-male clip lost its precision when printed so it didn’t hold and second, the size of the joint was too small  and the wire wasn’t able to bend so sharply. Given the setback, we turned the sliding joints into clipping joints which still allowed us to change the direction of the cable by segmenting it. This demonstrated the versatility of the joint by changing its function and its ability to create different shapes by using the variety of angles in it.

The shapes then were created by changing the insertion point in the board (maintaining the same holes for both configurations) and by joining the cables in different nodes in the joints.

Tetra joint zoom in

Tripple joint zoom in

Double joint zoom in.

Single slot join

This tower was conceived by the exploration on the material and it’s stress and bending capabilities. The design process started out by testing the best of wood’s properties; tension. A component was created to explore the strength and limits of bending and twisting and the possibilities of clipping and holding under tensile strength. Several prototypes were created until one final component which combined the best bending and stretching behavior with simple and versatile clipping joints.

This single piece is the morpheme from which the tower is built. It’s significance though comes when it is paired with another single piece. The legs are joined top and bottom with each other to become the building block. This joined state places both pieces in tension that locks them together and becomes a strong piece that withstands tension, compression, bending, and twisting.

Finally, once the components where all assembled, we started exploring the possibilities of connections and the resulting form. This process led us to several forms, from simple stacking to create a stout, solid tower, to vertical climbing by connecting ends and using the wood’s tensile strength to tighten the structure. The shape chosen is an ode to the material and the component and the infinite possibilities that the combination of both bring forth.

Group 4 : Chirana Sumendap, Karl Francalanza, Pablo Marcet