Brief of the exercise:
The exercise was to design a famous Panot hexagonal cement floor tile as designed by Gaudi in 1904.One of the particularity of this design was supposed to be the capacity to be inserted within a larger assembly and to create continuous patterns across several tiles.
The idea of our system was to create a repetitive movement for semi-spheral modules that are tuning 360 degrees around x axes. Each sphere consists of 4 fiberglass ropes that act like an engine for the neighborhood module, the structure is put into motion only by moving 1 element.
Due to repetive parts the structure has possibility of endless connection and continious movement.
First Digital Fabrication Exercise is concluded. The school’s courtyard is now hosting the final towers made by laser cutting. Our final result is a free-standing structure that looks back at the building rationality and simplicity to reach the top. The structure has been first thought as an assembly of X shaped pieces. These pieces has been then optimized removing material and allowing in this way the soft bending. Some extra pieces drive the bending pathway creating a solid assembly, while others are arranged as crosses to avoid the horizontal movements. The overall composition looks thin and light as it was preferred to concentrate the material along the height only where necessary in order to get higher.
