Chameleon Tile

Сlick to see the process!

Our inspiration is simple, since we are in the city of Gaudi, we chose one famous work of Gaudi in Parc Guell : the Chameleon.
And because of the shape of the tile we are going to make is in hexagon,
we tried to achieve a design that comprised of continuous lines and shape, for the tile to be able to rotate to connect with another around.

The design process started with mirroring, rotating, and tracing the above picture to create a circle-like, head to tail, chameleons badge.
Then we used a plug-in called “pointreconstruction” in Rhino to give the triangular texture throughout the design.
The plug-in easily grasped the corners and edge of the Chameleon and create “Delaunay” out of it.
(The process of altering the height of each vertices is very manual and we hope we had more time to study the easier way of doing this)
Anyways, we finished off the design by connecting those water channels in the mold with our branches behind our stars.

The RhinoCam process finally finished .
Then came the job of the milling machine. The mold was done with foam block and consumed about half and hour time each.
We brushed the inside of the mold with thin layer of vaseline. Mixed the concrete. Poured it into the mold.
Shake. Get rid of the bubbles.
Waited for 8 hours to dry (very depending on the temperature and the weather)
Gently twisted the mold and the tile came off easily.
All these processes were very time consuming and we need to work well as a team.
The milling machine also needs a very precise and correct type of strategy.
We also learnt that the concrete work is not easy.
It turned out to be a very delicate work compare to the work on computer.

“Kinetic Red Boots”

Group 7

The main idea of our design was to create a static structure that could be converted into a kinetic structure exploiting the properties of the material tension and bending. Based on a single figure and repeating it twice, the goal was to create a sense of depth from the horizontal. We made the design of three different nodes or joints that would allow us our idealized objectives:

1) The cross- its main feature would be  join two elements in counterclockwise and prevent the buckling of these elements due to bending that would occur by elements located in the top.

2 ) The inverted K- the most important and central Union of the structure, which would be in contact with most of the bars , enabling the desired deflection at the main arch and in turn become a free joint along arc , allowing the structure due to the tension of one side to the other , moving from left to right , opposite directions.

3) The sucker – Due of its four arms this binding would give rigidity to the structure and in turn the union of the three individual structures, holding the rods and causing the tension and compression in these once started moving in both directions .

Our main idea is to explore the potentiality and limitations that the material could achieve, through theoretical study and various practical tests.

We enclose our research in 5 key points that have helped us to work with a scientific method through this research:
1. FLEXURE – TORSION
2. HEIGHT
3. TAPERING
4. STRIPES
5. ZIPPER
We decided to follow the angle connection (zip tensile forces) after searching and tried different types of joints and cuts in order to obtain different movements and stiffness.
Using 3D models we designed the general form of our tower, trying to push it to the maximum limit towards the research of materiality through the form.
After creating different models, we chose the best one that could answer to our research; we proceeded to the drawing of the flat surfaces and the design of the differents base and height connections.