Is it possible to create shape with light? Can a hexagonal grid be disguised by casting light upon its tiles? This questions where the main drivers behind the Bermuda Tile concept. Creating a tile that at a simple glance would show little relief yet once was casted on it, a strong relief would be revealed and a completely different pattern would arise.

To achieve this with 7mm profiling was more difficult  than expected, since shadows are not as long and defined as desired. Given the case, the design set of to be done with simple, long lines that would cast long defined shadows, complimented by smaller, less defined sub-shadows. The triangle was selected as the primitive for both hard and soft shadows. By drawing 3 concentric triangles (out of three opposite vertices) and then displacing them and tilting them with different rotation angles. Afterwards, the resulting surfaces between them and with the borders where further triangulated  to create the softer shadows. This smaller triangles got the needed tilt by the joining of its vertices with the main triangles and boundaries.

Finally, the tile was run through Rhino Cam using two 12mm pens carving out the main geometry and then doing a parallel finishing for the details to come out. The milling, mold, and casting procedures followed and finally polishing the pieces for further detail exposure.

Rhino Cam Simulation

3D Model

The main idea for our joint is to create a tower and manipulate its form in real time in order to achieve several different structures. It is formed by 4 rods in the middle which are the sustain of the tower and allow it to move up and down; then, other 6 on the outside, works as a all to create a structural “skin” or “facade”.

The joint is formed by three parts: The first one is the core which slide up and down using as a path the 4 rods in the middle. Then, because we wanted to have a 360 degrees organic movement of the outer rods, we created two components to allowed us the movement in the XY axis and in the YZ axis, like an increasing and decreasing living tower.

The joint is formed by 13 pieces; the central piece, which is the most important, is the one that allows us to assemble all the elements; then, there are 6 “U” pieces than provides the horizontal movement, that means in the XY axis. Finally, there are 6 “arms” or “legs” pieces that works in vertical movement, the YZ axis; all this configuration provides a movement of expansion and contraction to the entire structure.

The concept for this tower arose from the vertical aggregation of identical pyramidal components at decreasing scales. The component itself was developed through the distortion of simple geometries to find opportunities for self-replication without the use of additional components. The slight distortion of the resulting pyramidal form creates multi-planar vertices that can be utilized for vertical expansion. A simple stacking method generated a tall tower and presented an intriguing combination of height and density.

In an attempt to uncover further potential within the component, we re-examined the geometry and derived an alternative ‘sister’ method for stacking the pyramids which increased the suspension between the components to achieve greater height while using precise notching on the triangles to create connections of greater strength against laterally applied forces. The resulting product is a combination of digital processing and precision hand modeling, and has a playful twisting profile due to the duality of systematically generated connections and empirically derived custom connections.

Joshua Ranjit Pio John   //   Miguel Angel Juarez Diazbarriga   //   Robert Douglas McKaye