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.

The milling process has been evaluated with three different ballmills: a 12 mm diameter one to remove material, a 6 mm one diameter to mill the designed shape and a 3 mm ballmill to finish the outputs.

Once the mold was finished we applied 4 coats  of sealer and let it dry. Then we applied a layer of vaseline so that the cement did not stick into the mold. Next step was to pour a mixture of cement, water and additives. The mixture dried for 8 hours. After taking the piece out of the mold, the surface has been cleaned out of the vaseline and the oil has been applied to uniform the finishing.

To be continued… (once we have more tiles) 

The Lotus Flower it’s a kinetic and dynamic structure.

The goal of the exercise was to producing 3d printed pieces and explore the design opportunities arising from the potential and limitations of the technology to create a dynamic assembly with 2mm diameter rods linked together by 3d printed pieces.

Our idea was to design just one joint. This joint should had the capabilities of generate through the connections between themselves and with the help of the elastic nature of the tubes in order to form two geometrical moments, one that’s goes up and another one than goes to the sides.

The dynamic nature of the joint allows a level of movement between the rods themselves in a translation system by moving the rods in to a circle to move within itself and transfigure into a bigger or smaller structure.

Digital Fabrication – Exercise 3D Printing

Group 22: Gökhan Çatıkkaş, Juhi Patel, Sebastian Alvarado

The project consists of simple joints and their response to the stored energy inside the rods. Playful. The rods stay in form with the already stored energy and if you touch and release the energy it “explodes”.

The explosion does not make the installation irregular, but it makes it back to its ordinary geometric form. This explosion does not mean destruction and irregularity, it brings silence and order to the geometry.

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 idea was to create a structure that was deploy-able by unfolding and at the same time to imitate the flowers that open and close with the sun (nyctinasty).

This was done by using a ring at the base along which the joints slide to help close the open structure.

Two joints were used to create the structure above. The first kind of joint helps move the rods along the ring.  The second joint was to ensure two rods  in place to provide the pattern required. These joints were not fixed to allow different patterns along the two rods if needed. The curvatures of the rods help keep these joints in any required position.

The simple mechanism used allows the curved rods to move along the rings not only providing two, but numerous possibilities of creating openings along various points of the ring.

The structure can be assembled and disassembled easily depending on the size of the base ring required. It could could also be developed to form the framing of a structure used for shelter. This could either be temporary or permanent.

The basic concept behind the whole design was to have dynamism in a vertical design by using one single element, and the possibility of this element to either move in the vertical axis so as to either merge the vertical rods inwards or expand them outwards or rotate the element in horizontal axis creating a spire effect in the vertical rods.

The Structure consists of two basic joints 3-D printed. One of which is a spherical egg shaped joint which is made by joining two hemispherical pieces together. The hemispherical pieces have ten holes in each piece which allow the vertical rods to go through making it possible to move this joint in the vertical axis, both the hemispherical joints get locked into each other providing the rotational flexibility in the horizontal axis.

There are five more identical joints which tie two vertical rods together under the spherical joint, the main function of these joints is to make the joints rigid or flexible near the base, which can be done by moving these pieces in the vertical axis. The closer they are to the base, greater rigidity the vertical rods have in the base, as you move these pieces farther away from the base, the vertical rods become more flexible near the base. this causes the vertical robs to either concave in or convex out near the base.

We were able to achieve a composition which is vertical in nature, but which can be able to change its geometry ( Straight vertical members or Spiral), height and radius.

Stage 1 & 2

GroupTEN approached brief of the 3D printing excersize with a vision to create a kinetic, 3-Dimensional form, exploiting all of the properties of the given materials. This was no doubt the approach taken by all other groups. So what made us different?

We did not look at creating a structure, or a string of points. We instead looked at creating a malleable surface. A moving geometry which would flow and adapt based on the applied forces.
Post Research & Design stage, we moved into understanding the techniques involved in 3D printing. A Rhino file was simple enough to draw, with numerous joints developed – each designed to test minimum tolerances of the printing material, both in terms of breaking and connecting to the plastic rods.

Sadly time ran short for our project, and our test pieces were not able to be printed.

Alas, we were able to print our pieces and explored the various assembly approaches available to us. Having a very simple and adaptable piece of geometry repeated many times allowed us to experiment with the form until we were happy.

This experimentation began with a single spine, from which all rods would meet at a perpendicular angle, and spin around. This created a form which was random and chaotic. Although the printed pieces were designed to limit the movement of each one next to it to 10°, the tolerance of the machine rendered this feature useless.

To overcome this problem, we decided to create the desired flowing surface by stringing the rods between two spines. This was successful, and provided us with a malleable, flowing surface, whose stiffness maintained its shape and form, but small movement through multiple pieces had the residual of a graceful form.

Connecting to the board was initially intended to be the standard “screw a hole” technique, employed by many. However, after exhausting our supplies of plastic rods, we decided to use our few remaining joints to create the connection to the board. Yes, it does use glue.

The flexible, malleable, adaptable surface  was created by something never designed to act as a surface. The possibility of 3D printing has allowed us to join the given material – plastic rods – into a graceful sculpture.

Derived from a hyperboloid of 1 sheet, the Hyperblob is a free standing structure made up of 25 2mm fiberglass rods, 33mm long, through two 3D printed rings, 150 mm in diameter. Hyperboloids can be found in architecture and are based on the concept of a ruled surface: through every point on the surface lies a straight line. Hyperblob is an exploration of curvature through the use of straight lines. The structure has a variety of movements, in all of the cartesian coordinates, due to the 3D printed joints.

The Digital Fabrication world has introduced the magic of 3D printing to a variety of audiences. As students, designers, and thinkers it was our task to explore this new technology and create a joint was only possible using this process. Using this criteria we produced a repetative joint that comprised of openings, angled at 20 degrees, as well as a bi-axial interlocking connection mechanism. Constrained by a bounding box of 50x50x100 mm, we printed 26 individual joints that when combined form two seperate rings.  The Hyperblob comes to life when rods pass through each ring allowing the structure to stand, move, and deform depending on the users manipulation.

 Hand In Hand, Tower

“The process began with a Spiral as our inspiration. We wanted to explore the potential of the material to its maximum threshold; hence the Spiral was the best fit for our endeavor.

 Working with this geometry helped us discover various complex issues and challenges at every step of construction. The unique module evolved, has been used in different sizes with variations in engravings.

Series of tests were carried out using different spacing between engravings on strips of wood along with soaking them in water. With the said experimentation, we were able to bend the wood significantly more than expected.  The various permutations and combinations of the modules enabled the unique twisting and interlocking between the modules. The final installation is a dynamic structure put together piece by piece, almost in a poetic way, where the form was evolved purely by the properties of the module rather than following a preconceived idea of the form.”