spatialconnections » structure

Curvaceious Wood Pavilion

admin — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 17:01:33 +0000

Part yoga pavilion, part outdoor classroom, the South Pond Pavilion at Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo is a stunning architectural statement located along the Zoo’s new Nature Boardwalk.

Designed by Chicago-based Studio Gang Architects, the prefab pavilion is part of a larger effort to rehabilitate the zoo’s dilapidated pond into a natural habitat and exhibit of pond life. The project also features a boardwalk made from recycled plastic milk bottles, and other educational components.

Studio Gang Architects’ design for the South Pond Pavilion was inspired by the tortoise shell. It features pre-fabricated wooden planks that have been interconnected and milled to form the curving structural members. The top of the pavilion is covered semi-transparent fiberglass pods, which let light filter in while still protecting those underneath. Yoga classes and other educational programs use the pavilion regularly.

The pavilion is part of a larger redevelopment of the pond at the Lincoln Park Zoo designed by Studio Gang. Their project largely consists of rehabilitating a dilapidated, 19th century urban park pond fed by city tap water into an exhibit on pond life. The depth of the pond was increased to improve oxygenation for aquatic life, and a wetland was engineered along the water’s edge with new plantings and drainage to encourage new wildlife and vegetation. A boardwalk made from recycled plastic now circles the pond and includes educational kiosks.

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more info inhabitat

Human-Scale Spider Web

admin — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 09:26:24 +0000

Design team Numen/For Use transformed 700 rolls of clear packing tape into an incredible human-size inhabitable spider web at DMY Belin 2010. The weaving took place over four consecutive days inside of the Tempelhof former airport. 49,213 yards (45 km) of tape wrapped around constructed scaffolding posts allowed visitors to experience the installation by crawling around inside.
This is the 5th Tape Installation exhibited by Numen/For Use, and it is the only time a scaffolding construction support had to be constructed due to location restrictions. The installation took approximately 160 hours and was erected by six workers. Previous installations used up to 1000 rolls of tape costing approximately $620 US dollars (500 Euro) and were woven around structural components that already existed on site. The cocoon shape is realized through the design concept of dance performance. As dancers weave in, out, and around existing pillars, a trail of tape records the history of each dancer’s step. The entangled surfaces present a unique relationship between man-made materials and natural organisms inside an environment which encourages the visitor to engage with spatially. The mechanical and chemical construction qualities of tape combined with the amorphous nature of the organic structure unwinds a special narrative that is a beautiful showcase of bio-mimicry.

via inhabitat

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Grasshopper to ANSYS

admin — Fri, 07 May 2010 17:19:11 +0000

If you’ve played with Grasshopper then you know how much fun it can be to throw the sliders back and forth and watch your geometry change.

What if you wanted to get analysis data for everyone of those iterations? Parametric modeling eases the task of generating multiple iterations, but it can be a bit laborious to feed everyone of those iterations to a simulation analysis software. Instead of stepping through the same set of steps for each iteration its helpful to shorten or automate the process required to achieve feedback.

This is one of our first explorations into creating connections between Grasshopper and other simulation analysis software, specifically the structural analysis software ANSYS. This connection is being created through the use of four vb script components which are responsible for writing the ANSYS macro, exporting IGES files, creating the ANSYS input file, and retrieving the ANSYS output file.

Once the ON button is set, it takes about 5 seconds for the analysis results to appear in Grasshopper. The output file contains results for each analysis that was specified within the ANSYS macro. In the following example of a space frame structure, the element axial stresses and the node displacements were analyzed and the results were then used to color the Grasshopper geometry as well as displace the nodes. It is then possible to take advantage of the rendering tools within Rhino to create more compelling graphics than the ANSYS vector graphics. Another, more powerful possibility is to use the ANSYS results to begin to size members in response analysis results such as the diameter of a pipe. In the below image, members experiencing compression forces are blue and tension forces are red. The diameter of the pipe also increases in response to the intensity of forces.

more info via lmnarchitects

plastic canopy

admin — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 09:52:52 +0000

One of the main principles of permaculture is that “the problem is the solution.” Problem: tons of waste cups created by attendees of the OutsideLands concert in San Francisco. Solution: a fabulous recycled cup canopy. BIOS Design Collective tapped a keg and invited their friends over for a canopy party, building a gorgeous wave of concave color at Stable Cafe just in time for Architecture and the City.

They started by stringing steel cable mesh above the Stable Cafe patio in equidistant lines. Designer Chris Chalmers created the layout for the cables using a definition created by Grasshopper, a graphical algorithm editor. Laminated cards depicting sections of the canopy helped volunteers to place their multi-colored cups in an artistic– and precisely algorithmic– fashion.

As the keg drained, revelers clipped the cups onto the cables with special, laser-cut plastic clips. We wonder what the next BIOS installation will be– plastic clip jewelry? Regardless, the resulting canopy was stunning in its form and precision. The BIOS blog boasts that the keg for the party cost more than the materials to create the canopy. We’ll drink to that.

info via www.inhabitat.com

SuperDeluxe(tokyo)

admin — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 07:39:53 +0000

BAKOKO uses Generative Components

BAKOKO Pecha Kucha Vol. 64 – SuperDeluxe, Tokyo from BAKOKO on Vimeo.

deformation(s)

admin — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 12:25:52 +0000

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