14 posts tagged “digital fabrication”
Last semester Sandra Manninger took responsibilty in teaching the Advanced Technology Seminar at the Bauhaus Dessau Institute of Architecture. The main task of the studio was the exploration of spatial ornament conditions, based on the geometry of space filling Polyhedra. Every one of the students had to explore the opportunities present in specific techniques of ornamentation and how those transformed into architectural conditions such as spatial subdiv ision structural integrity and so on. The main challenge consisted in the development of highly developed sensibilities for this combination of very rigorous geometrical framework and advanced digital design techniques. The final stage of the seminar was to actually fabricate the results by using the lasercutter in order to understand the entire production line, from the design process to the final fabrication of the piece. This is due to understand how these techniques can potentialy be used in a one to one scale environment of construction.
SPAN has been shortlisted at the Swarovski, Crystal Vision competition.
After a seamless setup of the show Sandra and I attended the opening of the exhibition Housing in Vienna at the Palazzo Tron in Venice. The day was filled with activities as also the main venue, the Venice Biennale opened the same day. The show in the Palazzo Tron, dedicated to the history and presence of subsidized living in Vienna was opened with speeches by three persons: the Viennese Stadtrat Ludwig, the director of the Wohnbauforschungsinstitut Dr. Wolfgang Förster and the representative of the UIAV, the University of Architecture Venice, Liliana Padovani. The opening was a huge success. We were lucky with the weather as the reception took place in the wonderful garden of this Baroque palazzo. Just as the reception finished it started raining cats and dogs.
Today we received a couple of 3D printed models for the show Float. The exhibition will open upcoming Friday in the Gallery Zeitkunst, in Kitzbühel. In case you don´t know Kitzbühel, it is one of the favorite ski resorts for the wealthy of this planet, on the same level as St Moritz or Cortina. It is also the home of the winter seasons sport highlight, the famed Hahnenkamm downhill race. The exhibition in Kitzbühel will feature works by Franz Schubert, Fritz Biedermann and SPAN. We will show a series of huge high resolution Lambda prints, depicting digitally generated blossoms, in high glossy black, Animations of Blossoms and components as well as some 3D prints of the digital model. You can see a couple of images of the models below.
Here are a couple of images of the test assembly we put together yesterday. We tested if everything works as we planed, and how long it needs to setup a portion of the exhibition "Housing in Vienna". The record for building up one pod was set by Phillip, one of the AzW´s hands, with 3min and 42 sec. The Podium of the Architekturzentrum Wien (AzW) doubled as impromptu exhibition space, providing enough space for one colony which at the end had a size of 20ft by 9ft. This colony consisted of eight individuals. Now the entire population consists of forty pods, you get an image of the final appereance.
Today we assembled the first prototype of the pods for the exhibition Housing in Vienna. The pieces fit perfectly into each other. We tested a couple of variations of how to include the illumination within the bumps of the pod. The fabrication of the shells will be finished this week, so that the guys at the AzW can finish applying the graphic designs on the transparent top of the pod. Early January we are going to assemble an entire colony of pods to demonstrate the exhibition setting to the Vienna housing authorities who commissioned the exhibition design.
After a couple of days setting up the exhibition (plus a day of finetuning) the end of this design job approached in form of a very fine opening venue. The setting actually worked out pretty smooth, with no major problems, and faster then expected. The program for the opening venue was a real feast for the serious wine lover slash architecture afficionado, and there were a lot of them! A panel discussion about "The Austrian Winery Boom" was held and included panelists Dietmar Steiner, the director of Viennas Architecture Center (Az W, this institution actually comissionded the exhibition design), Andres Lepik (Curator MoMA), Christian Wassmann (Steven Holl Office) and Andreas Stadler, the newly assigned director of the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York. The discussion circumfenced the connection between the rise of a new generation of Austrian vintners, devoted to the production of high quality wines, and the innovative architecture they comissioned young architects with. I won´t go into detail about the projects on exhibition as it would take some time to describe all 43 projects on display. Another point of the opening venue was the screening of the movie "Mondovino" depicting the globalization effects on the wine sector. The exhibition design was received very well and I enjoyed the evening, discussing over a glas of excellent wine pleasing with black current leaves, paprika, spices, and tickling freshness.
So, all the panels are now in the Workshop of the Architekturzentrum Wien (Az W) most of them are finished, only the graphic parts have to be applyed yet. Here you can see a couple of images of the Module C, the smallest of the three modules. The bottle fits pretty good into the craddle that was included in the vacuforming process.
Today night we have been running a couple of illumination tests with the first Prototype of the exhibition module.
The Module has been doing good so far though the lower shell is of a thinner material than the final ones will be. The illumination test was done with LED lights. We will do some more light test with neon and then deside which one will make it into the exhibition setting. Obvioulsy LEDs have a couple of advanteges: Small, cold, low on energy consumption and I like the white slightly blueish color.
By now we are working on the Reflector that will be seating underneath the module and has the task to increase the light output and scatter the light in a smooth way. This ones on the image below where the first try in foamboard. I cutted already a new one in mirroring mylar, we will check this one tomorrow. The Lasercutting turned out really nice.
