Growing Plastic

Its quit a painful process. you wouldn't believe the amount of water need for these plants to grow. :D

Prototype 1
The project was inspired by Aloe Vera plants, I became interested in the patterns created by aloe and then explored the possibilities of patterns in plastic tubing and ended up here.

Prototype 2 and 3 soon to come,
and also a stop motion video!

nextnature.net

I stumbled across this site (www.nextnature.net) while i was looking for biological systems to study. It had some pretty interesting articles that were very closely related to project two.

Here are three I found very relate able:

http://www.nextnature.net/2008/04/growing-rooms-buildings-cities/

http://www.nextnature.net/2006/12/growing-a-hidden-architecture/

http://www.nextnature.net/2007/07/bio-inspired-architecture/

Crystal Bridge

Influence: Crystal growth


Initial Artifacts:



Jig:

First Prototype:

Right now, my biggest concern is the creation for the walking platform for the bridge. I have a few ideas brewing but any input would be extremely helpful.

Structural Chaos

Elevation

Closeup

Axon

I am working on defining rules or ideas that would inform the process of building and/or assembly of this component. The variability within the single component has offered endless possibilities of assemblage.

Structural Bridge: Skeletal Vertebrea Inspiration

Bridge spanning the gorge. A series of repeating ribs give hint to my inspiration of a skeletal vertebrae.
Close of detail of connector component. Gives the bridge some rigidity but still flexibility to shape.

Another image of multiple components together. I have ideas for how to improve the design, and push the component to its full potential, but ideas are always welcome!

Structural Weave 2.0: a_study_of_materiality_connection_and_form

Objective: Construct a pedestrian bridge for a local park

Material: Plastic tubing

Requirements: Replace an existing wood structure, engage hiking trails above and in the spanned gorge below.

Inspirations: Horsetail (plant) and bone structure

This prototype, the second of four, resulted from explorations to make this inherently flexible material more rigid. Two layers of tube are wrapped around an inner "core". The tubes penetrate one another through holes made with a wood punch. The counter wrapped tubes provided greater stiffness for the structure, but not as much as I desired. Further posts will show the advances made from Prototype-II.

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This "linear weave" is an exploration of weaving the material upon itself to gain rigidity. A single piece of siphoning tube was hammered with wood punches and then clothes line was laced through and looped back upon itself. I plan to use this element as a walkway for the bridge in Prototype-IV.

More to follow!

soft bodied

tender artifact

crawling upward

Serration

Fungal Ribbon

Original Artifact_discovery of latent quality
Artifact5_playing with quality found

Artifact 9_beginning to think about how to take the emergent quality and expand it (how does this begin to become structure for use in a bridge... what's important... what's not?)

Artifact 12_my biggest roadblocks with this form is two fold. (A) How do I begin connecting these ribbons together to form a coherent truss without damaging the sinuous quality of the ribbon? (B) How are these "trusses" inhabited as a bridge?

Undulating Plastic

Does Our Education Prepare Us for Jobs We Hate?

Check out this lecture related to our recent studio discussion:
http://www.good.is/post/does-our-education-prepare-us-for-jobs-we-ll-hate/

Project 1 final waxcapade

Speckling of light on the wall

Check out that cracking action within the wax.
This is caused by the rapid cool-down of the hot wax over the ice

wax in the window.

Glass Panel

Monolithic Decay_Window Panel

Overall_panel installed

Close up_Monolithic Decay texture