Ronald Teck Yih Wong610134 Semester 1/2013Group 8 Virtual Environments

PrologueWe were assigned to design a portable paper lantern that could be held by one person. The lantern inter-faces with the holder through the hands or arms..The lantern is a volumetric object that contains light. This semester’s design is focused on creating lighting effects that would contribute to the atmos-phere of the environment through the shades of light and shadows.

Kandinsky (1987) introduces us to the methods of creating analytical drawings of objects. The process of subordinating and isolating objects into one simple overall form allows the entire constrcution to be represented in one consice drawing. Lecture 1 also helped us see the world in patterns where natu-ral occuring patterns are governed by a simple set of laws.

The first task for our module 1 was to ‘decode’ natural oc-curing patterns and make our own analytical drawings that explores the ideas of symmetry,

balance and movement. For my natural pattern I choose the pattern form in Kiwi fruits.

Aranda and Lasch’s (2006) article on tooling really helped me on creating recipes for the pattern in made. Recipes are the rules that we create for ourselves to guide us during the designing process.

SymmetryThe ‘petals’ found in the Kiwi fruit pattern are identi-cal and therefore several lines of symmetry can be generated from the pattern.

1. Draw a line of symmetry.

2. Continue creating several lines of symmetry about a common axis until the whole diagram is divided equally.

3. Fill the divided space with identi-cal petal-like shapes until all the divided spaces are filled.

BalanceThe idea of balance in this pattern is simple. Its concept is similiar to symmetry therefore they share similiar recipes.

1. Divide a space into 4 equal sections. The spaces are equal in order to ob-tain balance.

2. Draw a ‘flower-like’ in the space using the lines as quidelines in order to maintain balance.

MovementThe idea of movement is harder to obtain from the pattern. The petals of the pattern can be seen as ‘running’ around an eliptical field within the pattern.

1. Draw an eliptical shape

2. Draw the petals by using the eliptical shape as a guide. The petals can be seen as ‘running’ around the eliptical field.

Ideation

Then, we had to devel-op our pattern into an emerging form. i took inspiration from a pile of stacked kiwi slices and decided to simply just extrude my pattern vertically.

The second paper model is a transformation of the first model. We learned about the different kinds of transformations such as scaling, rotat-ing, moving and mirroring, and such techniques will recreate an object into something new and bizzare. The reading on the ‘Pattern Formation in Nature’ by Ball inspired me to take push the boundaries of the transformation process.

I decided to use ‘scaling’ as my transformation method. However, I did not want to just scale my model to create a second model, I wanted to take inspiration from the formation of the first model and adapt it into making my second model. I combined the idea of extrusion and scal-ing into developing my model. The model would be extrusions of the pattern at different scales, different lengths. This scaling extrusions will create an effect of randomness on my model and give it a wavy feeling to it.

the 8 Spruce Street TowerThe 8 Spruce Street Tower or the Beekman Tower is a work of art by architect Frank Gehry. Frank Gehry proposed a design that would both blend in and stand out in the New York skyline. The bui-dling is most famous for its unique curved facade which represents streams of water and aluminium sheets which represents ice shredding. Both fea-tures stir up certain feelings as shadows and lines are created by reflected light on the surface.

I feel that the design of the building greatly relates to the concept of my design. The randomness of extrusions on the surface of the building is similiar to my idea of random vertical extrusions. Both designs explore the concept of random scaling extrusions to create bizzare and unique effects.

Lantern proposalsMy emerging form had many curvy and wavy edges that inspired me. I decided to adapt these concepts into the structure of a cande-lier.

The curvy and wavy forms of my emerging form developed the skeleton for my cande-lier.

The final form of my first model. This idea combines the wave-like nature of my emerging form with the structure of a candelier.

The first model had a weakness, it was not a very good vessel for light. In order words, it could not contain light well. I further devel-oped the my idea, preserving the nature of the previous model while improving its functionality as a lantern.

This is my sketch of the spiral shape which serves as the skeleton to my model.

The spiral shaped struc-ture was introduced into my emerging form, cre-ating the above model. This model could con-tain light perfectly while preserving the nature of my emerging form.

I wanted the lantern to be able to project the ele-ments contained within my emerging form. Therefore, I created a model that could bring out the nature of my emerging form into an intangible form —light.

In order to achieve the effects I desired such as in the sketch above, sereval ways of manipulating light had to be implimented on my lantern. Such methods will be layering and cutting.

Sketch of desired lighting effect by the lantern.

Allowing light to filter through many layers creates light of different intensities.

Cutting light creates a glaring effect of lights. This gives the produced light different depths.

Design

AbstractionIn Scheurer’s ‘Lost in Parameter Space’ (2011), we are introduced to the idea of ‘abstraction’. Abstraction is the simplification of complex systems. It is the method of simplifying something while preserving the essence and the idea of the object. This can be related to Pol-ing’s “Analytical Drawing” where objects are simplified into their very basic structural form in a two-dimensional plane. Also, the method of abstraction has been used in making the analytical drawings that explores the ideas of movement, sysmetry and balance in module one.

I applied the method of abstraction upon the model I developed in Module 1 and discovered a new form.

The new form would still have the wavy features of the emerging form. The wavy patterns would be infused into a spherical shape that I discovered through the process of abstraction.

Abstraction allowed me to discover the spherical form from my clay model. The concept from my emerging form will be infused with the spherical form.

I did some 3D modelling in Rhino following the rules that I have set for myself. Drawing upon the nature of the emerging form and the spherical form, I came up with a model such as below. I panelled the form with various 2D and 3D panels to test it out.

PrototypingI developed 3 protypes based on the form I created. The latter two prototypes draws upon Thomas Heatherwick’s (2011) designs that bring out spatial effects to the surroundings. One ex-ample of his work is the Rolling Bridge, it can be seen as a simple bridge spanning across a body of water. However, once the Rolling Bridge starts to curl or uncurl, it creates a bizzare effect for the viewer. The bridge creates a flowing effect which could relate to the waters underneath it ultimately creates spatial effects.

The latter two prototypes aims to bring out inter-esting lighting effects from its simple form.

Prototype 1 is basically the triangulation of the surfaces of my wavy ball. This preserved the wavy effect of the lantern The wavy form of the lantern mirrors that of my emerging form. They both share the same recipe of “random extru-sions” that creates a randomness effect.What I like about this prototype is its beautiful physical form. Strips of lines of random length will be cut onto the surface of my prototype to allow light to be “cut” through, giving it an effect that luminates the physical form of the lantern.

Prototype 2 is a simplified version of Prototype 1. Though it is simplified, I believe that the effects it will create will be beautiful.

Prototype 2 simply brings the waves or spikes of the ball to a uniform scale. This violates the law of random ness that I have held on to so far but the idea of wavy effect is still preserved. Light will diffuse through the holes made available from the shape of the surface of the lantern.

Light will be able to diffuse through these holes.

Prototype 3 is an extension of Prototype 2. The extension includes cutting V-shaped holes onto the surface of the lantern while preserving its original holes.

This lantern will add and allow more light to escape the lantern, increases the spatial effects it creates.

V-shaped holes will allow light to filter through. This will create diamond-shaped light-ing effects.

Lighting effects

Prototype 1 did not show much lighting effect porb-ably because the holes that allowed light to filter through was too small. However, my tutor liked its form and encouraged me to use it in my final form.

Though Prototype 2 is the most simple out of the three, but the lighting effects that it creates are truly beautiful and better than Prototype 1 and comparable with Prototype 3.

I am very pleased with Prototype 3. Not only the effects it creates on the wall is beautiful, but the V-shaped holes gives it an illusion of a bizzare structural form.

FabricationAll the lighting effects of the panels turned out good, especially the ones that produced wavy light effects. Therefore I wanted to combine all three panels into my final form. The main challenge was how I was going to combine the idea of three of the panes into my final form. The thinking prosess was long and hard because I had no idea of how the three panels would come together.

Iwamoto’s (2009) artice on design fabrication gave me an idea of how I would combine the three panels. In the article, Peter Macapia of labDORA mentioned the idea of seeing architecture as a ‘function’. In order words to create something using a “machine” or rules that I have created for myself. So, I went back to the most basic form of where my ideas came from —the Kiwi Fruit.

The Kiwi fruit has the shape of the ellipsoid. This egg-shaped form would be the overall form of my final lantern. Then, I applied the recipes that I have created onto the el-lipsoid.

The analytical drawing that I have created can be seen on the TOP and the SIDES of the Kiwi. Then, i applied the recipes of BALANCE, SYM-METRY and MOVEMENT.

BalanceDivide the into 4 equal sections.

I divided the ellipsoid to 4 sections. Each section will host a type of panel.

SymmetryLines of symmetry divide the space into multiple sec-tions.

MovementRevolving petals around an eliptical shape.

Overall FormThe recipes acted as functions to produce my final form. The surfaces that are split will host the three different pan-els.

The final form of my lantern is divided into 5 parts, the cap and 4 equal parts below.

The CrownThe cap or the part that sits on top is called The Crown. It utilises the ideas of Symmetry, Move-ment, the Emerging Form and one of the three panels.

Movement and Symmetry

Emerging form Panels

Wavy forms follow the recipe of movement and revolves around in a circle. The Crown is panelled tri-angulary such as the panel above. The holes and lines will be drawn on them manually after the panels are unrolled.

The Golden MoonThe ‘Golden Moon’ by Kristof Crolla and Adam Fingurt gave me the idea to position my ‘spikes’ upwards rather than horizontally like what I did in the previous module. This gives it a rather grand and majestic look that I want to imply onto my lantern. Also, they positioned the lights in the middle of their lantern to allow for maximum exposure and minimal budgeting. I took note of this and will follow in their footsteps in wiring the LEDs to my lantern.

Final FormDrawing ideas from the prec-edent and things that I have learned throughout the se-mester, my final form is born.

PrototyesI decided to prototype The Crown to test out its lighting effects and the material suitability.

Black & WhiteThe holes on the black card card cut into triangle shapes whereas the white card has V-Shaped panels.

Even though both produced very nice lighting effects, but structurally they had problems. Firstly, the thicker 250gsm white card had smaller holes, making them very hard to fold. Much force was needed to fold the panels and I accidentally tore some of the pieces As for the 200gsm black card, it was easier to fold but the large holes made the structure too fragile, causing many unnessarry wrinkles. There-fore I concluded that the black and the white card had to swap panels as the bigger triangle holes would make folding easier on the white card and smaller holes will avoid wrinkles on the black card.

the white card was accidentally torn due to exces-sion force

A SkeletonLearning from the prototype I made in module 2, I realized that my panels needed a structure to hold on to. It needed a skeleton to support its overall strucuture because the unconnected nature of my panels. Therefore, I sturctured a frame for it in Rhino.

LightingThe lantern is powered by 3 LED strips con-nected in paralled. I soldered the circuit consisting of the battery, LED strips, switch and wires. The circuit is positioned verti-cally inside the frame of the lantern.

Full Scale Model

MIddle east

North West North EastNorth

South EastSouth West South

West

I unrolled the entire model to construct a full scale model. The panels were annotated and nested onto their respective 900x600 ivory and black cards.

The assembly prosess

The Final Form

Lighting EffectThe main focus of this semester’s task is to generate a unique lighting effect. I believe my lantern has created a very bizzare lighting effect. The overlapping of the wavy patterns luminates a dark room in an extraordinary way. However there was still room for improvement after receiving feedback from the tutors. Also, my lantern had unnecessary components such as exaggerated pan-els and a cylindrical base that did not go well with my overall form.

DisasterFew days after the presentation of Module 3, my model collapsed. The frame I made for it could not bear the weight of the entire structure. Eventhough it was heart-breaking, I decided to rebuild my model. This time I had the chance to improve on the areas that needed im-provement that was pointed out by the tutors.

I took apart the model to inspect the area of weakness. The frame was twisted in places because it had no cen-tral support system.

The new model will need a strong and solid support sys-tem. Therefore, I designed a central column that will sup-port the frame. The triangular column will also host the LED strips.

Next, I redesigned the base that enabled my lantern to stand. Previously my lantern was supported by a cylin-drical base which my tutor said did not go well with my overall form. The new base will consist of five huge spiked shaped panels laid out in a flower-like orientation

In relation to the column that is put in the middle of the lantern, I came up with a new of holding the lantern. The new interface will allow the holder put their hands through a hole to hold the column. The idea of the old interface is not taken away.

Final FormWith less exaggerated panels, the lighting effect looks better than the previous lantern. I brought my model to the outdoors to test its interaction with the outside world. It turned out well as it blended well with the trees and nature. The orange street light also gives it a warm feeling that highlights the features of the lantern.

EpilogueWhat is design? Virtual environments has brought me through a great journey of discov-ering what designing is. Design is a prosess. Design is an evolution of ideas. Design is a journey. Throughout the journey, I faced many challenges and obstacles that I had to overcome both in the virtual and physical realm in order to bring my design forward. There were many problems that I had faced in Rhinoceros as well as when I was cutting and putting the pieces together. This process made me appreciate digital design. In the reading of ‘The Third Industrial Revolution’ (2011), Rifkin talks about how the introduction of digital design, specifically 3D printing, has changed manufacturing. Much like what we had done in Virtual Environments, 3D printing will enable products to be made on-demand. This just proves how powerful the digital realm has become and it had and will impact and shape the world. Things done today are less wasteful, more innovative and efficient thanks to the creation of the digital realm.

However, things do not always go smoothy when the product of digital design is brought into reality. Deamer & Bernstein (2008) discussed on the weakness of bringing a digital model into the real world. The perfections within the digital realm does not mirror that flaws and imprecisions of the manufacturing process. There will always be an area of uncertainty that we should watch out for. Reflecting onto the fabrication of my lantern, what I thought was to be my final lantern collapsed and I had to rebuild another one. The lantern seemed perfect in Rhinoceros but the degree of perfection could not be brought to the real world. Therefore, I had to remake another lantern, learning from the weaknesses and failures then factoring them into my new lantern. This trial and error method is sometimes not practical, but it works, it is a part of the design process.

‘What is learned cannot be unlearned.’ Virtual Environments has been a great teacher. I learned many skills that will help me in my years of pursuing architecture. Not only have I acquired a skill for a 3D modeling software, but I have also learned to manage my time well, seek and listen to advice, and most importantly, to never give up.

References

Poling, Clark (1987): Analytical Drawing In Kandisky’s Teaching at the Bauhaus Rizzoli, New York, pp. 107-122

Tooling / Aranda, Lasch. New York : Princeton Architectural Press, 2006

Ball, Philip (2012): Pattern Formation in Nature, AD: Architectural Design, Wiley, 82 (2), March, pp. 22-27

TED talks - Thomas Heatherwick - (16min)http://www.ted.com/talks/thomas_heatherwick.html.Scheurer, F. and Stehling, H. (2011):Lost in Parameter Space? IAD: Architectural Design, Wiley, 81 (4), July, pp. 70-79

Architecture in the Digital Age - Design and Manufacturing /Branko Kolarevic. Spon Press, London, c2003

Digital fabrications: architectural and material techniques / Lisa Iwamoto. New York : Princeton Architectural Press, c2009.

The third Industrial Revolution / Jeremy Rifkin. Palgrave Macmillan, C2011.pp107-126

Building the Future: Recasting Labor in Architecture/ Philip Bernstein, Peggy Deamer. Princeton Architectural Press. c2008. pp 38-42

http://www.guideto.com/art-entertainment/architecture-design/building-architecture/8-spruce-street-tower.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lantern_Festival