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Sam Bell, Me and my Dogs, (Cavendish, 2013)Sock Farm, Land Art Generator Initiative, last modified 2013, http://landartgenerator.org/LAGI-2012/soc26010/.

The Beauty of Recycling, Land Art Generator Initiative, last modified 2013, http://landartgenerator.org/LAGI-2012/DE89B326/.

Ocean Power Technologies, Bouy Type Wec of the Coast of Hawaii, A Field Guide to Renewable Energy Technologies, 2012, Robert Ferry and Elizabeth Monoian.Phaeno Science Centre, Zaha Hadid Architecture, last modified 2007, http://www.zaha-hadid.com/architec-ture/phaeno-science-centre/.

Voronoi Diagram, http://www.olivierlanglois.net/voro.html.

Wojtek Gurak, Melbourne Recital Centre, last modified August 2012, http://www.checkonsite.com/mel-bourne-recital-centre/. Pia Johnson, Elizabeth Murdoch Hall, last modified 2014, http://www.melbournerecital.com.au/venues/emh. Entry Paradise Paviliion, LAVA, http://www.l-a-v-a.net/projects/entry-paradise-pavilion/. Louisiana State Museum and Sports Hall of Fame / Trahan Architects, Arch Daily, last modified September 2013, http://www.archdaily.com/428122/louisiana-state-museum-and-sports-hall-of-fame-trahan-archi-

tects/.

http://tendtotravel.com/2012/06/copenhagen-new-kind-of-travel/ _MERMAID

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PART BDESIGN CRITERIA

B.1RESEARCH FIELDMATERIAL PERFORMANCE

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B.2CASE STUDY 1.0VOUSSOIR CLOUD - IWAMOTO SCOTT

The Voussoir Cloud installation by Iwamoto Scott uses an ultra-light material structure of thousands of panels to cre-ate a vaulted form spanning throughout the Southen Cali-fornia Institute of Architecture gallery space.

The 3-dimensional petals which make up the structure are made from a thin ply wood, scored and folded to cre-ate bordering flanges along all the surfaces curves. These flanges provide the structural system for the design, allow-ing the petals to retain their intended curvature as well as being the junctioning element to connect each petal.

The Voussoir Cloud used a computational script in Rhino to achieve its multi-vault structure. A tangent offset script was produced that allowed the curve of each petal to be great-er according to its height, resulting in the structures arch lines beginning slowly from the ground, but then curving away more and more as they got higher.This allowed for accurate fabrication to produce the intended design. This project uses a combination of material performance, panel-ling and tesellation computationally. With the given Grass-hopper definition, including the Kangaroo plugin, hopefully our group can use this as a starting point to develop a working definition from where we will begin our design.

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Using the given Grasshopper definition of the Voussior Cloud, we attempted to manipulate the existing form and produce entirely different itera-tions. With the introduction of another plugin to try to navigate, Kangaroo, I found it challenging to alter the definition to anything largely different to its original look. Sliders to change the width of the voronoi grid and the distance of the offset grid were about all I managed to vary.

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KANGAROO PHYSICS MATRIXB.2

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After spending some time researching projects that used material performance, and playing with a Grasshopper defi-nition with the physics plugin, Kangaroo, we were begin-ning to gain a better understanding of our chosen material system, its possibilities and its restrictions.

The Hyper-Toroidal Deep Surface Prototype by Mihaylov and Nicolova for Stuttgart University was a project we found serious intriguing, and one that we decided on research-ing further. The prototype is a make up of many elastic membrane surfaces joined to create a continuous tensile surface with variable cylindrical apertures. Internal meshes of less area create a double-thickness membrane. The meshes are controlled with the use of many anchors at surface junctions or vertices, straining the material into the desired tensile form. What is produced is a complex, but systematic web of tensioned surfaces and varied dimen-sioned perforations.

When considering our groups initial design concepts, such as focusing on wind and kinetic power generation, a mate-rial system of this type is quite well suited. As it uses no rigid materials, the structure is still free to move with the stretch-ing of its elastic members (kinetic potential), and the mate-rial surfaces can be streched into almost any form, creating great opportunity to catch wind and harness wind power.

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B.3CASE STUDY 2.0HYPER-TOROIDAL DEEP SURFACE PROTOTYPE

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The process of reverse engineering our case study proved relatively difficult as the only surface type usable in Kanga-roo is a mesh surface, and getting a mesh into your de-sired form was rather difficult. Initially a box mesh was cre-ated and the naked vertices were used as anchor points, so when Kangaroo was toggled on the mesh would relax from the square geometries.

To make the Rhino model more like the Deep Surface pro-totype, we added an internal mesh with a longer rest ing length than the external mesh. By changing these settings we could easily test the relaxedness of the messes and get it to our desired form. We then moditfied the mesh geom-etry to 6 sided polygons, which increased the complexity of the form. The final form was created with the combination of two of the four-pronged tubes and the manual move-ment of control points.

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REVERSE ENGINEERINGB.3

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To better understand the case study and to get an idea of how to fabricate a model like this, we decided to make a prototype of a simple part of the design. After building it in Rhino and Grasshopper, it was baked and unrolled. Due to the sluming in the centre of the form, the faces of the form must be unrollled in strips.

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PROTOTYPE EXPERIMENTATIONB.3

By printing out the unrolled surfaces onto paper, we cre-ated stencils to cut the strips from a thick fabric. Beginning with the internal layer, each strip was sewn along its edge to the adjacent strips, creating the funnel-like form. The same proceedure was repeated with the outer layer, al-though this had to be sewn inside out, and then righted to avoid seams being visible. The inner membrane was then put into the outer, and after being alligned they were sewn

around the edges. Like its precedent, this prototype was intended to be stretched out at all vertices by a fine wire inside a frame, however the thick fabric allowed it to hold its form relatively, and the extra time required was decided to be wasteful.

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Species 1

Species 2

Species 3

Species 4

Species 5

To try to expand further with our experimentation, we worked through ways of creating differnt meshes, and therefore dif-ferent forms. By projecting a random point grid, and with the help of cull pattern and varying seed, we produced a number of iterations of random forms. Attractor points were then trialled, to affect the diameters of the form, and the rise and fall in the z plane. In this experimentation, we lost sight of our energy generation concepts and the on material performance, as we became too concerned by what form we were creating.

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TECHNIQUE: DEVELOPMENTB.4

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Species 2Species1

Design:The shrinking of the internal membrane from a vast opening to a narrow aperture presents an ineteresting experiential quality for a viewer moving through this form.

Energy:The internal membrane of this species has great kinetic poten-tial, basically forming a suspen-sion bridge which will be very responsive to human weight and reverberate with wind.

Design:The intersection of mutiple forms creates circulation opportunity for this species. The use of a dou-ble thickness membrane ensures experiences will differ according to whether you are viewing the form from the ourside of standing within it.

Energy:The multiple, funnel-like aper-tures of this design press the use of wind power collection. The elastic membranes also have po-tential to produce human-pow-ered kinetic energy.

DESIGN SELECTIONB.4

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Species 4 Species 5

Design:This snaking form twists in both the x and y planes, producing a visual sectional feature to the public eye, as well as inviting people to explore its interior.

Energy:The design allows for kinetic en-ergy via people and wind move-ment through the material mem-brane. The form can be zoned according to the sites qualities, such as the solar path and wind motion.

Design:In addition to two openings, drawing people through the site, an interesting horizontal view is acheived from the point of the mermaid.

Energy:This form also has the ability to harness kinetic energy, through public interaction and wind. So-lar cells may be integrated in the membrane frabric to also collect solar energy, maximising the designs performance.

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DIGITAL PROTOTYPINGB.5

Tensile Mesh layout //Varied number of points were used to dictate the number of material panels made up the form.

Structural Rib Beam layout //Rib beams were created with the contour function. The distances were altered to vary the quantity of members.

Geodesic Curves

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Geodesic Curves

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PROTOTYPE PROPOSALSB.5

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PHYSICAL PROTOTYPINGB.5

The process of physical prototyping was predominantly an experimentation of the varied ways in which a material membrane could make up form. The process was not as such a rehearsal of our desired structural form, and the beams and tunnels and merely a simplified representation of what we may come to produce.

However, back to the real purpose of the task, we trialled three fabric systems that hung from our symbolic beams.

1) (Top) This system required the addition of thin steel rods to run perpendiculat to the spaced beams, as thin strips of fabric hung parallel to the line of the beams. We assumed the use of many small tarps would greater respond to the wind flowing over them, therefore produce more power. Proper testing of this must be done.

2) (Middle) This prototype uses a single large membrane to span the form. Redundant.

3) (Bottom) The third prototype follows the method from the Deep Surface case study, and uses strips to create the tensile membrane.

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PHYSICAL PROTOTYPINGB.5

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SITE PROPOSALB.6

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INTERIM PRESENTATION FEEDBACKB.7

The interim presentation was vital for our group, because it was very ap-parent that throughout Part B we had veered quite off track. Rather than focusing on what would make our design most successful, i.e. enegy generation potential and the use of tensile membranes, we began wor-rying about what our form was going to look like, and then as a side note thought about how we could incorporate the two focuses into them. That is a complete contradiction to what I believe this subject, and LAGI brief is intending to get us to do. The things that detenmine the form of your design should be whatever it is you intend to produce energy with. For us this is majorly wind, and therefore it should be data like wind direc-tion and wind patterns that dictate the layout of our design on the site.

Also, it was mentioned that we had almost created a streamlined form, that sat as low to the ground as possible, ultimately minimising the po-tential for catching wind. Sails. A form designed to maximise wind catch-ment. Why had we not thought about sails?!

While the feedback from the interim presentatiobn almost insisted we go back to the drawing board, we were faced in the right direction and given an enouraging shove. We can still work from our Deep Surface Case Study, we just need to have those focuses in our head for all our design decisions from now.

Key Issues

Oversimplified design and al-gorothmic techniques

Little relationship between form/tensile technique and wind tech-nology

Height is inappropriate for de-sired energy source

Better use site conditions to in-fluence design

Express technology sculpturally and efficiently

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LEARNING OBJECTIVES AND OUTCOMESB.7

As Part B has been almost entirely groups working on their own defi-nitions and designs, it has been notably more challenging than Part A. I have experienced frustration unlike any other studio before, as its goodbye to the fine liners and Copics, and hello to computer screens, Grasshopper and various confusing plugins. The number of times I have had to restart my computer because Grasshopper has crashed, have sat trying to work out why certain functions are red, have searched Google and Grasshopper forums searching for a way to achieve some-thing, has almost been unbearable! However, everyone has experi-enced the same thing and I know these programs take a long time to master. Think of the design democracy if it was all so simple!

While I certainly wouldnt say myself, or my group as a whole, has flour-ished in this phase, I dont think we have gone too badly. We have cho-sen a material system which not many others have chosen, and in my opinion it is a bit more complicated than many other choices. We have researched case studies which have shown us the possibilities of using material performance, and have given us our own goals for what we are trying to achieve this design. We have gone through the process of downloading Kangaroo and WeaverBird, learning how they work, and using them to expand on our design.

We are at a point of realisation, however, where we unfortunately accept our latest trials and path of development is not going to result in a great design for the brief, or achieve what the subject really sets out to teach.We are now required to go back to our early iterations, and with our key focal points in mind, try to get it together.

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