Module 2: SynopsisLuke Dempsey

638407ENVS100089/4/2013 Coral Pattern

Weekly Readings

Thomas Heatherwick

Heatherwick fails to see a difference between architect, designer and sculptor. This is evident in all of his projects, especially the Bleigiessen sculpture. The Bleigiessen sculpture is a multi-storey sculpture existing of 150 000 golfball-sized glass beads suspended on high tensile thin wires. This sculpture is a prime example to how Heatherwick uses design to create spatial effects. The overall mon-strosity of the sculpture is overwhelming but also the fine detail also creates a sense of fragility and incredible detail. The sheer scale of the sculpture makes the viewers feel small in comparison, this large piece in the middle of a building ironically makes the building seem larger and more spacious than without the sculpture because of this dwarfing effect.

Lost in Parameter Space?

This reading focuses on how models are abstract representations of reality and continues on to how they are applied in a CAD form without unnecessary arbitrary information to distract from the intended form.

Models are an expression of infinitely complex real world concepts reduced to a ‘level where it can be described with manageable effort’. Abstraction is the process of creating the model with the least amount of complexity as possible to, as previously men-tioned, avoid distractions of arbitrary detail. Reduction is finding the best, most efficient way to represent the model in terms of information. It is done by eliminating redundancies and optimising the descriptions of the model. It is about eliminating informa-tion that ‘increases the weight of the model without adding detail’

So therefore abstraction is creating the model in a simpler form and reduction is eliminating unnecessary information which have to overall effect on the model to create a more efficient representation of the concept.

Thomas Heatherwick’s Seed Cathedral, Shanghai

Orthographic Photographs and Slices

One square on the background grid is 10mm x 10mm

Primary Digitised Model Secondary Digitised Model

Using panelling tools, the surface was divided into a grid of points. A 3D custom pattern was made using the below recipe and this is what made the panels have the shape that is evident in the model (immediately left).

It still need finetuning, es-pecially around the top of the lantern.

The sections of the clay model were scanned and then transferred as 2D sections which were then lofted. This made a terrible looking model (below), so instead a new model was made from variouso transformations to a primi-tive cylinder surface until it looked near-identical to the clay model.

Lofting Models

Top View of Primary Model

Front View of Primary Model

Panelling Pattern