Allyson Patterson & Madeleine Eyre

Virtual Environments M2: Design

Student Numbers: 649269 & 587528 Semester 2/2013 Tutorial 9

Second Skin: Week 5 Rhino Developments

This development explores the idea of personal space as an energetic aura. Section and Profiling are used to keep the elements together, and inflation is used as the individual moves and the fabric trails behind.

IDEAS BEHIND: The spikes are representative of the energetic space the mind emits. The power of this emmission of energy is such that when someone or something enters into this non physical space, its effects are felt. Where attention goes, energy flows. The visual representation of this is similar to a plasma ball and the way it’s spikes of electricity flow towards to exterior of the glass ball it is in. When this ball is touched, more electricity will flow towards this point of contact. The spikes are representative of the electricity and the light nature of the material will allow it to capture air with movement and allow the fabric to move and recoil as the energy created within the spiral contracts when the source air is no longer present.

http://www.museumoftheweird.com/news/wp-content/up-loads/2012/05/plasma+ball.jpg

FORTUNY

The Delphos gown is an example of clothing being a second skin. Frortuny’s first purely fashion garment was a ‘Knossos scarf’. These were designed to be able to used in any way an enable freedom of expression of the body and its movement. This oppsed previous fashion conventions which created clothing that imprisoned the body like a rigid shell. So to develop the second skin, it may be reasonable to make changes to the design to make it more flexible and less regid to allow for movement. This can be done by using the pleated technique to create the skin which will be flexible for the wearer. Structurally, some ideas may be taken from Issy Miyake’s design.

Fortuny heat set the fabric to give it more volume. This technique also gives the fabric wrinke resistance and temperature resistance. To do this, we can twist fabric and place it in boiling water. This will create the wrinkles when it is unrolled. Once this is done, the fabric will be more flexible and allow movement and stretching. Paneling tools can be used to create a templete which it cut into the fabric so that it can then be heat set.

ISSEY MIYAKE

Issey Miyake’s pleats are delicate yet hold their structure. More structure as seen in her designs to the right, allows pleats to retain their fluidity while creating a skin/volume which covers the body without attaching to it. This allows movement of the body inside and with the structure of the fabric without altering its shape. The pleats are made using polyester fabric which has been heat set like Fortuny’s dress. However, in order to create the structured fold, the fabric has been heat set in another direction as well to make the fabric come outwards from the body and have an inflatable form.

In our design, we have looked at ways to recreate this.we ironed out prototypes to create the pleats but more experimentation into heat setting needs to be done to make firmer folds in the fabric.

REFLECTION ON DESIGN PROCESS - IDEAS

this design so far is a way of thinking, inventing and innovating and purely serves the purpose of being able to express and idea of an altered sense of space, which focuses on that which define the personal space. Like Olafur Ellasson’s Weather project at the Tate Modern, 2004. He constructed a scenario where people are no longer familiar with the conventions of everyday by reconnecting people with the sun rise. In our design, we are reconnecting people with their sense of personal space. As this project has developed, new ideas have arisen and have shaped changes in the physical appearance of the design and its creation.

New ideas have not just been in terms of deisgn but also concent. Lambros Malafourit a cognitive archaeologist, in an article from the new scientist, 2013, argues that human intelligence spreads out beyond the skin into culture and the material word. This reflects the purpose of this design, which is to represent the physical manifestation of thoughts on what is personal space. He highlights how human engagement with the material world is what extends and reconnects the brain and the body, breaking with reductionist “internalistic” theories, which would say that the mental realm is separate from the physical realm.

The sense of personal space is physical, it just is not seen. So this project will materialise a new sense that there is a divide and explore ways that objects become cognitive extensions or are incorporated by the body. An example he uses is a blind person with a stick. It is hard to say then where this person’s self beguins as there is a unity with the blind man and the stick because the tactile sensation is projected onto the point of contact with the outside environment through the stick. this shows how the stick or in this case the second skin, can conceptualise minds as continuous and transformative. The material qualities of the design will materialise perceptions of personal space and affecting the senses as well as portraying what defines the personal space.

Interior of PrototypeNEED WEBSITE******Image: http://www.0lll.com/architectureexhibitions/?gal=23

REFLECTION ON DESIGN PROCESS + PROTOTYPES

our design process has combined technology by investigating how to model the design on rhino, as well as technique by investigating how this can be translated with materials into form, as well as workmanship by using our hands to put these together and create something. However, this involves taking care in making. It requires a level of skill, as David Pye states, workmanship is that which “the designer cannot give effective instructions abut by drawing or words, although they can envisage it perfectly well”. This is why the process of making prototypes has come in very handy. By attempting to create what has been envisaged thus far, a better knowledge of how other techniques may better suit what we want to do can be gained by learning what does or doesn’t work. As workmanship involves uncertainty, this part of the project has been crucial in directing us further, into more specific ways of making that may further enhance the concept being explored and with what materials, and how.

It is a design process.

“even when making is experimental and open-ended, it observes rules. Craft always involves parameters, imposed by materials, tools, scale and the physical body of the maker. Sometimes in making, things go wrong. An unskilled maker, hitting the limits of their ability, might stop. An expert, though, will find a way through the problem, con-stantly unfolding new possibilities within the process” Daniel Charny curator of power of making @ V & A Museum 2012

This reflects how our design has developed. We have investigated crafts and pro-gressed with each, finding limitations, only to have new possibilities unfold and new types of craft to explore.

From this point, to create what we want to build we must reflect on advice given from our tutor and new inspiration from new materials and techniques. Then we can finalize the design and have it ready to fabricate. Currently, our prototypes could be made of lighter material to make inflation easier. It will also need to have more struture that is less reliant on a skin and bone system to make inflation a key element.

PROTOTYPE 1

In this prototype, thin but dense material which allows air to run though was used. This meant that it did not flow easily or inflate well but was uefull in gaining a sense of pos-sible structures that could be created when heat setting material.

Material is gathered by having two layers, between which wire is held in place by stitch-ing.Pleats are created to make a shell structure. This create a volume around the body but it does not easily inflate with movement.

Some approaches could be taken into consideration to maximise the potential for the use of material and its movement which will inflate the structure. Panelling tools can be used to elaborate on creating pleats and cuves which create the spiral as seen in the front and will give the material more spring and felxibility. In addition, some sails can be created so that the design can capture air.

PROTOTYPE 2

Lighter and more flexible material was the nsued to catch air and move easily with the wearer. Material is gathered and pleats create a shell. The pleats were aimed to catch air however, this just made the shell heavier, especially with this fabric and the quantity of it that was gathered.

Ironing this or heat setting it may make the fabric more rigid and this setting may they allow it to catch air and move more easiry rather than slumping down.

INVESTIGTION INTO NEW MATERIALS TO INFORM DESIGN PROCESS

CUBEN FABRIC

Light weight, non waven and used for yacht sails, kites and other objects that require material that is rip resistant and can catch air due to its light weight qualities. Some things to consider working with it is that it will crimp and crumple up and that it comes in many different weights.

Below is an example of what this looks like and how it can be used to create an envelope around the body and catch air.

KEVLAR FABRIC

Also light weight, non woven and very versatile and very strong. Has similar applications but more durable and a slightly different structure

POLYESTER

Can be used to create pleats by using heat setting.

PROTOTYPING WITH PLEATSrecreating AKIRA’s pleats using polyestester by heat setting it in a twirled spike.

Inspiration:

http://barrylornefreedman.com/http://www.harpersbazaar.com.au/gallery-full.htm?gid=64853

RESULT: HEAT SETTING + STARCH SPRAY

Fabric Experimentation

I experimented with weav-ing strips of fabric on the left using the section and profile system.

I cut strips into the fabric to create a sail-effect, and also visually incorporate profile and sectioning.

Rhino Work Week 7

Perspective Rhino Model Back Rhino Model

We experimented in creating the structure with paper that we desired our inflation system to reach when fully inflated. The rigidity of the paper is only for prototype purposes, and in the model, the wearer will not have to hold it up with her hands.

Prototyping Week 7

“Architecture in the Digital Age - Design and Manufacturing”Kolarevic

The translation of 3D to 2D and 2D to 3D has been brought about by the evolving technology of the Digital Age. The construction of complex geometries is now made possible by 2D and 3D fabrication techniques. Two-Dimensional Fabrication, such as laser cutters, function only two-dimensionally. Three-dimensional fabrication includes subtractive and additive fabrication. Subtractive Fabrication is the removal of certain designated volumes from a solid by electro-, mechanically-, or chemically reductive technology, and depending on the technology of the machinery, certain axes may be restricted or constrained. Additive Fabrication adds materials together incrementally by layers to form solids.

With this technology, designers entered a “digital avant-garde” and are rethinking surface tectonics such as enabling the skin and structure to become one into a self-supporting enclosure. These surfaces, often created from complex geometries, must be created into developable surfaces by triangulation and unfolding, which we will use in our Second Skin design.

“Digital Fabrications: Architectural and Material Technologies”Lisa Iwamoto

At first, design influenced digital fabrication and construction techniques, but as architects and designers became more fluent in digital fabrication techniques, their designs became influenced by the complex curvilinear forms and complex geometries made possible by digital fabrication. As a medium like any other, digital technology has its natural constraints and benefits. One of the most important benefits is the streamlined process from design to physical conception making. The architect is now an integral part of the construction process.

Through sectioning, tessellating, and folding, digital fabrication brings about endless design and construction possibilities and has highly influenced modern design, including our Second Skin design. Each of these processes enables originally simple geometric forms to be shaped into complex designs. The use of Paneling Tools serves as an excellent example of design being shaped by the possibilities of digital design, and 123D Catch is a spot-on use of modeling digital forms from previously existing structures.

WEEK 7RESPONSE TO READINGDescribe one aspect of the recent shift in the use of digital technology from design to fabrication? How does the fabrication process effect your second skin project?Digital technology has shifted the process of design and process. The ability to model a design to a 1:1 scale means that the gap between representation and building has been made smaller. However, this does not mean that the connec-tion is seamless. Digital technology informs fabrication as much as fabrication informs technology. By using sectioning, we merged relations between forms dig-itally and material physically almost exactly, the shape however, was informed by the shape of the body. The inflation system, is more complex, and must serve its function, which either does or does not work and is not something that can be tested on rhino. What we learn from fabrication, informs the use of technology such as rhino from understanding what is physically viable. Fabrication also in-forms what kind of technology to use as well as materials. Throughout the design process, we have gone between digitization and fabrication at almost every stage. Each step informs the next. Like Gehry, we used the physical models for aesthetics and digital models for “system fit”.