Low-Tech Design Challenge

As the students developed the design further, the idea of using household objects to maintain a low-cost, low-tech project that was still intriguing and engaging came into play. The room would be filled with 8 modules that attached to each other to shrink the size of the room. One module is consistent of recycled wood for the structure and frame, a household floor fan sealed by a plastic bag, LED’s, fabric and black bristol board paper for the textile skin.

Using Arduino technology, a monitor is being mounted above each module which sensors as a person walks by, this will cause the LED’s to turn on behind the black skin and the fan to expand the bag onto the fabric, resulting in the skin imposing on the individual. FRAKTUR focuses on a modular assembly to achieve the breathing walls without over complicating its design.

The Gladstone Hotel, being a heritage building offered a list of restrictions on the team; small door and corridors, few outlets, unlevel floors. The students visited the space several times while developing to ensure the design was possible to achieve.

CUTMR 2019: FRAKTUR meets Gladstone

As the school year is coming to an end, the deadline’s continue… Submissions for the Gladstone Hotel’s annual Come Up To My Room exhibition are making way. #CUTMR2019 is all about exploring interactive design that stimulates creativity and imagination. This year the [R]ed[U]x team made a proposal to represent Ryerson for one of the small rooms of the hotel.

Exploring the means of expansion and contraction through kinetic design, FRAKTUR intends on making the static room feel alive. It breathes life into an otherwise dark and confined space. Akin to the mechanics of organic beings, FRAKTUR will create the sensation of breathing that is naturally associated with life and its reaction to humans. It may evoke fear, claustrophobia, curiosity, or maybe even comfort as visitors enter the room. As soon it senses the presence of a wanderer, it reacts defensively. The walls begin to breathe and expand, occupying a greater amount of space. Glowing cracks are revealed in its once uniform jet-black skin as it attempts to interact eerily with the foreign entity. One may feel as if they had entered into the belly of a beast as the pulsating walls close in...