Showing posts with label arduino. Show all posts
Showing posts with label arduino. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Toronto Design Offsite 2016: 325 Church Street: BLOMÉ

Throughout the course of history, human activity has created detrimental effects on the environment in a variety of ways and scales. In our recent years, these implications have been magnified and are constantly discussed globally, criticizing our behavior and relationship to the sensitive earth on which we exist. Humans have wiped out harmless species, demolished beautiful, natural landscapes and infested the soils and water of the Earth with poison. We have exploited and savaged the environment for our own selfishness and ease of lifestyle. Blomé is an installation that speaks to the effects of our activity in a metaphoric way.

How can we get back to the purity of the landscape before we took it for granted? How can we once again learn to appreciate the movements of the natural, its character, and personality? Are we too far gone to recognize and idealize natural beauty, and enjoy it for the atmosphere and not its economic value?

To express the ways our movements as humans cause a reaction on landscapes and environments, a fragile white form hovers mere meters from the ground, with lengths undulating like waves. Strips of translucent, airy, white fabric and porous netting stand perfectly still and static, only fluttering from the movement of visitors who walk past ultrasonic sensors, activating a fan. The fan enhances the movement of strips, causing them to dance and move, just as every move we make on this planet causes a reaction – no matter how subtle. The sensors also activate lights, which brighten and pulsate, like stars moving across the sky. We believe that this, a brightening, a gentle breeze, and swaying in the move are all beautiful movements found naturally in the environment, and are encapsulated in Blomé as reminders to tread lightly.

Carving out space, creating caverns from cloud like fabric reverses the ways we perceive and move through space; how and where we understand boundaries. Do you duck beneath the fabric and walk slowly or pace quickly through it? This is comment on how we perceive our environment; do we barrel through, claiming what is our space from the fragile boundaries and layers, or do we respect it, trying to preserve its natural qualities?








Toronto Design Offsite 2016: 325 Church Street: WHISPER

Whisper is an installation that allows people to share their secrets. The design is inspired by the candlestick telephone that features a transmitter and a receiver in the shape of a bell. Many bells hang from the ceiling to form the whole installation. Some bells contain a speaker, sensor and microphone.
The installation functions through motion sensors at variety of distances to either record or play recordings. When an object appears within 10 cm of the sensor, the microphone begins recording a short message. When someone is within 1 meter of the sensor, the speaker is activated.








Toronto Design Offsite 2016: 325 Church Street: NOVA

NOVA is an installation inspired by the natural phenomenon itself. A star that suddenly increases in brightness and then slowly returns to its natural state over time. The hanging structure proposed increases in brightness as people approach it; the closer the person is, the brighter the structure becomes. The use becomes engulfed by a bright space, surrounded by tessellating tetrahedrons. Each surface of the tessellation contains a reflective surface, the closest of which is an infinity mirror that resonates the bright space. These mirrors reflect all of the light on the structure infinitely, providing the experience of being in the cosmos themselves.










Toronto Design Offsite 2016: 325 Church Street: RAINMAKER

The cylindrical form insulates the installation from outside noises and visual interference. In doing so the interactor can become fully immersed in the dense soundscape, and remove themselves from the urban context, embracing the audio rainscape created.









Toronto Design Offsite 2016: Digital Tools Prototypes at 325 Church Street



Here are some samples of this year's upcoming Digital Tools prototypes that will be on display in the Architecture Building at 325 Church Street. This sampling is particularly impressive given that the students had access to fabrication resources for all of FOUR days.











Friday, October 3, 2014

Pneumatic Tests

Something that really does not come across in the still images of Stomata under construction is the pneumatic investigations Fil, Matt, and the rest of the team are undertaking. Here are a few video clips of the experiments with the inflatable materials, fans, and variable volume settings.







Parametricism, Physical Computing, and Lots of Plastic: Stomata Production

Despite what the final outcome will be of the Stomata Project, it is worth taking a look at some of the digital modeling and parametric workflows that developed the geometry of the installation.



Additionally, it is important to keep in mind the logistics and oversight of the physical computing required to make such installation work responsive.




Though all of the previous two components are critical in developing a strong design, the end result has to be fabricated, and in this case using a great deal of plastic and laser cutting...







Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Stomata In Progress

As Nuit Blanche is imminent, the Stomata group is readying their installation at the Bata Shoe Museum. Using the array of parametric modelling and fabrication tools, this year's pneumatic installation is quickly starting to shape up.