Congratulations to the selected winners of the 2016 Winter Stations! This year Ryerson University's Department of Architectural Science will have TWO teams, one in the academic category and another that was successful in the International Competition Category. Congratulations to Calvin and Victor in the Master of Architecture program!
The Department is also pleased to be participating with the other distinguished design institutions with its entry, Lithoform designed by [R]ed[U]x Lab veterans Remi Carreiro and Aris Peci. Let's hope that this team can match the success of last year's Snow Cone installation from the Department!
Congratulations to both Ryerson teams and we look forward to seeing their work in the next month!
Thanks to Farah for creating this little video documenting how the Flummox team crafted each vinyl record into a base piece for the tessellated surface. Clearly from this video, there is a great deal of time and energy spent into making a single element even with all the conveniences of digital fabrication at our disposal!
As the Flummox team continues to assemble its TODO 2016 installation for Pandemonium in the Junction, they have released another rendering and updated imagery on how their fabrication is coming along.
As the team continues developing the design, they have been experimenting and eventually mass-producing the vinyl records into units for tessellation later on in the design. Using the heat gun and routed jig pieces, the team slowly but surely has refined a workflow in generating the materials for the TODO2016 event at Pandemonium.
Once again the [R]ed[U]x Lab team has the privilege to participate in the Toronto Design Offsite festival in the Junction. This year the team will be mounting a window installation in Pandemonium: New and Used Books, CDs, DVDs, & Vinyl. Here are a couple of early renderings as the design concept developed.
Just a reminder of the great success that Lily and Diana and their entire Ripple team had at the 2015 Nuit Blanche event (sponsored by Subaru and located at Queen's Quay Terminal).
And of course, thanks to Remi for the great photos!
Their project also made it on to the Nuit Blanche Promo Video!
It is always great to see how ideas come from prototypes in the Department of Architectural Science and make it to a larger stage. Here's a reminder of the original prototype on display in the ARCH building at 325 Church Street at the 2015 Toronto Design Offsite Festival.
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?
