090804_Echinoids_(re)configured

NEW YORK | Bridge Gallery | Echinoids (re)configured


How many people do actualy believe in "failures"?

I do! - while giving talks/lectures I am often arguying about it - "operative failures" - in philosophy, empiricism is a theory of knowledge which asserts that knowledge arises from experience - one of many ways to gain experience is through test and trials - and within the recent jump in scale of the digital craft and the "Do it yourself" paradigm - experience requires failures...

Experiencing failure within prototypes - yes! - and despite often being displayed within art gallery THEVERYMANY's "constructs" are partly installation partly prototypes - though not so much prototypes to see if the systems is actually going to fail? - but rather when? - can failures be expected? - even better anticipated up to embodied within the geometrical system tested potential response?


"the lion sat" - a localized part of Echinoids v1.0 slowly saddled - it didn't break but suffered from "fatigue" - unexpected failure? - blind future? - I would argue for curated ones...

Temporary installation are related to time - but also budget - aggregate systems and their inherent qualities are highly depending on numbers - unfortunately numbers are often the exact opposit vector to time/budget - then if no budget the system requires carefull compositionnal search methods to maintain a scale large enough to be experienced by its viewer as architectural artefact - homogeneity could be one way to go - unfortunately spreading the elements all accross the construct while maintaining structural integrity often requires down sizing...


"until where can one go too far?"

Echinoids system is based on "calculated risk" - calculated risk is different from denying risk or maximising efforts to avoid falires - here the aggregate is designed through variation of desnties - balancing strengh and weakness - fully closed macro-systems as stable larger parts and low density members at transitional areas - a curated aggregate system allowing within its own geometric nature possible partial re-configuration - "explosion" as safe away exit strategy - allowing second lifes for a piece: from construct to environment...


That (re)configuration is only the first one possible - and therefore to be followed along the summer for eventual other ones...

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The flower is said to be the most conspicuous part of the plant. Their appeal has encouraged Man to know and possess them, developing technique such as gardening. The beauty of their petals - regarded as a highly modified leafs - has mainly been developed to attract pollinators (insects, birds or bats) which play an important role in the reproductive process of pollinating.

As an architect the easy shortcut of assimilating petals to cladding is a very tempting analogy: even though both have very different constraints and mode of operation, cladding -like petals- other than defining and protecting its host is often mainly regarded as an ornamental design exercise with one function only: made to attract… though within one rule only: within budget!



Here that shortcut has been taken to its paradigm as starting hypothesis: assuming the time of a geometrical wandering only - like some sort of temporary but controlled amnesia- that a cladding strategy could be elaborate on a flower attraction effect (affect??) though not by the complex geometry of its petal but rather by the intricacy of its assembly…

If “within a certain cost” intricacy can only be achieved within repetition - here:
- take 4 flowers (flower as assembly but also assemblage) describe within a pyramid
- each flower is made of 4 petals
- each petal is simplified based on a closed nurbs curve written within a triangle
- but also each petals is common at two flowers
- add 4 more flowers as the exact mirror of the first ones
You can therefore describe 8 different flowers of 4 petals with height 8 unique petals only…




If the entire story isn’t based on 4 random pyramids but based on four Danzer tiles you could depending on the scale potentially describe any shapes within such packing based on 4 flowers (connections) and 8 unique petals (tiles)…