A collection of studies in fabrication, geometry, and material.
Geometric Studies
Software: Rhino, Adobe Photoshop
Fabrication: acrylic lasercutting, cement casting, 3D powder printing, 3D PLA printing
The Hourglass is a palindrome.
Cast in cement from a meticulously crafted acrylic mold, the Hourglass is a stair to somewhere and to nowhere. The structure's name is inspired by its palindromic nature--it can be rotated 180 degrees on any of the three main axes and appear exactly the same. One can imagine following a path up or along this structure, only to have it rotated and find themselves right back where they started.
The Euclid is a geometric kaleidoscope.
This 3D powder-printed object was made possible via experimentation with the circular paraboloid, a surface formed by starting with a flat square and stretching all four of its corners vertically. When six identical circular paraboloids are joined at each other's endpoints and the spaces of intersection among them are isolated, the Euclid is formed.
The Hyperb is a demonstration of architecture.
This 3D PLA-printed structure is directly modeled after the Chapel Lomas de Cuernavaca, a real-life building designed by Felix Candela. The proportions of the original building were recaptured exactly using geometry--the entire structure is cut from a hyperbolic paraboloid, which is formed when opposite corners of a flat square are pulled in opposite vertical directions. The result is a saddle-like object.
Note the indentations on the 3D print: the two large ones are the main parabolas the Hyperb is formed by; one pointing up, the other pointing down. The diagonal cross-sections are isocurves, and shockingly, they are all perfectly straight; the hyperbolic paraboloid is a ruled surface, meaning that every point on its surface lies on a straight line.