VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS: TURTLE CARAPACE

Kim Nguyen 636114SEMESTER 1/2013

Group 12

MODULE 1: IDEATION

“Students will formulate design ideas and explore emerging form through a series of design workshops using drawings and physical models as the design me-dium. In the workshops, we will decode rules and construct ‘recipes’ behind a found natural pattern.

”

Whilst every turtle and toroise has a shell, the variation amongst the colour, design, shape, form and density is remarkable. These variabilities are mostly defined by the species of the turtle but small discrepancies always appear amongst each individual creature. Turtle shells have two main sections, the upper dome (called the carapace) and the flat section underneath (called the plastron). Both of these sections together act as armour for the soft organs within. Of the whole turtle shell, the carapace in particular will be examined.

Whilst the carapace of different turtles varies, there are certain features which remain constant;

1. HEXAGONS: Each carapace is composed of numerous six sided shapes - not necessarily with equal length edges or equal length sides. Non-hexagonal quadrilaterals are also used but only at edges - the main form will always be composed of hexagons.

2. TESSELLATION: Each individual shape which forms the carapace tessellates with surrounding shapes, with at least one edge touching the side of another hexagon.

3. REPETITION: The turtle carapace has many elements of repetition - firstly there is the aforementioned repeated tiling of hexagons. Secondly, there is repetition within each individual scute on the carapace. As scutes become older a new layer grows beneath them, pushing the old layer upwards. This process leads to the same shape repeated multiple times as a new layer grows beneath the old one.

“H e x a g o n s ,T e s s e l l a t i o n ,R e p e t i t i o n .

”The three features I extracted from the tur-tle shell pattern became the key compo-nents to my recipe, the recipe which I in-tended to use as my basis and starting point.

Thus I created my recipe: first, create a six sided shape. Next, create another six sided shape which has at least one sharing edge with the previous shape. Repeat the creation of six sided shapes, ensuring the shapes tessellate.

This recipe will be referred to and used through-out the process of the creation of my lantern.

INSPIRED BY: WERNER

AISSLINGER

The images provided here are of studio Aisslinger’s crea-tion - Coral Seating. This seating uses a blend of felt and polycarbon bound into sheets to form small sec-tions, which when grouped together compose the structure of the seat. The seat truly has a coral feel and also gives an open and airy impression to its surround-ings due to the open space created within the seat.

I find this piece particularly interesting and inspiring be-cause I feel this design is a true reflection of how the tes-selation of six sided shapes can produce organic, flowing and graceful forms. The convention that hexagons are rigid shapes is diverted - showing that hexagons can be curved and natural. There is also great emphasis on having the inside of the seat visible as well as the outside - furniture design often focuses on how things look on the outside and I find it particularly rare for the inside of a piece to be seen.

Physical and digital mediums were used to explore the recipe which I had created: paper was used with techniques such as extrusion to explore what kinds of forms can be created via use of the recipe. Paper was then used to create a free-form shape, based off the same recipe.

What this process revealed was not only the interest-ing tessellations hexagons can undergo but also that hexagon shapes vary remarkably. In order to make many of the sections tessellate, the paper would be warped and twisted with many edges twisting and turning. Further analysing this pattern through digi-tal media (usage of Rhinoceros software) showed the variability required in shapes to create a form.

The beauty behind the curves is also revealed - six sided shapes are generally considered to be such structured, rigid forms but when used collectively, they can together achieve a graceful curving effect.

Read more here:http://www.aisslinger.de/index.

php?option=com_project&view=detail&pid=8&Itemid=1

INSPIRED BY: ALLISONPATRICK

Works by architect Allison Patrick often incor-porate the usage of recycled materials to form useful and aesthetically pleasing piec-es of household furnishings. The piece that I found particularly inspiring was her pendant lamp, composed of hundreds of individual ordinary origami fortune tellers wrapped around a pre-existing spherical lamp. It is a bright white colour when unlit but under the influence of light, glows warmly and creates a warm and inviting atmosphere.

The lighting effect of this piece is what I am mainly interested in - the folded ar-eas of paper create shadow within the lantern itself rather than on the walls. As wel as that, the shadows create an inter-esting visual effect of organised contrast. The lighting effect I hope my lantern to achieve would be similar to this - a soft am-bient light that would work well with the soft curving shape of the lantern’s form. Read more here:

http://the3rsblog.wordpress.com/

When applying the recipe and pattern to the medium of plasticine, a few differences appeared. Several hexagons were cut out of flat sheets of plasticine and then fitted together while still following the rule that was created. While repetition and hexagons were achieved, it was very difficult to have each piece tessellate and fit well to each other. Some were able to fit but many small gaps and spaces of-ten appeared and what this proved was that deformation of each individual shape was necessary so that the recipe would be adhered to.

This activity also introduced a new idea and realsation of the recipe; while the outside of the form has its own qualities, the inside has just as many qualities of its own. In saying this, it should be realised that the inside and the outside of the form both have relevance and the qualities from both sides should be seen.

VIEW OF INSIDE

VIEW OF OUTSIDE

INDIVIDUAL PIECES

WORK IN PROGRESS

MODULE 2: DESIGN

“In this module we will focuson the use of paneling toolsand designing the spatialand atmospheric effects ofthe lantern.

”

Above is the finished pattern with different variables: (L-R)• Original grid and surface without applied pattern• Applied pattern onto 40x25 grid with Offset: 2.5• Applied pattern onto 40x25 grid with Offset: 5• Applied pattern onto 25x25 grid with Offset: 5

Top to Bottom:• Front View• Perspective View• Back view

The first panel I had created and applied is shown below from three different viewpoints and with variation in grid density. This 3D panel is composed of tessellating hexagons which taper to meet a centrepoint in the middle of the hexagon.

A back and front screencapture have been included to show how the inside and outside of the panel both have their own pattern and the perspective screencapture shows how the panel casts shadow on itself.

This panel also works well with curves - a feature that is crucial to the design of the lantern. With both con-cave and convex curves, the panel bends well and is able to be applied with relative ease and there is no clashing of the panels where the curve is most angular.

PANELLING TRIALS: 1

The following step was to apply the newly formed panel to different surfaces, including my model form design. When applying the pan-el to a simple half sphere, it was evident that the number of panels and the amount of grid points on the surface would have to be calculat-ed so that the panels would ‘close up’. On the top of the half sphere is a remaining opening as the calculation step had not been done.

Following this was an application on a more complex form: the form which had been created as the base for the lantern. The base shape is curve orientated with a large opening at the top which allows for visibility of the inner side of the pattern. After application of the panel, it was real-ised that although the curving form was well reflected, the gentle qual-ity of the curves had been completely lost and the model was now a seemingly haphazard cluster of spikes. The only way to regain the ini-tially desired gracefulness was to remodel the form and recreate panels.

PANELLING TRIALS: 2

The second panel which I had designed had a hexagonal base with all the edges extruded and the images on this page show how the panel looks when applied to simple curves. I find this panel far more effective at portray-ing the desired effects than the previous panel - and the differences between the inner and outer surfaces are also far more prominent.

As with the previous panel, there will be spaces in some areas with joins. To coun-ter this, either calculation will be needed to be done, otherwise manually insert-ing surfaces into empty spaces will suffice.

Despite the aesthetical appeal of the panel, there were still many is-sues which arose from this panel. As this panel was also the one I was set on using for the lantern, resolving the aforementioned problems could not be done by changing the panel itself.

The first problem involved the unroll-ing of the panels: even when unroll-ing simple test panels, the unrolled sections would not unroll connect-ed to adjoining faces and would rather unroll stacked on top of one another. There was no way for Rhi-no to unroll then connected so the only option that remained was to unroll each panel individually and connect them to each other once they were cut out from the paper.

However, even this solution pro-duced its own problems. If pan-els were triangulated (which all of them would have to be) the sur-faces which composed the faces and the surfaces which composed the sides would connect at ran-dom places. Initially, the randomly connected panels were used but proved very difficult to form with paper and also were a lot weak-er than the ‘single faced’ panels.

The top right picture shows the split faced panels and the bot-tom right picture shows the single faced panels. Within several hours, the split faced panels fell apart and even initially needed much more glue to stay stuck together.

MODULE 3: FABRICATION

“Students will use computer software to unfold their model into a cutting template. They will make a self-supporting paper model from the template

”

P R O T Y T P I N G

Now that the most efficient way to unroll the panels has been realised, more unrolling can be-gin. Sectional prototypes were creates to test the paper strength, paper weight, lighting, and possibilities of using different types of paper.

The first thing noticed was the strength and durability of the ivory card available from the FabLab - paper of this thickness provides great structural stability but is also very limit-ing in terms of light which can pass through.

Replacing panels with tracing paper had always been a possibility for the lantern design and in this prototype is was finally tested. Tracing paper was far easier to use and manipulate than the ivory card but, of course, lacked the strength. The light which was shone on the section was able to pass through and produced a very bright ‘glow’ but I felt this high contrast ruined the ambient effect that I had been aiming for. The high areas of bright light seemed random and distracting from the overall form and shape so the idea of using trac-ing paper for some panels had been scrapped.

FINAL MODEL DESIGN

Now that the most effective method of unrolling has been established, the final design of the model can be unrolled. The shape of the final model is de-rived from the first design (focus on inside and outside, large opening at one end) but with less small curves. The second panel pattern designed during module 2 has been maintained and used for this base form.

The images above show; the plain base surface, the surface with an applied grid and the pattern applied to the grid, with triangulation to the faces. Some ar-eas of the form, particularly around the seam, had miss-ing areas where the panels did not tessellate so indi-vidual faces were manually inserted to fill the voids.

The model had been divided into 12 seperate strips, each of which allo-cated a different colour. These strips ran across lengthwise and consisted of several individual panels. Because not many tabs were needed, they were drawn in manually rather than using grasshopper - if grasshopper was used, more time would be spent deleting tabs than if drawn manually).

It is hard to notice from merely looking but there was a very major prob-lem which arose from this single strip sample: for many of the faces, the score lines which had been cut by the card cutter were actually on the wrong side of the paper. i.e., many of the panels would be folded inside out. This small mistake would mean that many panels will not fit into place un-less placed in backwards, which is definitely not an option as it would ruin the effect. The worst part was, not all the panels were backwards so simply mirroring each unrolled panel would not mean they would all be correct.

The only two options that remained were: firstly to go through every single

FULL SCALE PROTOTYPING

piece an reverse the incorrect piec-es, or replace all the lines on the faces with dashed lines to allow for folding in either direction. The deci-sion I made was the latter option.

MAKING DASHED LINES

Thus began the painstaking task of changing each and every score line to a dashed line. Initially, each dash line had four individual lines within it but this number was later changed to vary de-pending on the length of the line. Grasshopper was used to create the dashed lines but during the fabrication process, if not enough dashes were found in some places they were cut in manually.

STRIP 1. BLUESTRIP 2. BLACKSTRIP 3. FLURO GREENSTRIP 4. MAGENTASTRIP 5. MAROONSTRIP 6. LIGHT BLUESTRIP 7. PINKSTRIP 8. NAVYSTRIP 9. ORANGESTRIP 10. GREENSTRIP 11. PLUM PURPLESTRIP 12. SALMON PINK

EXPLODED ISOMETRIC

T H E C O N S T R U C T I O N P R O C E S S

The construction of the first full scale prototype seemed to be easy but had many more prob-lems than anticipated. Super glue (and lots of it) was required to keep the lantern together, regu-lar glue led to the prototype falling apart. But the most crucial problem was that the main seam did not meet up with the seam on the other egde (as seen in the last photo). Countering this prob-lem seemed near impossible but more accu-rate folding should result in a proper seam joining.

3m white cables: used for join-ing electrical elements. White blended in well with the paper and helped make wiring discrete.

1x AAA Battery holder: used to hold the battery. As the battery was a bit short tin foil was used to fill the void.

1x 9V Battery: Used to pow-er the electrical circuit.

1x push switch: used to turn on and off the lights. Push switch was used so positive/negative light di-rection could be disregarded.6x 10mm white 5000MCD LED lights: six were used in the cir-cuit, all powered by one battery.

1x wire strippers: used to take plastic off the wires. Teeth also make great wire strippers. W

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T H EF I N A LM O D E L

R E F L E C T I O N

This project truly reflects the nature of design as a non-linear, interactive process. Ad-vances in technology in the form of CAD systems have enabled designers and archi-tects to be able to quickly redesign and reconfigure different elements of their project and the fabrication stage can be repeated numerous times, instead of just once as it was before the technological revolution. During my own process of design and fabrica-tion, many steps were taken forward but almost just as many were taken backwards - as problems arose and small mistakes and errors were found I had to continually re-do things that I had already spent so long doing.

Over the past ten weeks, another thing that has become very clear is the sheer ca-pabilities that humans have now to create things that were once considered unim-aginable, the world where there were only rectaingular buildings no longer exists and the boundaries of design are continually being pushed further and further. Technology allows this boundary to be pushed and allows for people to be able to create whatever they picture in their minds with a whole new level of ease.

It is also interesting to see how one simple idea, one pattern, or one recipe can lead to so many varieties of designs and how it transforms throughout time. As more and more testing is done, the design continually warps and changes - sometimes slightly but sometimes very drastically. Even though the design may have transformed itself the original stem of the idea is still the same. Thus from this one idea have emerged numer-ous ideas - it is as if the idea has a life of its own and people merely fabricate this life.

R E F E R E N C E Sstudio aisslinger - Coral Seating. 2013. studio aisslinger - Coral Seating. [ON-LINE] Available at: http://www.aisslinger.de/index.php?option=com_project&view=detail&pid=8&Itemid=1. [Accessed 2013]

the 3 R’s blog | 30 Projects x 30 Weeks x 3 Principles. 2013. the 3 R’s blog | 30 Projects x 30 Weeks x 3 Principles. [ONLINE] Available at: http://the3rsblog.wordpress.com/. [Accessed 2013]

Poling, Clark (1987): Analytical Drawing In Kandisky’s Teaching at the Bauhaus Rizzoli, New York, pp. 107-122

Tooling / Aranda, Lasch. New York : Princeton Architectural Press, 2006

Ball, Philip (2012): Pattern Formation in Nature, AD: Architectural Design, Wiley, 82 (2), March, pp. 22-27

Scheurer, F. and Stehling, H. (2011):Lost in Parameter Space? IAD: Architec-tural Design, Wiley, 81 (4), July, pp. 70-79

Thomas Heatherwick: Building the Seed Cathedral | Video on TED.com. 2013. Thomas Heatherwick: Building the Seed Cathedral | Video on TED.com. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.ted.com/talks/thomas_heatherwick.html. [Accessed 2013]

Architecture in the Digital Age - Design and Manufacturing /Branko Kolarevic. Spon Press, London, c2003

Digital fabrications: architectural and material techniques / Lisa Iwamoto. New York : Princeton Architectural Press, c2009.

The third Industrial Revolution / Jeremy Rifkin. Palgrave Macmillan, C2011.pp107-126