PLAY with PLYWOOD: Surface Active Structures - Kalantar + Borhani (Instructors)

PLAY with PLYWOOD: Surface Active Structures - Arch Fabrication
Freshman Design Studios-Texas A&M University, Department of Architecture
Instructors: Negar Kalantar + Alireza Borhani
Fall 2015
In the fall 2015, for exploring the notion of three-dimensional structures, students in freshman design studios in Department of Architecture at Texas A&M University were asked to design Surface Active Arches by using plywood. One of the most significant discoveries made by students working on these Surface Active Arch Design projects was that changing the materials they used also changed their final forms; their forms were not driven simply by geometry, but also by material properties.
Despite the widespread development and adoption of three-dimensional (3D) modeling software that allows designing complicated shapes virtually, physical construction of such complicated shapes are still an important problem. One of the significant challenges is that freshman students do not have software expertise and fabrication knowledge and skills.
The developable surfaces, which can be made out of thin sheets of flat materials by rolling these sheets without stretching, are useful for physical construction of complicated shapes. Flat sheets are also excellent materials for teaching design of complicated architectural shapes since they can simply be cut using laser cutters, which are one of the most available digital fabrication tools in school of architectures. Moreover, using widely available flat sheets such as plywood panels can significantly reduce manufacturing costs.
Students:
Abu Ashour - Akins - Berger - Bush - Campos - Cynthia- Casto- Cook- Duran- Espinosa- Farmer - Flores - Garant - Garcia - Garcia - Garcia - Grasley - Hergert - Holmes - Hornung - Houser - Johnson - Kim - Lamastra - Lambeth - Madrigale - Martinez - Marshall - McArdle - McCabe - Moreno - Ortiz Beltran - Pennacchi - Perez - Preiss - Raymond - Reyes - Richardson - Rosas - Ruby, Rachel - Salazar - Zavala - Smith - Standefer - Taylor - Terry - Vu - Werner - Wilson - Zapata - Zavala - Zipps

[@debralegorreta1375]

Funtastic!

[@anuardelcastillo2627]

Gorgeous work, sensual, clean and elegant. Congrats

[@mulberryworkshop]

Congratulation for the projects guys!

[@evanlane1690]

Amazing work! Did you have to steam bend any of this, or were you able to get it all done right after laser cutting?

[@alirahimi5985]

سلام و عرض ادب میخواستم بدونم طراحی این احجام اوریگامی با چه نرم افزاری طراحی میشوند؟

[@joewoodchuck3824]

How fortunate they are to have the toys and specialized materials to make such nifty things.

[@crustyoldfart]

Being the old curmudgeon that I've grown to be I feel compelled to question whether this is a useful educational activity for students, or is it closer to entertainment for them. The rather obvious posing of apparently thoughtful students with serious intent alongside the structured does little to convince me that this is a serious leaning activity.

[@evanlane1690]

That is pretty curmudgeon-y. I get what you're saying, but investigating ways to use materials in new or unintuitive ways has led to many of the most useful innovations. Plus they're learning a ton and having fun. They're learning about fabrication techniques, degrees of freedom, anisotropic material properties, metamaterial properties, etc. The stuff in this video has direct applications in deployable structures and is being used in cutting edge devices from the James Webb space telescope to surgical microrobotics. Plus it's cool looking. 😁

[@anuardelcastillo2627]

Entretainment? Who are you? Davinci? I rather guess this work makes you jealous...