Shape Memory Polymer Chair

Multi-Pede Chair: http://www.fadarch.com/multipede.html

Multi-Pede Chair is an adjustable chair with no mechanical parts; the chair is designed around an Electroactive Shape Memory Polymer core. Plug the chair into a standard electrical outlet and watch its material properties transform from solid to elastic, stretch, twist and push your chair into a new configuration. Unplug and watch your new design solidify.

Any configuration is possible; the chair has hundreds of legs that cover its entire body. The legs change material, lengthen, shorten and change their section as they change orientation, at times they are legs and at other times they are seats. We have not designed a chair but hundreds of pieces of a chair. The material is infinitely reconfigurable; we can not rely on one sitting surface or one leg so we must create hundreds.

Learn more about Shape Memory Polymers

DesCours 2009

FADarch is pleased to have been part of this year’s annual DesCours (http://www.descours.us/) event in New Orleans. Francis Bitonti (FADarch) and Brian Osborn (bo-th.com) collaborated to construct a 500sqft robotic canopy titled “openHouse prototype two”

Concept:
openHouse is an illuminated canopy filling the upper portion of a small courtyard. As participants fill the courtyard the space is transformed by a field of kinetic devices. Our objective is to create a fluid public condition which is programmed by habitation and social interaction. Participants control the architecture through the seating. The ceiling is created from a grid of robotic components. The components randomly contract and expand while at rest. When the space is empty only one turns on at a time. As people begin to occupy the seating under the canopy, more components begin flickering on and off. Two people will cause three units to randomly dance around three people will activate four and four people will activate 5 etc…

opening night video


Video of openHouse during construction

ACADIA 09

Francis Bitonti will be presenting his paper titled “Computational Tectonics” at this years Acadia conference. The paper outlines a methodology for encoding and decoding material assemblages as discrete computational systems.

Abridged Abstract:

This paper outlines a methodology for encoding and decoding material assemblages as discrete computational systems. Exploiting the combinatorial nature of tectonic systems makes it possible to produce a population of “material algorithms” capable of exhibiting a wide range of behaviors. Encoding assemblages as discrete systems affords the designer the ability to enumerate and search all possible permutations of a tectonic system. In this paper, we will discuss the calculations and computational processes used to encode material assemblages as populations of discrete algorithms.

For more information about the conference please see the conference website

Opening Night

Last night was the opening reception for the Wild Child Exhibition at the Bridge Gallery in Manhattan.

WILD CHILD

http://bridgegalleryny.com/wildchild/

FADarch will be showing work in the “Wild Child” exhibition at the Bridge Gallery in Manhattan. The exhibition will run from July 9^th to September 2^nd.

Peter Macapia and Marilyn Garber of bridgegallery are pleased to present WildChild, a unique array of computationally experimental art, architecture and design involving the latest experiments in digital and algorithmic computing and advanced fabrication. Each of the designers in this exhibition have taught and evolved over the last decade using digital, animation, scripting, and parametric software tools. However, they have recently begun to develop idiosyncratic attitudes that continually defy easy categorization either in methodology or results. They are essentially ‘wild’ in their technical ambition and in their aesthetic. In that sense, the artists, designers, and architects in this exhibition are moving towards new theories, new territories, and new problems.

The extraordinary range of skill and technique exhibited through WildChild comes from a rigorous and continued manipulation of software tools branching into the generation of code, and producing exotic results. The question becomes how these processes result or impinge upon material considerations and aesthetic affect. Selecting work that represents major developments from New York City on the East Coast and Los Angeles on the West Coast, WildChild introduces a new generation of work tempered by the differences in urban environment as well as design sensibility and fabrication.

WildChild includes:

Aranda\Lasch

FPmod

p-a-t-t-e-r-n-s

Atilier Manferdini

Kokkugia

SOFTlab

Biothing

Kol/Mac

Supermanoeuvre

Emergent

Murmur

Testa & Weiser

FADarch

Noah Olmsted

THEVERYMANY

Squiggle Script

Click to see the code

Nearest Neighbor Script

This is a nearest neighbor script I have been working on in Mathematica.

Click to see the code