Saturday, December 13, 2008

Ribs








A small incursion on ribbing, easy enough as an experiment, but here is the result.

Just some curves, a loft and surface.
Give the surface some thickness, duplicating it and create the lateral surfaces (_EdgeSrf), join all surfaces in a closed polysurface creating a solid.
Create the contours in y and x direction (Contour command, with join curves by contour plane option)
Then after obtaining the ribbing, load the ribs script. I've used the script by Un Didi, Kudos to him. And I must also thank Rodrigo Medina and Andre for the pointers.

So I'm still yet to test a unroll script, let's see if I find some time to do that... pointers are always welcome.

3 comments:

Lewis Wadsworth said...

This is very appealing.

I went to grad school with a student who produced something similar for his final studio using Processing and the dxf libraries. I helped him create a physical model using a CNC mill. As I recall, he presented a plausible structural use for the generated forms in undulating concrete waffle floor slabs for his proposed museum project. Have you thought about applying this to a real or potentially-real roofing or flooring project? Not that I am ever one to demand practical results of any kind of form-finding experiments, of course.

Unknown said...

Good Point Lewis, I guess Iike you, I like to approach this techniques not only with a fair amount of experimentalism but a also with a practical approach.
Unfortunately the bog ends sup being more "graphic" showing but a glimpse of the things I'm actually researching, you know how it it ... :)

The technique is not as new or experimental as we would like, my first contact with it goes back to 99 when I saw Barnhard Franken's Solar Cloud project. Back then, and as student I was pretty impressed with it. The project consisted in a blob shape skin supported by a structural ribs, the process passed trough gaussian analysis with finite elements and all, then in production the CNC router did the moulds and the ribbing.. Naturally I took that as a "case study".
Recently there is the DRL10 Pavilion that in my opinion ends up to be a "meta-project" in the way that it's halfway between architecture, sculpture and an installation.

My personal interest in it. I'm interested in the ability of producing a sustainable organic like structure that supports the outer and inner skins of the building. I'm thinking laminated wood because of structural and environmental issues. The ability disassembled the whole thing or just parts, and adapt new morphology (in sections or as in a toolkit) it is also interesting to me. This kind of structure with the right tolerances might also work well in seismic regions. There are a few concerns in my mind, and that goes to natural contraction and expansion of the wood (even beeing laminated).
At this point it's not even work in progress, it's though in progress. :)

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