Skinning Steel Addendum

Skinning Steel
Skinning the between, or the re-qualification of urban niches.

Keywords
in-between, symbiosis, endemic, parasitic, incongruous spaces, evolutive cityscape, vascular city, hybrid spaces, systemic organization.

Abstract
Skinning the between is a possibility, an equation. It’s a primary and very basic approach to a great deal of fragment thoughts about the city.

The project originates from a reflection about the velocity of the world we live. How the new interacts with the old, how the spaces between the those patches are mediated, how the spaces between spaces structure the urban fabric.

These residual spaces between, underneath or even above large structures, and somehow incongruous spaces tend to assume a fascinating hybrid nature, since they are formed as a by-product of the relation between the large, often tall structures, and the residual space in-between. From a formal and graphic approach, we can understand them as just another layer in the urban fabric, a sort of a residual vascular system. That might be, but there is also a difference between rationalizing space in our minds, and the actual fruition of those same spaces. A lot has been said and written about this spaces (more non-spaces), eventually in a best effort non-places, using Auge’s terminology. The project is expected reserve an symbiotic and endemic nature.

Skinning steel, is a small experiment, that aims to the re-use of steel structures in urban niches. This way exploring the possibility of re-framing steel structures, that grow between, under or above urban existences. Skinned with a polymeric membrane, acts simultaneously as a roof, facade, floor. Subverts the notion of interior and exterior. Creates shade, and visual frames without enclosure.

In this hybrid environment, equates the possibility of creating an independent support system for various programmatic purposes. The possibility of generating a support structure for an argumented reality layer is also assumed, enforcing the notion of a hybrid space, somewhere between a urban reality, an argumented space and a mental place.

Tools
Google Earth, Adobe Photoshop, Rhinoceros 3d, Grasshopper, Cinema 4d.

Process
The urban fabric is analyzed trough Google earth, The satellite images are processed in photoshop, and the urban elements are divided into layers. The space between the mass urban elements, is assumed as growing space. This way, in this layer key points are chosen in the X,Y and Z axes that will be assumed as coordinates for the frame nodes. A structure between this nodes is made in Rhinoceros using the grasshopper generative engine, this way controlling not only the position of the nodes but aspects related with the frame structure in a parametric way. From this process is also extracted a bounding box that will be transformed into the polimeric skin in cinema 4d, by means of a hyper-NURBS modifier. Both pieces are composed together to form the main support structure.