The Secret Fruit Bowl...

The Secret Fruit Bowl...

Made of Daly Limestone.

CNC milled, hand finished. 

The Salt Tower...

The Salt Tower
3D printed plaster, clay, salt, paint; base made of CNC milled marble. 

It's estimated that 99% of potable water in Qatar is desalinated sea water, a process that requires 5 litres of oil per each cubic meter of treated water. Most desalination plants are located along the country's west coast, resulting in the adjacent sea being approximately 30% more saline than the country's east coast. 

The design of the Salt Tower was catalyzed by the aforementioned. Placed by Qatar's west coast, the design is surrounded by a salt farm, which provides the raw material - the bricks - that make up the bulk of the Salt Tower's walls. Here, however, the tectonic support is, in a sense, 'reversed', and is actually provided by the gridded 'mortar' that surrounds the hollows that support the salt bricks. Maintaining this wall of salt would require constant upkeep. The salt farm provides the material, human labour would be needed to both fabricate the bricks and to patch the cavities resulting from seasonal rains and general erosion. The tower would act as a constant quantified reminder of the energy and effort required to provide us with one of our most basic needs.

Sketch of the Salt Tower...

The Weathered Tower...

The Weathered Tower

 
Made of 3D printed white ABS; green, blue and black paint; base of CNC milled travertine and mastic. 

 
It's been estimated that the average age of a building in the Gulf region is 5 years, and the average lifespan of a building is 20 years.

 The design acknowledges the need for select nodes of seeming permanence in a perpetually changing world. The tower, which stands on an unspecified rock in an undetermined desert within the GCC, would act as a 'filter' of the subtly abrasive but unrelenting dust and sand present at the setting, which would permeate and transcend through its ribbed torso, a slow and extended performance that would gradually begin to weather and wear off the tower's various stratum of paint, layer by layer, revealing the green below the black, blue below the green, and the white core below the blue. This process would take years, decades, to complete. The layers would reveal themselves unevenly, dependent on the whims of the prevalent winds and its changing environs. In time the tower would reflect - celebrate - its age, and in its ever morphing/ amended presence, become a connective link between generations...

FabLab Torino, Italy...

A few images from the FabLab in Torino...

Above & Below: Inventors through various mediums and ages...

Using (a) Beesket as a Template for a Buildware Based Ubiquitous/ Mass Customization Retail Experience...

The triple-cavity capsule into which the chosen 'flavor-bolts' can be inserted...

During a recent trip to Seoul I had a chance to visit a juice/ slushy/ yogurt bar named Beesket, which used a quite ingenuous means for allowing its customers to chose and determine their choice of yogurt, smoothy, or juice flavors. As one enters the bar, the first thing one is confronted with is a desk full of triple-cavity, honeycomb shaped, containers in yellow and red. Yellow ones were for yogurt and the red ones for smoothies (they also seemed to have a set of green containers, intended for juices, but these weren't available during my visit)... To make a selection one picked up either a yellow or red honeycomb container, depending on what type of a viscous beverage one wanted, and proceeded to insert, what here are referred to as 'flavor-bolts' form the wide selection of available flavors (which ranged from strawberry to broccoli) into the container's three available cavities. Above each flavor bolt station there were a number of flavor combination suggestions. Some of the flavors available were, at least for me, quite exotic. During my fist visit I had a sweet-potato, melon and grape flavored yogurt, during my second visit I tried a broccoli, red-pepper and apple flavored one - both were delicious. Once the capsules are full one takes it to the cash-register where the whole capsule (including its content) is scanned in one go, and one receives a small receipt summarizing ones flavor choices and on which the beverage's calorie count is displayed. After payment the drink is completed fresh within ten minutes... 

The profile view of a striped 'flavor-bolt' is held in the hand, above the 'Grape' and 'Melon' flavored stations...

As a conceptual approach, the Beesket model could provide an interesting template for how the, recently much debated, notion of mass/ ubiquitous customization in the context of buildware (CAM) could be applied, particularly in relation to retail (an interesting example of how such notions in a web based context can be seen here). Key here seems to be the constraint of choice, or perhaps it should be formulated, as a process of choreographing choice. What Beesket does well is limit the options of types of beverages, and the number of ingredients in them, it provides. It does so 'simply' by formatting the medium through which such choices are made - the triptych pods that determine the type of beverage, and the flavor 'bolts' that appoint the flavors of a beverage. That's it... But the system doesn't feel restrictive, as the variables and flavor combinations still remain plentiful.

This principle could be adapted to how a buildware made artifacts could be formulated. As suggested above, occasionally excessive choice can be overrated. Too many options - colors, details, sounds, flavors - can result in cacophony. A more limited palette, where each option provided contains a inherent quality, provides a more appropriate method for settling on a decision - making a choice.     

Grape - purple, Melon - Green, Pear - yellow, and Apple - red flavored stations...

Thus, in conceiving something to be fabricated through means where the constraints are more open, unlimited, when compared to most more traditional methods of making, a updated, new, paradigm of conception needs to be developed and accepted. Here this might entail something as straightforward as a menu of artifacts, accompanying by a limited list of features, properties and qualities that can be added or amended. In this instance these might include... 

In the case of the chosen technology... 

• Size limit: Determined by the build chamber volume, determines the maximum and minimum build sizes... 
• Material: What buildware materials are available/ usable..? 
• Buildware settings: What settings - print resolution, tessellation settings, etc. are used..? 
• Time limit: Is there, or should there be a viable, maximum time limit for printing something (for something produced in a retail context)..? 

In this context the artifacts fabricated through buildware could be determined or limited by... 

• The type of artifact fabricated, based on their intended use (one could print personalized mobile covers, not knives or gun components), complexity and form (based on the constraints of the Fab technology used and available materials)
• The color 
• Add ons - customized handles, spouts, lids, textures, perforations, fasteners, etc. 

Although somewhat trivial in scope such elements could potentially provide a surprisingly rich range of design variations, enough to accommodate the most ascetic as well as ostentatious tastes... 

  

The self-service flavor bar...

Key here again would be the choreography of the act of determining and choosing how the artifacts of the objects can be manipulated. This can be achieved by providing suggestions, examples, for what can be done, as well as include variations for what types of adaptations, manipulations, the technology can make. It might also be useful to show set the parameters of a build, i.e. show, for example, the maximum and minimum size of a build, how fine or crude the resolution of a build can be (and how this correlates to the time it takes to realize a build), etc. By patterning the setting in which these choices are made provides an additional set of control factors that allow one to manage, read and understand, better what this type of an endeavor might entail... 

The receipt summarizing ones flavor choices and the beverage's calorie count...

These types of somewhat, call them, default activities intended for laypersons would need to be accompanied by those that demonstrate a slightly more inherent and experimental understanding and use of related technologies - i.e. the above actions should be realized in collusion with professional (Buildware-savvy) designers, as these could provide examples of future directions of both artifacts, but also of how the digital fabrications means themselves could be developed. The relationship between all the parties involved should be (multi) reciprocal... 

Design Details No. 5 - Laser-Cut Mashrabiya - the Making of...

A few images, and a short video, of the previous post's laser-cut mashrabiya's design and fabrication process... Initially the intention was to make a set of mashrabiyas out of a single sheet laser cut. Unfortunately, due to various logistical mismatches, we weren't able to get them fabricated in the UK and had to get them made locally in Qatar, which in this instance resulted in us using the Fab-Lab at VCUQ. This entailed that all the panels had to fit within the build-frame of the Labs laser-cutter, which only allows for cuts (or etchings) no larger than 60 by 45 cm in size. This introduced its own set of assembly related issues, as the mashrabiya had to cover a window roughly 125 by 250 cm in size... 

In the end though, it all worked out very well, and the installed mashrabiya seemed to be very well received. Even the, very subtle - almost moire like - 'flickering' (see clip below) of the panels worked out well due to the  adjacent AC outlet... 

For earlier examples of laser-cut mashrabiyas we've made, please click here ,here, here, and here... 

Above and Below: The Velcro (hook & Loop) attachment panels by which all the design's elements are suspended...

Above and Below: Close-ups of some of the mashrabiya panels...

Above and Below: Sketches showing/ proposing how the panels should be attached to the window soffit...

Some close-up details of some of the mashrabiya panels...

A short video showing some initial test exploring the 'flicker effect' of some of the mashrabiya panels...

Some earlier tests of cutting patterns and different paper types (including Arabic newspapers) and paper treatments...

Laser-Cut Mashrabiya - MoA Exhibition at the Mosaic Rooms, London...

A few images of our laser-cut mashrabiya, currently being shown by the Museum of Architecture's Home exhibition at the Mosaic Rooms in London's Kensington... 

Home Sweet Home Exhibition, Ekenas/ Tammisaari, Finland...

Later today I'm heading to Finland for the opening of the Home Sweet Home exhibition, organized by the Pro Artibus Foundation. We're scheduled to exhibit three pieces, the Cu3o Cabinet, the Bowls Interrupted, and some Laser Toast (probably the best laser-toasted PB&J sandwich in the world)... 

The exhibition opens on May 25, and runs until October 7, 2012... If you happen to be in the hood, please stop by...