Archives for the Month of April, 2014

Floraskin – Eilfried Huth & Günther Domenig

Floraskin - Huth & DomenigFloraskin – Huth & Domenig

Eilfried Huth’s and Günther Domenig’s biomorphic Floraskin, an unbuilt architectural project from 1971, applies botanical forms and eukaryotic cell structures as a blueprint for an organic modular building. Extending ideas explored in their well-known megastructural work Überbauung Ragnitz, which was intended to be adaptable according to daily spatial demand, the project consists of biokinetic vacuole’s leading to ‘proliferating’ cells arranged in radial patterns and connected by stem corridors. Floraskin was proposed as a living and mutating hotel for ‘alternative tourism’ to be located in the resort of Ifni in Morocco.

Floraskin - Huth & DomenigFloraskin – Huth & Domenig

Floraskin - Huth & DomenigFloraskin – Huth & Domenig

Floraskin - Huth & DomenigFloraskin – Huth & Domenig

Floraskin - Huth & DomenigFloraskin – Huth & Domenig

Floraskin - Huth & DomenigFloraskin – Huth & Domenig

Floraskin - Huth & DomenigFloraskin – Huth & Domenig

Floraskin - Huth & DomenigFloraskin – Huth & Domenig

Related Posts:
René Binet – Esquisses Décoratives & the Protozoic Façade of Porte Monumentale
Patabotany #3: Growth Assembly
Patabotany #2: Grow your own Worlds
Patabotany #1: At the Libarynth

Spatiologies – Vittorio Giorgini

Giorgini_Walking_WalkingTall_1981-83Walking Tall – Vittorio Giorgini [1980-81]

Vittorio Giorginis early architectural works allude to the topological features of continuous surfaces like the Möbius strip or the paradoxical, and non-orientable, Klein bottle. His signature compound curvature buildings such as the Casa Saldarini in Italy and the Liberty Center in New York State (unfinished and latter demolished) expose a long-lasting obsession with organic thin-shell manifolds. His book Spatiology: The Morphology of the Natural Sciences in Architecture and Design is an early work on biologically inspired architecture. It contains numerous sketches outlining the use of geometric procedures to generate manifolds and minimal surfaces as solutions to architectural problems.

Giorgini_Walking_WalkingTall_1981-83Walking Tall – Vittorio Giorgini [1980-81]

Giorgini_Walking_WalkingTall_1981-83Walking Tall – Vittorio Giorgini [1980-81]

Giorgini_Walking_WalkingTall_1981-83Walking Tall – Vittorio Giorgini [1980-81]

Giorgini_Walking_WalkingTall_1981-83Walking Tall – Vittorio Giorgini [1980-81]

Giorgini_Walking_WalkingTall_1981-83Walking Tall – Vittorio Giorgini [1980-81]

Giorgini_Walking_WalkingTall_1981-83Walking Tall – Vittorio Giorgini [1980-81]

In a later body of work he explores the use of lattice beams, spatial meshes and tensostructures, sometimes combining both asymmetric and symmetrical modules – good examples are his Walking Tall and Module Octet projects. Walking Tall was a skyscraper designed for New York in 1982-1983. The building, which was intended to rise to a height of more than 250 meters, employs asymmetric tetrahedral elements and is structurally reminiscent of utopian blueprints of the Soviet constructivist architectures of the 1920’s. Giorgini kept long-lasting friendships with the artists Jean Arp and Roberto Matta. The former artist may have left his biomorphic influences on Giorgini’s early topological architectures, while the latter artist’s dynamic three-dimension ‘inscape’ spaces may well be connected to Giorgini’s later angular works

Giorgini_spatiologyPlate from Spatiology: The Morphology of the Natural Sciences in Architecture and Design – Vittorio Giorgini

Giorgini_spatiologyPlate from Spatiology: The Morphology of the Natural Sciences in Architecture and Design – Vittorio Giorgini

Giorgini_spatiologyPlate from Spatiology: The Morphology of the Natural Sciences in Architecture and Design – Vittorio Giorgini

Vitorio_Giorgini_Module_Octet_1991Module Octet – Vittorio Giorgini [1991]

Vitorio-Giorgini_Module_Octet_1991Module Octet – Vittorio Giorgini [1991]

Vitorio-Giorgini_RiverCrane_1993_2River Crane – Vittorio Giorgini [1993]

Related Posts:

Drop City – Colonizing consciousness with abodes of Truncated Icosorhombic Dodecahedra

René Binet – Esquisses Décoratives & the Protozoic Façade of Porte Monumentale

Yuri Avvakumov – Agitarch Structures: Reconfiguring Utopia

The Architectural Fantasies of Iakov Chernikhov

The Constructivist Cosmologies of Richard Lippold

Quantum Objects – Frederik de Wilde

Quantum Foam – Frederik de WildeQuantum Foam – Frederik de Wilde

Frederik de Wilde renders intangible, inaudible and invisible phenomena into sculptural forms and polished 3-dimensional data visualisations. Data derived from quantum processes, complex systems, aspects of psychophysics, nanotechnological and biological systems provide base materials for the works and allow Frederik to ask ‘how do we connect the blind spots, respectively, between art and science?

Quantum-Object-#1_Frederik_de_WildeQuantum Object #1 – Frederik de Wilde

In works such as Quantum Object, Quantum Foam and SoN01R, sculptural order and geometric exactitude provides counterpoint and playful contradiction to the preconceived idea of noise, randomness and entropy. While society streamlines to greater technological order, where perceived accuracy is prized and the errors of randomness are to be avoided, actual true randomness has become a precious commodity. Ironically no computational device can generate true random numbers – we have to rely on natural phenomena such as atmospheric data or stochastic radioactive particle decay for their generation.

Coalface004_Frederik_de_WildeCoalface – Frederik de Wilde

Coalface004_Frederik_de_WildeCoalface – Frederik de Wilde

Coalface001_Frederik_de_WildeCoalface – Frederik de Wilde

Eschewing the purely aesthetic, Frederik’s works raise questions regarding the dissemination of art works in the scientific continuum, they explore the artistic and scientific contract and its related social and political implications. Conjectural solutions to social problems and political questions are embedded in his artistic output. A good example of the latter concern is M1NE#1, a sculpture made by direct laser sintering of microscopic titanium particles which visualises sensitive data of seven coal mines in Belgium.

Fade-2-Infinity_-n1_Frederik_de_WildeFade 2 Infinity – Frederik de Wilde

M1ne-IIII_Frederik_de_WildeM1ne IIII – Frederik de Wilde

A recent interview at We Make Money Not Art is the perfect port of introduction to Frederik’s works and ideas. It contains interesting historical anecdotes and references to quantum material innovations alongside dystopian predictions – proving that the ideas of Richard Feynman are as equally crucial to Frederik’s works as references, as are Malevich’s paintings.

Related Posts:
A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates [and other psuedo-random thoughts]
Robert Horvitz – Quantum Symmetries
Owen Schuh – Calculation and Iteration Drawings