Marc Fornes – Recursive Pavilion

Recursive Pavilion – Marc Fornes

The following post originally appeared in issue 14 of the online journal, Vague Terrain, in July 2009. For many more recent projects fusing art, architecture and computation, and exploring ‘precise indetermination’ and ‘progressive geometry’ visit Marks site: TheVeryMany.

Using recursive subdivisioning algorithms in Rhinoscript, Marc Forne’s proposition for a Recursive Pavilion has a structure that alludes to leafy foliage. Within a parametric system iterative patterns are generated by applying virtual pressure at the center of individual facets to trigger a cracking process into triangulate faces. The global pattern in this canopy is reflected at smaller intervals, and at lower local scales echoing the fundamental organizing principles in the structures of trees and plants. Being below this kind of canopy we can imagine light being diffused and fragmented into slowly moving optical patterns and diffracted umbras as the sun traces its trajectory through the sky.

Recursive Pavilion – Marc Fornes

Recursive Pavilion – Marc Fornes

Recursive Pavilion – Marc Fornes

Recursive Pavilion – Marc Fornes

Recursive Pavilion – Marc Fornes

Mark explains the process in more detail here:

‘Recursive Growth is an investigation into the recursive subdivision of surfaces as a mean of growth, associated with to the notion of pressure. This effect which occurs when a force is applied on a surface becomes a potential for structural form finding. In this example pressure is applied as a vector on the centroid of each face triggering a cracking process into four triangulate faces. If the direction of the force is based on gravity and the original face is horizontal the surface is ‘cracked’ into three identical faces while the forth one introduces a new form-type for each new generation’