Research's IaaC - Students Research - PG Digital Tectonics

Plasti+City is an installation done by students of the IAAC \\\\\\\\"Digital Tectonics\\\\\\\\" postgraduate program, presented at the construmat 2007 in Barcelona. It is the result of a collaborative exploration with the company LASENTIU to expand the use of Syntrewood, a 100% recycled and 100% recyclable plastic material, through the use of advanced digital design and manufacturing technologies (parametric cad-cam software + CNC fabrication equipment). Plasti+City is an adaptable architectural surface made out of 200 differenciated parts, all derived from identical standard elements.

In order to transcribe “motion” to a static element, such as a tower, Kitaoka’s patterns and drawings, were the base for this skin proposal. This static graphics make use of the peripheral drift illusion principles, creating a motion sensation. Several simulations and attempts of transcribing the pattern onto the tower’s façade were made. Noticing a common element that repeated and scaled in many different ways, provoked a motion illusion sensation. The final proposal was obtained adjusting in a 3D environment an oval shape arranged within the tower’s contour, generating twisted iterations and parametric variations of a common element. Using a 3D printer at IAAC a model was created, in order to test its optical and spatial effects. The 3D model construction helped out to understand the structural properties and performance of the new skin. A series of belts between each group of ovals were designed to provide the structural strength to the powder based model. The 3D printing machine model requirements were very helpful to consolidate a single well composed model. This peculiar external finish proposal would differentiate the tower from the surrounding buildings not only by its shape, also by the extremely appealing skin.