Formations
Formations is an architectural installation in the gallery of the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi designed by Kivi & Tuuli Sotamaa. It is a rich, abstract, ambiguous and open-ended environment which invites the visitor to play and explore its possibilities. The space of the installation is created by large horizontal panels suspended from the ceiling and distributed in a directional flow throughout the space. As the cloud of panels reaches the floor they become larger in their volume and their surface becomes deformed. The deformed surfaces create together a dune-like landscape which continues across the space, from element to element, as if a large object or force once had moved across the entire installation leaving a trace. This topographic landscape generates different kinds of possibilities for use without prescribing them, allowing them emerge real-time as the visitors engage and explore their surfaces. Embedded in the smooth landscape there are a series of smaller objects, both abstract and functional, which invite the exploration in a hand held scale much the way beautiful stones on a beach would do.
Sound & Light The architectural landscape is complimented by an ambient sound and lightscape which evolves and fluctuates slowly throughout the day. The soundscape is composed by Petri Kuljuntausta and played through six channels in the gallery instead of the traditional two. The soundscape is composed using sounds from three different souces that have their oringin in different historical eras; sounds of water dripping in ancient caves, sounds of a piano and sounds from a contemporary city.
Computer aided modeling and manufacturing. Formations was designed using off-the-shelf animation and 3D modeling software and custom made genetic algorithm based software created by Emergent Design. Animation software was utilized to subject the many elements of the installation to a single set of dynamic formative forces. 3D modeling software was utilised to further evolve the designs towards manufacturing and finally, genetic algorithm based software was used to generate variations of the design of selected smaller objects in the installation, resulting in mass producable object series where each element is unique.
The installation and the objects were manufactured using computer aided modeling technologies - Rapid Prototyping and CNC milling. CNC milling was deployed to create the large objects on the floor which have a dune like topographic surface. They were made by milling a digital form into a block of styrofoam which then was coated with MDF board on the flat areas and with polycarbonate fibre-reinforced high-density plaster on the topographic areas. Rapid Prototyping was used to create a series of smaller formally highly articulated and complex objects which are distributed throughout the dune-like landscape.
The use of these design and manufacturing technologies together allowed the use of dynamic forces in the design process as well as the economic production of formally complex and specific objects. In more general terms, these technologies hold the promise of a move away from homogeneous environments toward richer and more specific architectural environments and products.
Designing Formations. Traditionally, the act of designing is often an attempt to fix the relationship between object and subject by prescribing both function and meaning of objects in a manner that leaves little or no possibilities for interpretation and appropriation for the beholder. Design in this sense excludes the possibility for discovery and exploration and imposes values and lifestyles. Mass customisation and user-oriented design today too often attempt to minimise friction between object and subject, aiming only to comfort and soothe, to customise every object so that it perfectly answers a limited set of specific function-oriented needs. Contrary to the notion of the Gesamtkunstwerk and its attributes of totality, completion and finitude, designing with dynamics is based on openness to contingency and open-endedness. Designing with dynamics places process over event, relationships over entities, development over structure, and formation over gestalt.
Sound & Light The architectural landscape is complimented by an ambient sound and lightscape which evolves and fluctuates slowly throughout the day. The soundscape is composed by Petri Kuljuntausta and played through six channels in the gallery instead of the traditional two. The soundscape is composed using sounds from three different souces that have their oringin in different historical eras; sounds of water dripping in ancient caves, sounds of a piano and sounds from a contemporary city.
Computer aided modeling and manufacturing. Formations was designed using off-the-shelf animation and 3D modeling software and custom made genetic algorithm based software created by Emergent Design. Animation software was utilized to subject the many elements of the installation to a single set of dynamic formative forces. 3D modeling software was utilised to further evolve the designs towards manufacturing and finally, genetic algorithm based software was used to generate variations of the design of selected smaller objects in the installation, resulting in mass producable object series where each element is unique.
The installation and the objects were manufactured using computer aided modeling technologies - Rapid Prototyping and CNC milling. CNC milling was deployed to create the large objects on the floor which have a dune like topographic surface. They were made by milling a digital form into a block of styrofoam which then was coated with MDF board on the flat areas and with polycarbonate fibre-reinforced high-density plaster on the topographic areas. Rapid Prototyping was used to create a series of smaller formally highly articulated and complex objects which are distributed throughout the dune-like landscape.
The use of these design and manufacturing technologies together allowed the use of dynamic forces in the design process as well as the economic production of formally complex and specific objects. In more general terms, these technologies hold the promise of a move away from homogeneous environments toward richer and more specific architectural environments and products.
Designing Formations. Traditionally, the act of designing is often an attempt to fix the relationship between object and subject by prescribing both function and meaning of objects in a manner that leaves little or no possibilities for interpretation and appropriation for the beholder. Design in this sense excludes the possibility for discovery and exploration and imposes values and lifestyles. Mass customisation and user-oriented design today too often attempt to minimise friction between object and subject, aiming only to comfort and soothe, to customise every object so that it perfectly answers a limited set of specific function-oriented needs. Contrary to the notion of the Gesamtkunstwerk and its attributes of totality, completion and finitude, designing with dynamics is based on openness to contingency and open-endedness. Designing with dynamics places process over event, relationships over entities, development over structure, and formation over gestalt.