THE VERTEBRAE: FELT INSTALLATION

1. Preface 2. Introduction 3. Workshops Ideas and Proposals Scripting 4. Existing 5. Intervention Structure Felt Ribs Elevations 6. Installation Tools and Materials Assembly Images 7. Publications 8. Credits Team Associations

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2 November 14 design workshop with Zach Downey 9am to 2pm, a + d conference room Book documentation, drawings, diagrams, and images are produced and collected by Bryce Beckwith.

The workshops and installation took place during the Fall semester of 2014. The Vertebrae installation is a project of Digital Mentorship Collaborative, which is a student-led organization among the School of Architecture and Design at Virginia Tech.

November 15 purchase remaining materials

November 16 fabrication of felt ribs 4pm, burchard hall room 001

November 17 fabrication of felt ribs and cable structure installation 6pm, burchard hall

November 18 cable structure installation 6pm, burchard hall

November 19 felt rib installation and completion of installation 6pm, burchard hall

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team charrettes and proposal decisions 7pm to 10pm, cowgill hall room 402

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Zach Downey lecture 5pm, cowgill hall room 300

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November 13 ideas charrette and workshop with Zach Downey 12pm to 2pm, a + d conference room

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Preface: DMCO Digital Mentorship Collaborative

Digital Mentorship Collaborative (DMCO) is a multi-faceted facultysponsored, student-led and sustained research and demonstration group within the School of Architecture and Design at Virginia Tech. The group functions as a think tank for digital tools and processes, working collectively to share knowledge of the digital world with peers and colleagues. DMCO is structured on the basis of weekly workshops, initiating advanced simulation and parametric modeling workshops in the fall, followed by coordinating and teaching fundamental digital tool workshops for all Foundation Design Lab courses in the spring.

Both the advanced digital design workshops and fundamental digital tool workshops are student led. Our student led model allows for us to multiply our collective knowledge,

seamlessly integrating these processes into the foundations of our curriculum and education, and to build upon the strong tradition and pedagogy of collaborative learning that is core to our school.

The Vertebrae

DM CO

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Introduction: About the Installation The Vertebrae

The Vertebrae functions as an intervention with felt, addressing the center circulation aisle of Burchard Hall and questioning it’s presence as a space for meeting and collaborating.

By suspension of undulating ribs, the installation implies and projects spatial boundaries, and the reverberation and resonance of sound within different locations of Burchard Hall is decreased.

The addition of a soft interior ceiling plane encourages conversation, a sense of privacy, and creates a home for the Design/Build collaboration table.

In partnership with Zach Downey of Parabox Labs, this project was designed to instigate the use of parametric design tools; not necessarily for the process of form making, but for understanding the role of these tools as instigators of speed,

efficiency, and accuracy in our methods of designing.

By using grasshopper, the phenomena of catenary curves were easily simulated in order to manipulate the curves assuming gravity as a key component within the installation. By using gravity, not necessarily as a limit to the design, but as a driver for the language of the installation, we became interested in creating an intervention that was solely structured by tension.

Relying upon the context in which we were designing, the columns became the sole compressive structure that allowed for a completely tensile intervention.

The workshops that were held in order to design the installation were an investment in the power of collaboration as well as digital tools as a method of working that can enhance speed and quality in design discourse. Over the

course of two workshops in two days, the installation developed from merely ideas to a set of documents for making. The materials were fabricated and the intervention was assembled over the following three days, allowing the project to exist within one week.

In all, the intervention is driven by the intent of the Digital Mentorship Collaborative as a studentled and sustained research and demonstration group within the School of Architecture and Design.

The group functions as a think tank for digital tools and processes, believing in working collectively to share developing knowledge and ideas of the digital world with our peers and colleagues.

The Vertebrae

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Workshops Ideas and Proposals

Integral to the possibility and execution of the installation, the collaborative efforts among twenty undergraduate students allowed for the installation to exist within one week. Students invited to participate ranged from second through fifth year students, providing different sets of skills and interests within different points within a design education.

The cross-communication among students of different years fosters a collaborative mentorship environment that further supports the ideals of the Digital Mentorship Collaborative.

collaboration + parametrics = speed

The Vertebrae

By collaborating with Zach Downey of Parabox Labs, a mentorship network extends beyond the student to student relationships within academia. Studentprofessional relationships are encouraged as another facet of a collaborative mentorship environment which becomes another avenue for learning.

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Workshops Scripting

quality + quantity

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collaboration + parametrics

Grasshopper, a parametric modeling and productivity tool, attributes to many facets and processes within the field of design. Challenging the conventional defaults of parametrics, Grasshopper is an invaluable tool for productivity, organization, iteration, and automation, not merely a function for formmaking.

collaboration + parametrics = speed

The Vertebrae

The outcome of an increase in digitalization and collaboration is speed. Speed is the only quantitative element to the methods and processes in which designers work. Speed can be one’s greatest resource or their greatest hinderence.

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Existing Circumstance Burchard Hall

Burchard Hall is home to nearly 300 architecture and industrial design students.

The hall functions as a large subterranean room, free in plan. The roof plane functions as a plaza, only interrupted by circulation towers that serve the space below and pyramids of glazing that allows for access to light. The plaza not only allows for people and light to access Burchard, but it serves as an entrance promenade into Cowgill Hall.

The materiality of the space is comprised of cast-in-place concrete columns, a posttensioned concrete structural ring, and concrete masonry units. The raw esthetic of the room is complemented with exposed building systems, suspended from the ceiling of the space. The existing concrete columns within Burchard provides opportunity for the intervention of an additional soft interior ceiling plane.

The Vertebrae

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Intervention Structure

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The Vertebrae

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The cable to column fastening system is composed of a cable loop around the column, held by friction, that then allows for the structural cable to be attached to the cable loop by means of a turn buckle.

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Support cables are used to triangulate the two intermediate angle points of the kinked spinal cable. At the angle points, three support cables suspend a steel ring that which the kinked spinal cable passes through and changes direction.

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At both ends of the installation, the kinked spinal cable is terminated at a steel ring oriented between two columns with two cables that allow for the coordinates of a steel ring to reside in fixed position.

The Vertebrae

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Every felt rib is bisected at the midpoint of the material by the kinked spinal cable.

The movement of the kinked spinal cable over the distance of the intervention creates a sequentially rhythmic variation in the suspension and volume of each catenary curve. At the midpoint of each felt rib, three holes are punched through the material in two rows, allowing for the felt to loop around the kinked spinal cable. The loop that is made is then fastened with screw posts which holds the felt in it’s position on the cable.

a Each felt rib is secured on both sides to the long span guiding cables that run in parallel for the length of the intervention.

The attachment at the ends of each rib is made by three holes punched through two layers of felt and three screw posts that secure the felt on top of itself, creating a sleeve for the cable.

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Intervention Elevations

When approaching The Vertebrae from it’s front, the repetition of thirty-six ribs are visible as contours stacked one behind the other. As one moves closer to the installation, the ribs become progressively understood in the third dimension.

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The Vertebrae

The intervention receives it’s name, The Vertebrae, by the is visual similarities in elevation.

As The Vertebrae spans the central circulation artery in the back half of Burchard Hall, it creates a spectacle that allures the attention of passerbyers.

The dynamics of this constructed ceiling catalyzes change via a sense of privacy and spatial intentions. The circulation aisle now becomes a space of convening- hosting conversations, spectators, and productivity, while maintaining it’s primary function as a route through the building.

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Installation Tools and Materials k

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The Vertebrae

Items for Assembly: a. ruler b. screw posts c. aluminum ferrules d. 3/16� stainless steel cable e. exacto knife f. cable cutters g. revolving punch pliers h. chalk line i. powdered chalk j. tape measure k. hammer l. 1/8� tan wool eco-felt m. hole punch template *turn buckles not shown

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Installation Assembly

1. cutting the felt into their given dimension of one foot by seventeen feet to create the thirty-six ribs that make up The Vertebrae 2. sizing, hanging, and tensioning the cable structural members to create the skeleton on which the ribs are suspended

The Vertebrae

3. suspending, securing, and spacing the thirty-six ribs to the structural skeleton

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Installation Images

The Vertebrae

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The Vertebrae acts as a permeable canopy that filters light from above and visibility from below.

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Installation Images

The Design/Build collaboration space resides at the end of the central circulation artery of Burchard Hall.

The Vertebrae

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The installation also functions as a ceiling plane, providing a sense of place for the Design/ Build studio that utilizes the aisle for collaboration. The front elevation of The Vertebrae creates a threshold to the studio space that terminates the aisle.

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Installation Images

Undulating, suspended ribs, generates a since of depth and volume to the intervention.

The Vertebrae

Moments where the ribs hang low to the ground or the spine turns a corner, the overhead installation can portray heaviness and a quiet recognition of gravity.

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Installation Images The slender and lengthy proportions of the area which The Vertebrae spans, as well as its scale, provides for a grandiose and monumentous appearance from below.

The Vertebrae

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The appearance of The Vertebrae is a particularly different experience in either directions due to its soft geometric form and a-symmetry.

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Installation Images

The Vertebrae

The materiality of the installation and it’s location within Burchard Hall allows for The Vertebrae to reduce noise pollution within the open room.

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Installation Images

Rather than a wall that redirects circulation, the overhead intervention performs as an inexplicit division between industrial design studios and architecture studios.

The Vertebrae

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Publication Studio Collective

“The Vertebrae�

Studio Collective volume II fall 2014 page 48-49 print and digital.

Studio Collective is a designbased research journal that celebrates the work of Virginia Tech students and aims to broaden the awareness and conversation of design throughout the Blacksburg population. The journal aims to bring projects into a common area where they can be seen by all students, alumni, and the public. The Vertebrae is featured within the second bi-annual Studio Collective publication.

The Vertebrae

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http://issuu.com/studiocollective/docs/for_issuu__no_bleeds_

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Credits Team

DMCO Team Bryce Beckwith Tyler LaFontaine Matt Young

Collaborator Zach Downey, Partner Parabox Labs

Contributors Brian Kato Hanna Joseck Ethan Bingeman Nick Coates Corey Crist Adam Burke Judith Johnson Jonathan Anders Kevin Garcia Ge Zhou Alex Helms Michelle Pannone Habeeb Muhammad Sean O’Mara Rebecca Pantschyschak Martin Angst Erin Young

Digital Mentorship Collaborator Faculty Advisor Kathryn Albright

Installation Faculty Advisors Kathryn Albright Chris Pritchett Helene Renard

Publication Bryce Beckwith

Distributor Sutherland Felt Company Madison Heights, Michigan

Programs

DM CO

Rhinoceros, 3D modeling Grasshopper, parametric plug-in for Rhino V-Ray, visualization plug-in for Rhino Adobe CC: Photoshop Adobe CC: Illustrator Adobe CC: InDesign

The Vertebrae

DMCO BI- ANNUAL GUEST LECTURE SERIES

ZACH DOWNEY

PARTNER, PARABOX LABS BARCLAY始S CENTER + SHoP ARCHITECTS + DESIGNALYZE + ADJUNCT PROFESSOR OF APPLIED TECHNOLOGY + CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK + COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY + PARAMETRIC AND GENERATIVE MODELING + EXPLOITING EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES + GRASSHOPPER + RHINO; + TRAILBLAZING NEW FRONTIERS IN THE BUILDING INDUSTRY + ETC.

THURSDAY 11.13 COWGILL 300 5.00 PM

Zach Downey spent three days in Blacksburg mentoring, organizing, and designing the installation with DMCO. As apart of the guest workshop, Zach gave a lecture of his work and practice at SHoP Architects and Parabox Labs.

Visit Parabox Labs at: http://www.paraboxlabs.com For tutorials on programs such as grasshopper visit Designalyze at: http://www.designalyze.com

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Credits Associations

DM CO