Himalayan Valley
Mashup
There is only one orientation that is acceptable. All others
are wrong. It was absolutely surgical. However if we treat buildings more like
organisms, which we can have relationships with, and thinking holistically
about the entire building envelope system, we can create active printed
structures that can transform and reconfigure – change shape, appearance, and
properties - that respond to external cues.
In a traditional suspension bridge
like San Francisco's iconic Golden Gate, engineers use inches-wide steel cables
to hang thousands of tons of concrete and steel over water, and those big
cables anchor to the shore. It is commonly left up to the engineers to
develop and architects to specify. If more architects get involved in the
development, there is greater potential for thinking holistically about the
entire building envelope system. Rather, [Tibbits] asks: “Why can’t we use it to produce material
structures that we couldn’t have produced in other ways? To create active
printed structures that can transform and reconfigure—change shape, appearance,
and properties. Therefore, they become actuators, sensors, and physical
computing devices.”
Building the anchorage house
required incredible precision. "For each strand, only one spot is
okay," Maroney says. "All others are wrong. There is only one
orientation that is acceptable. It was absolutely surgical." It’ll change our perception of buildings
dramatically. No longer will we expect walls to be sealed, floors to be hard
and buildings to be static. Buildings will be more like organisms, which we can
have relationships with! In
practical terms, this means products that respond to external cues—tire treads
that change shape on ice, or smart shoes that respond to track conditions. “One
of the biggest hurdles in making smart devices is power, you don’t
want battery packs everywhere, wires running through everything. If you can
print structures that transform on the fly, it’s a huge application.”
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