Allyson PAttersons e c o n d s k i n6 4 9 2 6 9 Semester 2/2013

Tutorial 9 Partner: Madeleine Eyre

Virtual Environments University of Melbourne

is a self-reflective aura created by the

physical and mental perceptions of an

environment in which only an individual can

exist.

The Design Brief calls for an innovative design

of a second skin; a wearable volume or

surface that accommodates the body. The

second skin will explore, measure, and/or

negotiate the boundary of personal space.

The design must create a spatial or emotional

effect.

Cover Image: Second Skin, Allyson Patterson, 2013

PErSonal SPacE

M1: idEaTion

SySTEM analySiS: SEcTion & ProfilE

Front and Back Elevation 1:1 Scale Drawing, Allyson Patterson, 2013

Subject: PartitionProduced for DAISO Japan

Materials: White Plastic

dimensions: 140 mm high x 492 mm longMeasured beginning at bottom left corner. The object has been cut with scissors into smaller pieces during experimentation.

Evaluation: The Partition is size adjustable and can be cut to any desired length with scissors to serve the purpose of dividing a designated space into smaller spaces. Its purpose is primarily organizational, as it is commonly used in drawers to arrange items neatly.

It is constructed of 38 individual partitions 140 mm high x 11mm long x 3 mm wide with connectors 11 mm below the top and 70 mm below the bottom. These connectors form a point in the middle of the two individual partitions, to enable scissors to easily cut them. The edges of the individual partitions are slightly rounded, with otherwise completely flat surfaces.

M1 Cover Page Image: Partition Photograph, Allyson Patterson, 2013

This sketch design mimics that of a stained glass window, so the view of the body from behind is not obstructed. This design idea stems from a section containing a frame and portal to an inside view of something, just like a window into a building, or skin into body.

Abstracted Partition: Based on Miralles: How to layout a croissant (1994) Analysis of profile and section planes through series of intersecting parallel and perpendicular lines. The partition is created through these intersecting parallel and perpendicular places in space.

Reconfiguring Exploration: My partition model utilized both parallel and perpendicular planes, but I wanted to experiment with only parallel planes that bend in a curvature.

SySTEM analySiS: SEcTion & ProfilE

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1. Partition Photograph, Allyson Patterson, 20132. Abstraction Sketch, Allyson Patterson, 20133. Reconfiguration Photograph, Allyson Patterson, 20134. Partition Rhino Model, Allyson Patterson, 2013

Table_1_A_2010, Isabelle Wenzel, 2010

Porcelain on ebony, Fenella Elms, date

unknown

Once we were paired, Madeleine and I first focused on determining our shared definition of “Personal Space.” Robert Sommer (1969) indicates that personal space is “an area with invisible boundaries surrounding a person’s body into which intruders may not come” (p. 26), and we redefined it as a self-reflecting aura for an individual with the precedents of Isabelle Wenzel and Fenella Elms. Wenzel’s photograph depicts a circular hide-a-way, and Elms’ sculpture represents the organic aura we desired to depict.

“It would be beautiful to disappear. nowhere to be found. It would be beautiful to be the only one to know you have disappeared” - Elias Canetti

SySTEM analySiS: SECTIOn & PROFIlE, InFlATIOn

Madeleine Eyre and I joined forces as project partners at the end of M1. Her system being Inflation, our combined project would now incorporate both section and profile and inflation.

Inflation Sketch, Madeleine Eyre, 2013Section and Profile Sketch, Allyson Patterson, 2013

dESign ProcESS

The design process is extremely fluid and organic, making it difficult to accurately delineate in a chronological manner. In our process of reconfiguring our models and exploring within our material systems, we utilized the virtual pin board tool of Pinterest to capture our inspirational images as a visual train of thought.

http://pinterest.com/alpats/sizzling-sections-infamous-inflatables/http://pinterest.com/madeleineeyre/inflatable-art/

Angel, Dora Kelemen, 2010 Origami Fashion, Issey Miyake, 2010 Untitled, Amaya Arzuaga, Spring 2011

M2: dESign

SEcond Skin dEVEloPMEnT TiMElinE

123D Catch: Madeleine modeled as I took images around her. This allowed us to create a body mesh as a base for our Second Skin.

Rhino Development, Allyson Patterson, 2013

My first Rhino model encapsulates the individual’s personal space and enables them to feel like they have a space that is only for them, but allows them to view the external world through lines of vision.

Rhino Development, Madeleine Eyre, 2013

Madeleine’s first Rhino development uses the precedent of a shell to shelter the body, and inflates behind with organic strips in front.

Rhino Development, Madeleine Eyre, 2013

Madeleine’s first Rhino development uses the precedent of a shell to shelter the body, and inflates behind with organic strips in front.

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Rhino Development, Madeleine Eyre and Allyson Patterson, 2013

This skin is constructed of two flat sun-like structures. These two sun auras will be connected by semi-translucent fabric.

Rhino Development, Allyson Patterson, 2013

not completely encapsulating the body, this Skin inflates with organic fabric material in an aura around the body. The section and profile Perspex guards the chest.

Rhino Development, Madeleine Eyre, 2013

Using critique from M2, we used Panelling Tools to create a Skin that did not fully encapsulate the body. Using custom Panelling Tools, we created a structure that could inflate with the body’s movement.

Rhino Development, Allyson Patterson, 2013

I used custom panelling tools and offset points to create this structure that mirrors the flow of energy and air from a person’s personal space as he or she moves. The openings in front allow visibility and for air to flow.

SEcond Skin dEVEloPMEnT TiMElinE

ExPEriMEnTaTion SkETcHES

These sketches represent my experimentation in incorporating inflation into our Second Skin. Inflation can occur in many more ways than one, as material can “inflate” in the untraditional sense by raising from a lowered position to an erect position. Material can also map the movement of the body. I used arrows to indicate the movement of a certain material.

All Sketches on this page: Sketch experimentation, Allyson Patterson, 2013

ProToTyPing & PrEcEdEnTS

Inspiration from Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2: Similar to how Duchamp maps the body’s movement in his painting, our Second Skin will map the body’s movement in how it inflates.

This Sulphur-crested Cockatoo can raise or lower its crested feathers on demand as a form of defence on other species that invade its personal space. The physical manipulation of its “skin” through movement of its feathers to communicate the parrot’s personal space is most applicable to our idea of a Second Skin that inflates depending on the physical and mental state of the wearer. Nude Descending a Staircase,

No. 2, Marcel Duchamp, 1912

Sulphur-crested Cockatoo, Keff McCulloch, 2011

Sulphur-crested Cockatoo, Simon Hampel, 2008

Constructing a section and profile paper prototype, I was able to experiment the ways in which the paper structure could inflate and collapse.

Two structures were created: one two strips by seven strips (featured above) and one larger piece that was nine strips by four strips. The first structure was much more flexible and was easily able to inflate and collapse.

Prototyping section and profile that inflates was important in our design considerations moving forward.

Three prototypes and their

photographs, Allyson Patterson, 2013

Constructing a rough prototype of the shell model with duct tape and opaque plastic, we experimented how the movement of the body affected the Second Skin’s form in relation to the body. As personal space is dynamic and evolves with the movement of the body, so should our Second Skin. Madeleine tested various body movements, and Allyson photographed and diagrammed how the Second Skin prototype moves.

We discovered in our prototype testing that the design was only able to truly inflate with excessive forceful movement of the body. Otherwise it just hung like a cape. The incorporation of section and profile allowed straps to encase the body, but often the inflatable structure would fully envelop the head and shoulders, disabling all vision to the external world for the wearer.

ProToTyPing

Prototype, Madeleine Eyre, 2013 | Photographs of Prototype, Allyson Patterson, 2013

Using Rhino, we unrolled our chest section and profile structure, and we sent it to the Fablab to laser cut so we could prototype. We used clear Perspex for our material to create the illusion of reflectivity.

We also prototyped the central circle structure to which the spines will attach by section and profile methods.

Initially, Madeline and I created a nut-and-bolt system to connect the strips of fabric in Model 6 to the front and back. This system would allow the Perspex wheel to rotate around an axis. after the M2 Critique, we did not continue with Model 6 or the nut-and-bolt system, as we followed suggestions to move forward with Panelling Tools in our design.

ProToTyPing dEVEloPMEnT of ModEl 6

6

Rhino Development, Allyson Patterson, 2013 Perspex Photograph, Allyson Patterson, 2013 Perspex Unrolling, Madeleine Eyre, 2013

Prototype by Madeleine Eyre, 2013Photograph by Allyson Patterson, 2013

M3: faBricaTion

forTUny

Mariano Fortuny’s Delphos gown was first designed about 1907 as a finely pleated silk dress. fortuny’s permanent pleating allowed the silk to retain its pleated shape.

Delphos Gown in Champagne, Mariano Fortuny, 1910

iSSEy MiyakE

Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake’s Pleats Please Brand is created from heat set pleats of polyester in two directions allowing for a set of pleats to take shape. This pleating technique materializes as a fluid volume to cover the body in material that permanently maintains washboard rows of horizontal, vertical or diagonal knife-edge pleats.

Pleated Ensemble, Issey Miyake, 1989

akira

contemporary australian fashion designer Akira Isogawa’s fascinating heat set polyester tentacles in his 2012 Sydney Fashion Week show inspired our heat set twirled spires that surround the body’s shoulders and chest.

Sydney Fashion Week Piece, Akira Isogawa, 2012

MaTErial PrEcEdEnTS

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TyVEk PaPEr

In search of a material that would be both semi-rigid and malleable for our inflatable, we found Tyvek paper: a synthetic material that is a brand or flashspun high-density polyethylene. Tyvek is a paper-like material that is difficult to tear but is easily cut with scissors, and it has in an extreme variety of uses from housewrap to envelopes to wristbands. We located some at Cavalier Art Supplies in Geelong.

Tyvek Frame Backing Paper, Lineco, date unknown

Taking advice from our M2 Critique, Madeleine and I experimented with various fabrics and pleating, crimping, and draping techniques for our inflatable.

1 & 2. Prototype and Photograph, Allyson Patterson, 2013

I cut strips into the fabric to create a sail-effect, and also visually incorporate profile and sectioning. I experimented with weaving strips of fabric to intertwine with a larger chiffon fabric using the section and profile system. Using an iron, I dampened the fabric and heat set pleats into the material, similar to Fortuny’s Delphos gown and Issye Miyake’s pleats. Experimenting with color, I used a yellow highlighter to draw color effects onto the chiffon.

3&4. Prototype and Photograph, Madeleine Eyre, 2013. Image editing, Allyson Patterson, 2013.

Madeleine gathered and stitched two layers of material around wire, and created pleats created to make a shell structure. Her flexible material would struggle to remain inflated unless the body exerted excessive movement. Madeleine successfully heat set and starched polyester to form a spike similar to Akira Isogawa’s pleats.

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MaTErial ProToTyPing

Aerodynamics of a Car: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9abjlj0fI4

This video visually portrays the aerodynamics of a moving car. We can visually map the aerodynamics of the body to inform the structure and direction of how our Second Skin uses the inflation system.

Aerodynamics of Personal Space:

Mapping the movement of the body standing still and walking, we allowed the movement of the air to dictate what shape our inflation would take, or how to orient the offset points while using panelling tools in Rhino.

Photograph, Allyson Patterson, 2013

MoVEMEnT MaPPing ProToTyPing

F1 car CFD analysis demo, Advantage CFD, 2009

Prototype, Madeleine Eyre and Allyson Patterson, 2013Photographs, Allyson Patterson, 2013

We experimented in creating the structure with paper that we desired our inflation system to reach when fully inflated. The rigidity of the paper is only for prototype purposes, and in the model, the wearer will not have to hold it up with her hands.

MaTErial ProToTyPing

Taking advice from our M2 Critique, Madeliene and I focused our efforts on creating a second skin that did not fully encompass the body, utilized Panelling Tools in Rhino, and was a coherent Skin not compartmentalized into our then current Perspex and inflatable parts.

Our final design for the Second Skin resulted from our previous developments and their critique. The Second Skin incorporates Section and Profiling in the under-structural Perspex shoulder piece, and through the framing of the individual with the open windows at the front. The system inflates with the body’s movement, both physically exploding with the arm movement, and inflating as the body’s energy changes through space. The triangular extrusions represent the body emitting its energy of Personal Space as well as help map its movement.

We used custom panelling tools and offset points to create this structure that mirrors the flow of energy and air from a person’s personal space as he or she moves.

Rhino models, Allyson Patterson, 2013

final rHino dEVEloPMEnTS

7

Unrolled Panels for FabLab, Madeleine Eyre, 2013

Rhino Models, Madeleine Eyre, 2013

This isometric rendering helps indicate how the pieces of our Second Skin paneling all fit together.

Rhino Model, Allyson Patterson and Madeleine Eyre, 2013Isometric exploded rendering, Allyson Patterson, 2013

Inflation testing prototypes, Madeleine Eyre and Allyson Patterson, 2013 Photographs, Allyson Patterson, 2013

We developed a full 1:5 prototype of our Second Skin to make sure we knew how all of the individual pieces would connect in relation to the body.The openings of the front of the inflation system incorporate a view of the inner body’s panelling twist piece. These openings act as a section and profile system would, allowing the outsider to see something contained in the frame.

We created the energy extrusions with plastic and double sided tape to test how they would create the Panelling Tools structure

1:5 ProToTyPing ExPlodEd iSoMETric ViEW

obj(91)

obj(67)

obj(69)

obj(80)obj(63)obj(65)

Obj(44)

Obj(28)

Craftsmanship was essential in our making process of the Second Skin. We heat set our polyester fabric material with many rubber bands in boiling water. Prior to sending our Tyvek paper to be laser cut at the Fab lab, we had to wash it. This caused the wrinkled texture of our end fabricated skin. We used a sewing machine to construct our inflatable panels, and we used a wire running through one central loop surrounding the body to provide it structure and an axis for the front arms to rotate.

Heat set fabric and Second Skin arm, Madeleine Eyre, 2013. Photographs, Allyson Patterson, 2013.

faBricaTion

“Making is the most powerful

way that we solve problems,

express ideas and shape our world.

What and how we make defines who

we are, and communicates who we

want to be.”

- Daniel Charny in Power of Making

by V&A Museum, 2011

Sewing Photograph, Madeleine Eyre, 2013

aSSEMBly

Top, Perspective, Right, and Front Orthographic Representations, Allyson Patterson, 2013

Unrolled Assembly of Final Rhino Model, Madeleine Eyre, 2013Rhino and Unrolled Perspex for Shoulderpiece, Madeleine Eyre, 2013

M4: rEflEcTion

faBricaTEd SEcond Skin SEqUEncE

Photograph sequence, Allyson Patterson, 2013

Taking advice from our M3 Critique, we performed the following alterations to our Second Skin:

1. Madeleine added the remaining extra panels to the back inflation and integrated our polyester fabric with the Tyvek paper, allowing the inflatable to transform from Tyvek to polyester as it went down.

2. Our critique suggested that we better show our Perspex shoulder piece, so we sewed the Akira polyester pleats to mimic the natural shape of the Perspex shoulder piece. Madeleine sewed it together, while I acted as the body for support.

3. Madeleine sewed flexible bands onto the wire that connected the skin to the arms instead of our previous wire that wrapped around the skin.

4. We experimented with a fan while choreographing for the Second Skin filming, but we decided that it would best show mapping the movement of the body without a fan.

All Images on this page: Allyson Patterson, 2013

final alTEraTionS final SEcond Skin SEqUEncE

Second Skin Photographs, Allyson Patterson, 2013

Previous to embarking on the journey that was Virtual Environments, I considered myself a person who enjoyed the act of making. Beginning in Module 1, I was immediately forced to place importance in the power of the detail in our first assignment to produce measured drawings of our assigned material system. While my mind was continually open to brainstorming every possibility concerning ideation of the Second Skin Design Brief, it was balanced by a grounded attention to detail. Answering questions such as, “Exactly how and why did my Section and Profile system function?” allowed me to critically examine how all products that create the world around me function.

rEflEcTion

Paul loh’s lectures in Module 2 emphasized the “bottom up” methodology of designing in an open-ended process. John Maeda’s resolution of influential design as the combination of both “content” and “form” in his 2012 TED Talk allowed me to realign my thoughts concerning the Design Brief. The “content,” or how to measure Personal Space, would combine with the “form,” or the material system, to create my design solution. Simple, right?

During Module 2 I was assigned to join forces with Madeleine Eyre as partners. We first decided to define our definition of Personal Space and the effects our Second Skin

would create in order to have a base for our design based on the Brief. Inspired by Olafur Eliasson’s constructed experiential installations such as his 2003 The weather project in Tate Modern, Madeleine and I desired for our design to shape the entire experience of the wearer of our Second Skin.

The introduction of Rhino into my digital toolkit that previously consisted of Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign greatly transformed my thought process on the potential of digital design and fabrication, especially with three-dimensional designs. learning to distinguish developable surfaces from undevelopable surfaces in

H. Pottmann’s 2007 Surfaces that Can be Built from Paper highlighted the usefulness of Paneling Tools in our project. With the aid of digital programs such as Rhino, highly complex geometries can easily be rendered and fabricated with laser and card cutters, 3D printers and CnC Routers that previously would have been extremely difficult to design and fabricate down to the precise detail. This direct design to production bridges virtual environments with the physical world.

In both Module 2 and 3 Madeleine and I deeply invested in prototyping our designs to ensure that our final product would be based on our experimental findings. The power and importance of making became most evident in our fabrication of our final design in Module 3. As explained by David Pye’s 1978 The Nature of Art & Workmanship, workmanship is the “application of technique to making by exercise of care, judgment, and dexterity.” I have always had an appreciation for this workmanship or craftsmanship, but now it was essential to deliver constant quality of work. I see it as a necessity to hold myself to the highest standard in both demanding and delivering constant craftsmanship and quality of making.

Virtual Environments has brought to my attention economic and social theorist Jeremy Rifkin’s 2011 The Third

Industrial Revolution. In this piece Rifkin describes society as moving towards the “democratization of energy” and an “era of distributed capitalism,” away from the pyramidal top-down “modern rational business bureaucracy” that began with the railroad industry beginning in the nineteenth century (p. 109). I believe this has already begun in the field of design with the progress of network systems, and open-source and open platform technologies that are transforming the maker’s and DIY movement and handing the power back to the individual. This can be seen in examples such as Kickstarter, Etsy, car share, and Makerbot.

Due to my experience in Virtual Environments and the process of designing and creating my Second Skin, I am now extremely interested in shifting the profession of architecture from passively accepting existing or even outdated modes of making and construction to actively utilizing the infinite potential of digital technologies as a bridge from design to production. Does this indicate the death of craftsmanship and triumph of digitally fabricated environments? Absolutely not. This Second Skin project stands as proof that while virtual environments enable infinite design possibilities; the success of the project lies in the maker’s workmanship and keen attention to detail.

Image: Madeleine Eyre and Allyson Patterson , 2013

rEflEcTion

Second Skin Images, Allyson Patterson, 2013

Reading Response: Allyson Patterson

Thomas Heatherwick TED Talk and ‘Abstraction’ & ‘Reduction’ in lost in Parameter Space?

What would happen if our design ideas sprouted from the seeds of a problem? Through focused inquiry, one seedling may grow into a beautiful, natural, and strong design. English designer Thomas Heatherwick founded the london-based design practice Heatherwick Studio and helped design the Seed Cathedral as the UK pavilion at Expo 2010 in Shanghai using this principle of focused inquiry. Heatherwick was confronted with a problem: with little fund-ing, stand out in the chaos of an expo to represent Britain. Rather than constructing a traditional pavilion that encompassed the en-tire space given, Heatherwick focused on creating an effect that represented the future integration of nature into cities: an atmos-phere of texture. Through trapping 66,000 seeds into acrylic rods, he created an optic to bring light into the focus on the center of the design, allowing the outside environment to be sensed. The effect of an atmosphere of texture allowed the Seed Cathedral to be-come a precious jewel drawing in the public from the larger open external space.

Abstraction is a reduction of the complexity of something as a model containing as little information to describe all properties of an object. Abstraction can take place in shape, material, and detail. We abstracted our bodies utilising 123DCatch to create a mesh. Reduction is the optimal way to transport information with-out altering the content. not like abstraction in that it is reducing in-formation, reduction efficiently communicates information without redundancies through optimization of descriptions and processes. While the low-level reduction happens within the CAD system itself, designers are focused on higher-level reduction through normaliza-tion, or eliminating anomalies of redundancies through parametric models, and Refactoring, or cleaning up the model and optimizing descriptions and processes. We used reduction while using nURBS curves in Rhino to digitally model our material systems.

“Architecture in the Digital Age - Design and Manufacturing”Kolarevic - Response by Allyson Patterson

The translation of 3D to 2D and 2D to 3D has been brought about by the evolving technology of the Digital Age. The construction of complex geometries is now made possible by 2D and 3D fabrication techniques. Two-Dimensional Fabrication, such as laser cutters, function only two-dimensionally. Three-dimensional fabrication includes subtractive and additive fabrication. Subtractive Fabrication is the removal of certain designated volumes from a solid by electro-, mechanically-, or chemically reductive technology, and depending on the technology of the machinery, certain axes may be restricted or constrained. Additive Fabrication adds materials together incrementally by layers to form solids. With this technology, designers entered a “digital avant-garde” and are rethinking surface tectonics such as enabling the skin and structure to become one into a self-supporting enclosure. These surfaces, often created from complex geometries, must be created into developable surfaces by triangulation and unfolding, which we will use in our Second Skin design.

“Digital Fabrications: Architectural and Material Technologies”lisa iwamoto

At first, design influenced digital fabrication and construction techniques, but as architects and designers became more fluent in digital fabrication techniques, their designs became influenced by the complex curvilinear forms and complex geometries made possible by digital fabrication. As a medium like any other, digital technology has its natural constraints and benefits. One of the most important benefits is the streamlined process from design to physical conception making. The architect is now an integral part of the construction process. Through sectioning, tessellating, and folding, digital fabrication brings about endless design and construction possibilities and has highly influenced modern design, including our Second Skin design. Each of these processes enables originally simple geometric forms to be shaped into complex designs. The use of Paneling Tools serves as an excellent example of design being shaped by the possibilities of digital design, and 123D Catch is a spot-on use of modeling digital forms from previously existing structures.

aPPEndix aPPEndix

Seed Cathedral, Thomas Heatherwick, 2010

Rhino portal of Perspex shoulder pieces, Madeleine Eyre, 2013

BiBliograPHy

Charny, D “Thinking through making” In Power of Making, exhibition catalogue, 6 September 2011- 2 January 2012, V&A, South Kensington, london.

H.Pottmann,A.Asperl,M.Hofer, A.Kilian (eds) 2007 “Surfaces that can be built from paper” in Architectural Geometry, Bentley Institute Press, pp 534-561.

Heatherwick, T (March 2011) Thomas Heatherwick: Building the Seed Cathedral [Video file] retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/thomas_heatherwick.html.

Iwamoto, l 2009, Digital fabrications: architectural and material techniques, Princeton Architectural Press, new York, Selected Extracts.

Kolarevic, B, 2003 “Digital Production” in Architecture in the Digital Age - Design and Manufacturing , Spon Press, london, pp30-54.

Maeda, John, “How art, technology and design inform creative leaders,” viewed 19 August 2013, < http://www.ted.com/talks/john_maeda_how_art_ technology_and_design_inform_creative_leaders.html>.

Miralles, E, Pinos, C “How to lay out a croissant” El Croquis, 49/50, pp. 240-241.

Rifkin, J 2011 “Distributed Capitalism’ in The third Industrial Revolution Palgrave Macmillan, new York pp107-126.

Scheurer, F, Stehling, H 2011, “lost in Parameter Space?” AD: Architectural Design, vol 81 pp. 70-79.

Sommer, R 1969, ‘ Spatial invasion’ in Sommer, R, Personal space : the behavioral basis of design, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, n.J, pp. 26-38.