Module 2 - Design

VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS

Alexander OuldTanya SriboonmakWei Chern Soon

Personal Space (1)

FROM THE INVISIBLE TO THE VISIBLE - SECOND SKIN

From the readings Personal Space: Behavioral basis of design by Robert Summer, personal space is defined as the invisible bounda-ries around a person which has specific distance for each and every person.

And, when spatially invaded by unwelcomed strangers, negative emotions are evoked. On the other hand, when invaded by welcom-ing friends or lovers, the opposite positive emotions are evoked instead

Our personal space address personal space by manifesting the invisible boundaries into an actual boundary, which essentially is the second skin.

EXPERIMENTING PERSONAL SPACE - ALEX’S PERSONAL SPACE

Figure 1 - Personal space of Alex - Front View Figure 2 - Personal space of Alex - Side View

Figure 3 - Rhino visuallisation of the personal

boundaries - Front view

Figure 4 - Rhino visuallisation of the personal

boundaries - Side view

Personal Space (2)After further exploration, we then decided to define personal space in a particular context of a dancer as similar to our material system (slinky), a dancer has great flexibility and frequent movements.

Personal space - the atmosphere created by the dancer via the various body movements.

Second skin - complementing movements and the message/atmosphere attempt to be created by the dancer.

EXPLORING MOVEMENTS

Figure 6 - Open welcoming movements

Figure 7 - Spreading out of atmosphere (shown by the

blurring of edges of the dancer’s body outwards)

Figure 5 - Atmosphere produced around the

dancer

Figure 8 -Spiralling atmosphere

EXPLORING SHADOW & SPATIAL EFFECT

To demonstrate the expanding and contracting atmosphere (personal space) created by the dancer in our second skin pro-ject, we figure it would be useful to use the effects of light and shadow. In this case, the dimensions of the shadow changes fol-lowing the change in movements of the dancer. And, the shad-ow depicts the changing, flexible personal space of the dancer.

EXPLORING PATTERNS & EMOTIONSPersonal Space (2) - cont.Next, we figure the design of the second skin should incorpo-rate patterns to enhance the emotion evoked on the audi-ence. The patterns are derived from the body posture of the dancer adopting the abstraction and reduction methods from the readings.ABSTRACTION - process whereby the complexity of structure is simplified but retaining the initial concept of the structure.

The body posture and movements of the dancer is abstracted into series of triangulated geometry.

FROM MOVEMENTS TO PATTERNS

REDUCTION - process whereby normalisation and refactoring is used to obtain the most optimal way to transport or communicate information.

The body posture and movements of the dancer is distorted or pixelated in various methods in Photo-shop to obtain various patterns

Twist distortion

Rectangular to Polar

Crystaline

Wave distortion

ZIG ZAG distortion

Rectangular to Polar distortion

Digitised Mesh of bodyARMS CLOSED

Most of the surrounding environments of the body are cut in 123D Catch, but, there are parts which we are unable to cut off. (note the annotated figure below). However, the overall shape of the body is successfully obtained.

Figure - Rendered digital mesh of Alex after import-ing into Rhino - front view (Left) & Side View (Right).

ARMS OPENED

This mesh is more successful overall as there are less left over surrounding feature in the mesh.

Figure - Rendered digital mesh of Alex after import-ing into Rhino - front view (Left) & Side View (Right).

Module 1 revisitSince our concept of personal space revovles around evoking emotions such as fear or confusion on the others, therfore the following design from module 1 is used to be developed further in Rhino.

Trial is done to design the idea but to no avail. Probably due to the design idea being to unrealistic.

Initial sketch design ideas - hopes to achieve:1. design being divided in both longitudinal and horizon-tal sections to produce sections2. Contrasting colour of black and white so as to evoke confusion on the people around the user.3. Curvature of the profile following that of a slinky.

Series of extruded circular surface made hoping to achieve the curvature and horizontal section.

However, there is no way to produce the longitudinal section line in a curve, as the section line can only be drawn as straight line in Rhino.

Design Proposal 1Design insipiration : Kaleidoscope - reflection of lights by multiple mirrors producing a particular patterns

The second skin explores personal space by channel-ling light to the head thus creating a sense of safeness in the person, especially during the night.

RHINO MODELLING

Firstly the overall shape of the second skin is drawn around the mesh created using the command line segments and control points curve.

The triangulated shapes around the body is inspired by how a prism kaleidoscope works (concentrating and chanelling light to a specific point.

The curvatures around the head is derived from the slinky.

Pipe command is used to create a 3D shape around the curves drawn.

Planar curves command is used to create surfaces where mir-ror is thought to be placed.

Final model

Design Proposal 21. Overall concept of creating sense of safety in the user is too literal derivation of addressing personal space.2. Usage of curvature of slinky is too obvious a copy of the material profile.3. No usage of the material system - sections and profiling - no evidence of interlocking small sections in creating larger geometry.

FLAWS IN PROPOSAL 1

INTERESTING IDEAS IN PROPOSAL 1

1. Usage of panels of mirrors in chanelling and directing the movements of light.

INITIAL CONCEPT IDEA

Similar to proposal 1, lighting effects are used. Light bulbs are placed in each panel sections

Fabric etched with patterns used to produce shadowed patterns which functions to evoke emotions on others.

Curves profile following that of a slinky but is developed further wih additional fea-ture of petal-like shape.

Follows curvature around the arm

FINAL DESIGN CONCEPT

Addressing personal space - This second skin shows territory of the user’s personal space not only by having it around the body but also by the shadow projected by the second skin.

Addressing spatial effect - To show spatially the territorised of a space for personal usage, this is demonstrated by the boundaries not only the second skin but also the shadow. This expands the personal space of the person. Furthermore, since the shadow changes with movements and angle of lightings, the personal space boundaries can be expanded and contracted by the change in the size of the shadow casted. And, this can be varied by the movements of the user’s hands thus allowing the user to change the boundaries as he/she wish.

Addressing emotional effect - Various patterns on the surface of the second skin evokes different emotion on the people around the user. (Eg, curvature = welcoming, sharp edges = unwelcoming).- This can also be demonstrated by the size of shadow. The larger the size of shadow casted, the more the fear evoked on the people around the user. If the shadow is constraint into a small shadow, people are less afraid of approaching the person.

Due to constrain and limited knowledge of Rhino, we decided to stick to a simpler geometry.

Creating similar shape in this profile.

Second skin attached to the body at these posi-tions. Still applying the concept of light and

shadow, however, the light is attached to a single tube in the space between the outer spiral sections.

Developement of second skin

Changing from surface to sections

Further development

The initial idea of placing strings of light in the cylinder in between is not adopted. Instead, the initial idea of placing light bulbs in each of the section is adopted.

This shows how the individual sections are in-terlocked together and producing sections with a curving/spiral profile

Light bulbs placed in each of the section holes.

Prototype MakingExploring Materiality

Two prototype using different material is made. The first one with plywood whereas the other with ivory paper.

This is to explore the most suitable material used as the final sec-ond skin product.

Series of curvature cut out in making the prototype - both plywood and paper.

Prototype 1

Paper - unconsistent profile due to twisting of the paperPlywood - consistent profile

Paper - Interlock to con-nect pieces of curvature together.

Plywood - Masking tape as connection between pieces.

Shows interlocking between pieces of paper and how it interlock connections hold the whole structure together.

Prototype 2Exploring Shadow and Effects- (Emotional & Spatial)

Large shadow casted - claim of personal space at that area (people will not walk towards the shad-ow) - evokes fear and confusionPatterns created- add effect of aesthetic to the design rather than just dull, boring squares.

Patterns- following that of a dancer as explored before.

Patterns placed at alternate space in between the sec-tions - so as not to create too confusing pattern shadows. - retain the simplicity.

Precedent studiesThe Eden Project - The Core

The Core is a building in the United Kingdom. The very distinctive properties of this building is the roof, consisting of interlocking timber panels, which demonstrate the material system of a slinky - section and profiling.

The way each section of the timber interlocked together to form a large structure inspired the use of sections of longitudinal and horizontal curvature lines interlocking with each other thus forming a large second skin structure for the design of the second skin.

The placement of glass at some but not all panels of section can be related to the design of our second skin for which the patterns to create the shadow is placed in a certain for-mation to create the best effect.

Precedent studiesCordoba Contemporary Art Centre/C4

The repetitive geometry of the facade of the building can be emplyed in our design by having a little repetitive 3D geometry joining together to form the skin. This repetitiveness is also similar to that of our material, which is the slinky.

The way the hexagonal geometry is laid out at the facade of the building and the effects of light through each of the hexagonal section holes can also be adopted into our design. We were also thinking of employing the way he arranged the hexagonal shapes and us-ing different dimensions of hexagonal shape to direct the light into our second skin design project since we are using the concept of lights and shadow.

Critical Analysis and Reflection

As mentioned before, we had adopted the method of digitising a physical form in the ex-ploration of patterns for our second skin using the abstraction and reduction method. This proves to be very useful as it gives us the direction to which the pattern should be explored and not just random curvatures.

Lost in Parameter Space

Thomas Heatherwick TedTalk

What we really like about Thomas Heatherwick’s design is that he obtain design ideas from the surrouding world and his own experience. Even a small advertisement can inspire him to build the seed cathedral. We thought that this is why his building structure can always evoke emotions in others as his designs connect with the outer world and invite people into the space rather than creating a building which looks overwhelmingly beautiful and grand but is too high class that commoners do not dare to get close to it, like a grand palace.

For example, his design of the ‘seed cathedral’ and the ‘power plant’ both orient around inviting people into the space.

Lecture ResponseWeek 4’s lecture on designing effects is the most inspiring lecture to us. The three effects mentioned were differentiated effects, interference effect and The Very Many. During the lecture, what struck us the most is how there is always a concept and reasoning behind every design. Although the design might seem random where the repetitive structures are placed together, especially for the design effects of The Very Many, but the final effects are always very overwhelming. This overwhelming effect can never be produced if there is no a set of rules behind the design. Try drawing random repetitive geometries and piece them together, you will never attain the desired effect. In incorporating these into our design, we thought that the differentiated effect can be coupled with The Very Many where repetitive geometry of different dimensions are placed together to form the second skin structure.

Module 2 ReflectionThroughout the process of getting the whole module done, we realised that it is important to grasp the basic design concept that you would like to adopt first before trying in com-ing up with design ideas. This is because this will help a lot in making clear of the direction of your design rather than changing of approach throughout the whole process. For example, before we came up with the personal space concept, we were thinking of design ideas ran-domly without a clear aim of what we want to achieve with the design. However, after fixing the concept, we were then able to come up with ideas that actually has a function rather than just what we like or random thoughts.

We think that the initial design concept is the most important as it set rules and roots for the rest of the process of designing. Without it would be like a tree without it roots, and your design will not be convincing enough to con-vince others to accept.