Gradient Scale
SPAN, 2005

Gradient Scale was conceived and built for the group exhibition “AustriArchitecture.” The project explores issues of nonsequential scalar growth, surface articulation, and the panelization of a continuous nonrepeating surface using CNC fabrication methods. The design challenges the concept of scale in architecture and establishes a conceptual “digitalscape” as a testing ground for leaping scalar associations in viewing the exhibition.

To achieve a continuously growing scalar model, the architects developed an MEL script that repeated a series of five curves along the predefined length of the exhibition object. These curves were connected in Maya, creating a “bi-rail” surface.

Through several iterations of forces influencing the surface, different degrees of articulations of the final element were created. The undulating surface can be read as a repetition of the one-to-one detail: the greater the frequency of the curves grows, the flatter the amplitude of the curves gets, resulting in a pattern that can be read as a texture in an urban scale.


Issues connected to digital production methods were explored using a three-axis milling machine. Using the milling software, SPAN calculated the tool paths to examine different surface patterns. These patterns emerged from the isoparms derived from the computational model.

The final milled result was informed by consciously manipulating the isoparms, as well as by choosing different mill bits and varying the step sizes of the milling path. The jagging and rippling of the surface created reinforcement ribs in the panel’s structure.

 The problem of panelization was also explored in the production of Gradient Scale. The object, twenty feet long and five feet wide, was produced in three segments. Instead of forming straight, rectangular pieces, the cuts follow the model’s isoparms, creating puzzle-like joints. Because the joints follow the NURBS’s geometry, their formal appearance matches the entire project’s language.

 

 Read More about the project here:
http://mjrh-arch.blogspot.com/2009/12/gradient-scale.html

Book Reference:

Digital Fabrications Architectural and Material Techniques by Lisa Iwamoto 
https://amzn.to/3Gt0s2u