TENTACLES SECTION AND PROFILES
M3 FABRICATION CHAN JOSHUA TIG HAY 638994 VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS SEMESTER 2/2013
DESIGN AGENDA
Street in England
MTR in Hong Kong
PERSONAL SPACE The personal space is dictated by the area of the shoulder where it is mostly intruded through unintended physical contact (i.e. bumping) in crowded areas. - The shoulder is most vulnerable to physical contact in crowed area as it has a large span and is wide - The shoulder determines the span of the body, the widest span of the body
Pushing model
“The sense of touch”
Octopus tents
“A look of pain”
- e.g. when people sit next to each other, their shoulders usually meet and they tend to shrug or contract their shoulders to prevent touching
SECOND SKIN IDEA The second skin acting as extended sensory organs of the body that declares personal space with a threatening emotion.
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INSPIRATION AND DIGITAL MODEL Why tentacles? The form of the second skin was inspired by biomimicry, where invertebrates have tentacles as an extended sensory organ, which helps them detect predators. Humans have hair as sensory receptors while invertebrates have their sensory receptors focused at the tip of their tentacles. In this second skin project, the tentacle form is a combination of the human skin and the sensory organs of an invertebrate. The tentacles as the second skin will then take up the unintended physical contact in crowded areas and protect the primary skin. By doing so, the person will not receive ‘surprise touches’ from strangers. At the same time, the spikey “hair” of the second skin will aim to threaten intruders from a distant and whoever touches it up close will feel a slight sense of pain which then “tells” the intruder he is inside the person’s comfort zone. The spikes on the spine of the tentacle represent the sensory buds of the second skin. The closer the intruder is to the person, the larger the “hair” gets. Therefore the size of the spikes represents the closeness of the person with the intruder as well as the uneasiness of the person wearing it.
Octopus tentacles
“Jelly Fish”
Octopus as predator
“Exo Tentacles”
Hand of male
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READING DISCUSSION Architecture in the Digital Age: Design and Manufacturing The idea of creating a “structural skin” mentioned in the reading would be very useful to our second skin project. It suggests that the structure and the skin should be able to be conflated and transform into a self-supporting object. Our second skin design can be able to incorporate such an element so that it can be secured on our body and displayed elegantly without falling off during a catwalk. This fusion of the structure and skin of an object also brings in the issue of material selection. As the material and vary in thickness, strength and even colour, it plays an important role in forming the cladding of an object. For my second skin project where sectioning techniques are explored, stiffer material such as cardboard maybe more suitable to create ribs as cardboard is strong enough to support complex geometries. It is also important to note that two-dimensional cutting methods such as laser cutting are the most effective option for our digital fabrication within such a limited timeframe. We have to learn how to transform our design into developable surfaces such that they can be unfolded easily and fabricated by hand. Digital Fabrications – Iwamoto “Decisions as to which machine and method to use must marry design intent with machine capability.”
Restaurant Georges:
Little did I know that the choice of machine will have a great impact on the outcome of the design, I tried to use the card cutter to cut my laid out pieces with very thin notches. It wasn’t till the card cutter tore my material and failed to cut my desired piece did I know that the machine has a low capacity towards intricate geometries. It was then I diverted to use the laser cutter for my future prototypes, which obviously did a very good job in trimming edges on thin pieces of material without breaking them. “Sectioning can act as a substrate for the application of a surface material and the achievement of a smooth finished form” Indeed, as my second skin project focused on a material system with sections and profiles, I was fond of how sectioning techniques can actually replace smooth finishing and create a totally different type of visual effect. Techniques such as ribbing, parallel stacking and waffling enabled a particular object to take form with a structural appearance. Sectioning designs are more lightweight than solid objects due to its large volume of air. In addition, pieces can come together without the use of chemical adhesives. Plywood Delaminations by Monica Ponce de Leon is a good example where lapped joints are created to provide strong shear connection, and no adhesives were used.
Plywood Delaminations by Monica Ponce de Leon
Plywood Delaminations by Monica Ponce de Leon
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PROTOTYPING
PROTOTYPE 1
MATERIAL: 1MM, 1.8MM BOXBOARD In this prototype, boxboard with different thickness was experimented due to its higher stiffness compared to ivory card. The prototype was divided into 2 parts, which include the tentacle “head” and the tentacle “arm”. 1mm boxboard was used to fabricate the former as it appears to be the more delicate and detailed structure of the tentacle while 1.8mm boxboard was for the arm as it is slightly stronger and had to be able to support the head.
‘Digital Fabrications’ by Lisa Iwamoto has mentioned three types of sectioning techniques which include ribbing, parallel stacking and waffling.
Waffling had been experimented with the “head” of the tentacle. It was found that this technique is very effective in creating volume and the sense of a solid form. The sharp form of the tentacle head was quite successful in catching the eye of an observer in first sight. It is however, due to the thinness of the material, that it was a bit wobbly when moved around.
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On the other hand, the technique of parallel stacking for the spine of the tentacle had been very successful in providing stability to the prototype. 2 pieces of 1.8m boxboard was stacked together to increase the stiffness of the spine. The only drawback was that it failed to encompass visible volume. When observed in from the top view, the spine appeared to be a thin strip of cardboard which was not able to catch attention.
Besides sectioning techniques, I have noticed that the most important part of the second skin was not emphasized – the “hair” of the tentacle. Indeed, as an observer, I tend to become drawn to the ‘head’ instead of the ‘hair’ of tentacle, which are the major sensory receptors of the second skin used to protect my personal space. The threating effect that was aimed to achieve through the hair was not successful. I believe that problem with them is that they are fabricated with the same material as the other components and are of the same size, which fails to make them stand out from the tentacle itself.
The notch for the ‘hair’ had to be double the width of the 1.8mm boxboard, which makes up to 3.6mm.
The width for the other notches were created with the width of the material
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PROTOTYPE 2
MATERIAL: 1MM BOXBOARD, 1MM MOUNTBOARD In my final prototype, I focused on the ‘hair’ of the tentacles by combining the 2 sectioning techniques explored in the second prototype and experimented with different materials.
The intricate weapon-like tentacle head that was present in the previous prototype had been eliminated and the end of tentacle is allowed to taper off naturally. This was because it was the ‘hair’ of the tentacle that is used to defend the personal space so it should be emphasized more compared to the head of the tentacle.
Instead of parallel stacking, the waffling technique was employed to the spine of the tentacle to give it more volume and thickness such that it is able to accommodate more “hair” in different directions. The ‘hair’ pieces followed the curve of the spine and varied in sizes. They got smaller in size towards the tip of the tentacle while they increased in size and thickness towards other end. This size variation of the ‘hair’ pieces corresponded to the alertness and uneasiness of the person wearing the second skin. Smaller pieces towards the end would be smaller such that the intruder is only warned, but as it gets closer to the person the ‘hair’ pieces tend to become more spikey and would cause pain to the intruder when touched, showing that the intruder had reached an unacceptable limit.
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Towards the thicker end of the tentacle, the ‘hair’ pieces increase in size, density, and thickness. By slightly twisting the pieces in different directions, various orientation of the pieces were explored. It appeared that 2 different orientation enabled the tentacle to encompass more volume and space as it expanded laterally.
In addition, the use of Mount board for the making of the ‘hair’ pieces enabled them to stand out due to the contrast in colour. The use of this material is successful in catching the eye of observers and when combined with the spine, was also able to depict a cluster of sharp spikes which evoked a threatening emotion.
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NOTCH SYSTEM PROBLEM
Notch width of 1mm
Notch width of 1.8mm
Problems with the notch connection are likely to arise when the thickness of the notches of the connecting pieces are not equal. In this prototype, I have made a mistake in the width of the notches for the “hair” pieces along the side of the tentacle. The width of the notch for these “hair” pieces were equal to the thickness of mountboard. However, as the ‘hair’ pieces that were cut using 1mm mountboard are supposed to be slotted into 1.8mm Boxboard. With 1mm material interlocking with 1.8mm material, the ‘hair’ pieces with a thinner notch were forced into a thicker material. The notch system failed as the pieces were torn at the parts where they connect and the small ‘hair pieces’ could be barely supported by the boxboard.
Wrinkles appeared as the ‘hair’ pieces’ with a thinner notch were being forced into a thicker notch.
The notch of the ‘hair’ piece made by mountboard was torn after being forced into the boxboard.
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FINAL FABRICATION
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UNROLLING AND NESTING
1mm Mountboard Consisting of the tentacle ‘hair’ pieces
1.8mm Boxboard Consisting of the spine of tentacles and shoulder pieces
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ASSEMBLY DIAGRAMS Tentacle piece
Shoulder piece
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ASSEMBLY PROCESS Tentacle assembly
All the pieces including the spine and the ‘hair’ pieces for one tentacle was gathered.
The spine was constructed first.
Minmal amount of glue was use to ensure that the smaller pieces don’t fall off. At the same time, the melting of the material by excessive glue was acknowledged.
The ‘hair’ pieces were put in after the spine was completed.
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ASSEMBLY PROCESS Burnt marks as a distinctive feature Instead of getting rid of the burn marks that could be seen quite clearly on Mount board that was white in colour, I decided to make use of it and turn it into a feature of my hair pieces. For the ‘hair’ that were formed by parallel stacking, I flipped the larger piece such that the side with the burnt marks are facing outwards. This way the stacked pieces would appear more prominent and eye-catching.
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Shoulder piece assembly
After the initial shape formed, the ribs of the shoulder piece was put in place The shoulder piece was divided into 2 parts, namely left and right segments.
The left side of the segment was constructed first.
After the 2 segments are completed, they were simply slotted into one another.
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PROTOTYPES VS FINAL PRODUCT
Prototype 1:
Prototype 2:
Final product:
- Waffling in tentacle hed
- Waffling in spine
- Waffling in spine
- Parallel stacking in the spine
- Parallel stacking on ‘hair’ pieces
- Parallel stacking on ‘hair’ pieces
Problems:
Problems:
- Wrong focus for the tentacle head, focus should be on the sensory receptors
- Notches are of wrong sizes and do not fit
- ‘Hair’ pieces exhibit burnt marks as a distinctive feature
- One material is used, the sensory receptors do not stand out
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FINAL PRODUCT
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FINAL PRODUCT
I believe the end-product of second skin has exploited the features of a section and profile material system quite successfully despite the fact that glue is still need to reinforce the shear stress provided by the notch mechanism. Both waffling and stacking techniques were able to create volume to the design. It has also achieved the desired threathening effect as the ‘hair’ pieces as the external sensory receptors are sharp and pointing outwards, which aims towards any approaching person. The varying sizes of the ‘hair’ pieces also has the image of a cluster of miniweapons when is seen from afar. In addition, the design is placed in the position such that it is strong enough to protect the shoulders, which is the most intruded area of the body, responding to the original design agenda. Another person who accidentally bumps into the person wearing the second skin will feel the pain from the sharp ‘hair’ pieces, thereby alarming the intruder with the use of passive counter attack, that the personal space of the wearer is intruded.
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