From Horizontal to Vertical

RHODE ISLAND SCHOOL OF DESIGN ARCHITECTURE | INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE | TEXTILES

FROM HORIZONTAL TO VERTICAL

INDEX

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Special thanks to the Saint- Gobain / CertainTeed team for the unremitting support of the Collaborative Studio Horizontal to Vertical: Minas Apelian, Vice President of R&D, CertainTeed, Todd DiNoia, Director, R&D Platforms, CertainTeed, Dennis Michaud, Group Leader, R&D Design, CertainTeed, Isabelle Etchart, Director of R&D, CertainTeed Ceilings, Chris Bourque, Director of Marketing, CertainTeed Ceilings, Bob Marshall, Sr, Manager of Technical Sales, CertainTeed Ceilings, Jill Robles, Architectural Sales Manager, CertainTeed Ceilings & Ecophon, Phillip Evans, Group Leader, Acoustics, Energy, and Moisture, CertainTeed, Stan Gatland, Manager, Building Sciences and Comfort, CertainTeed, Ali Chitsaz, Technical and Development Manager, Decoustics, Pierre Chigot, Exploratory Design Manager, Ecophon, Robert Schild, Habitat Marketing Director, Saint-Gobain, Jean-Marie Thouvenin, Director of Building Physics, Saint-Gobain Lectures delivered on topics of Architectural Development, Sales, Acoustics and Habitat as well as their engaged, constructive critique during studio reviews greatly contributed to the advancement of ideas and concepts. The generous sponsorship of CertainTeed / Saint Gobain made the conception and teaching of the Collaborative Studio Horizontal to Vertical at all possible by providing funding for the explorations of concepts, for the construction of models and full-scale prototypes, for the travels of the studio to Lessac, France, and for the installation of three prototypes at the Domaine de Boisbuchet.

Thank you to the many members of the RISD community who supported the studio and accompanied it administratively, academically and technically throughout the term: Research Daniel Hewett, Director of Partnered Projects Academic Affairs Janine Connelly, Senior Budget Analyst Edward Draper, Director, Academic Budgets & Resources RISD Global Gwen Farrelly, Director Valeria Albani, Associate Director, Off-Campus Learning Josh Chodorow, Coordinator Gillian Wigton Bell, Global Engagement Specialist

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Architecture Amy Kulper, Department Head Sara Willet, Department Coordinator Laura Briggs, Faculty Carl Lostritto, Faculty Brett Schneider, Faculty Peter Tagiuri, Faculty

Interior Architecture Liliane Wong, Department Head Wendy Abelson, Senior Department Coordinator Amy Doyle, Department Coordinator Tucker Houlihan, Technical Assistant III Eduardo Benamor Duarte, Faculty Textiles Mary Anne Friel, Department Head Alison Huff, Department Coordinator Rosie Emlein, Technical Assistant III Anna Gitelson-Kahn, Faculty Anais Missakian, Faculty Furniture Design Meg Callahan, Faculty RISD Museum Kate Irvin, Curator, Costumes & Textiles Thank you to Scheri Fultineer Dean, Division of Architecture and Design, and Stephen A. Metcalf, Emeritus Trustee for their great interest in the project and participation in the final RISD Review.

Thank you to members of the wider academic community for participating in reviews and providing expert advice: Giuseppe Fallacara, Faculty, Politecnico di Bari Ralf Petersen, Faculty, Hochschule für Technik Stuttgart Derek Stein, Faculty, Brown University Diane Ziegler, Faculty, Hochschule für Technik Stuttgart A great thank-you to the friends at Domaine de Boisbuchet: Alexander von Vegesack, Founder, CIRECA (President of Centre international de recherche et d’éducation culturelle et agricole) Mathias Schwartz-Clauss, Director Domaine de Boisbuchet Carlos Guisasola & Team, Workshop & Installation Technician Natalia Montes & Team The creative time at the Domaine de Boisbuchet, the opportunity to install the prototypes in the Chateau, and the friendship, wonderful support and care, and interest by the Domaine de Boisbuchet Team will remain memorable.

Last but not least, Wilfred Rodriguez, team member of 3 - Axis, deserves great credit for the graphic concept, design, and layout of this publication.

This book is funded by CertainTeed, a company of Saint-Gobain Concept and chapter texts by studio teams Studio description and text editing by studio faculty Images provided by the studio teams Book designed by Wilfred Rodriguez Printed by Horizontal to Vertical I An Interdisciplinary Studio Architecture I Interior Architecture I Textiles I Rhode Island School of Design

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CERTAINTEED PREFACE The way we work is changing. Dynamic co-working spaces are proliferating throughout the country, enabling sole-proprietors, startups, and corporate telecommuters to enjoy flexibility without sacrificing the shared resources and opportunities of working amongst others. At the same time, teams within individual firms are being frequently reconfigured into more agile, purpose-built teams. The buildings housing this work, however, are barely able to keep up.

Open office spaces, the present norm in new and retrofit construction, are popular because they enable flexibility. However, as we have removed the barriers once separating office spaces, functions, and people, we have also eliminated the performative benefits of delineation. Flexibility has been achieved at the expense of specificity and comfort.

The purpose of this studio is to address this problem. Rather than inflexible barriers, programmed, performative space can be created by the phenomenological experience it engenders. In this context, the students focused primarily on acoustics. Acoustical comfort forms a pillar of what Saint-Gobain calls “Multi-Comfort” – the notion that feeling good in a building is about having the perfect amount of light, the proper level of sound, and the ideal temperature. We chose to focus on sound because the design for acoustical comfort is non-intuitive, requiring more nuance, more give-and-take. In this way, it is the perfect technical pairing with the overarching topic of flexibility and specificity.

In order to equip the students with the market awareness and technical understanding necessary to produce the work herein, CertainTeed was honored to provide lectures on commercial acoustics, the metrics for and design of building acoustics, and the physics of sound. From there, the studio’s focus on physical prototyping turned knowledge into designed realities. Equally critical to the studio’s success was its multidisciplinary makeup, combining students from the disciplines of textile design, interior architecture, and architecture, as well as sharing and fusing the pedagogical and creative methods of each.

Enormous credit goes to Professors Wagner, Rudorf, and Knowles for their initiative to co-teach the studio in such a novel way. The many successes of this studio are a clear demonstration of the creative potency of RISD, where excellence in nearly all major art and design disciplines are footsteps away from each other.

And most importantly, the students whose work is shown herein were without question the stars of this experiment in academic, industry, and disciplinary collaboration. Their work combines a unique sensitivity toward the needs of building occupants, the imperative of maintaining flexibility and specificity of design, the importance of acoustical comfort, and the rigors of multiple design disciplines.

On behalf of CertainTeed and its parent company Saint-Gobain, we were proud to have been invited along for the ride.

Todd DiNoia and Dennis Michaud

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FROM HORIZONTAL TO VERTICAL STUDIO If the nature of architecture is the grounded, the fixed, the permanent, then textiles are its very antithesis. If, however, we think of the process of building and the process of weaving and compare the work involved, we will find similarities despite the vast difference in scale. Both construct a whole from separate parts that retain their identity, a manner of proceeding, fundamentally different from that of working metal, for instance, or clay, where parts are absorbed into an entity. This basic difference, however, has grown less clearly defined as new methods are developing, affecting both building and weaving, and are adding increasingly to fusion as opposed to linkage.

Albers, Annie. “Perspecta.” The Yale Architectural Journal, 1957 Abridged and reprinted as “Fabric. The Pliable Plane.” Craft Horizons, July 1958

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STUDIO DESCRIPTION The work depicted in this publication is the result of an Advanced Interdisciplinary Studio at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Horizontal to Vertical, co-taught in the spring of 2018 by the Departments of Interior Architecture (Wolfgang Rudorf), Textiles (Ursula Wagner), and Architecture (Jonathan Knowles) and sponsored by Saint-Gobain / CertainTeed. Students focused on re-interpreting and prototyping interior ‘secondary’ surfaces – surfaces typically independent from the surface materials forming the ‘primary’ envelope of a space.

The studio objective was to design performance-oriented horizontal and vertical interior assemblies - ceilings and partitions improved over conventional construction. At the outset of the studio a series of questions directed towards configurability of space over time, responsiveness to existing spatial conditions and geometries, and systematization demarcated the initial field of inquiries into a myriad of design-related terms: e.g. design evolution, assembly, disassembly, reuse, sustainability, modularity, accumulation, flexibility, materiality, technology, fabrication, transportation, and installation.

Reconciling the advantage of lightness with the laws of acoustics demanding mass and thickness, integrating functionalities beyond the conventional aspects of screen and compartmentalization, and exploring material effects such as color, reflectance, transmittance and absorption of light and sound, were some of the many challenges addressed by the interdisciplinary team.

The true opportunity of the studio however originated in the merger of two opposite structural domains – the realm of Textiles, typically associated with the potential of absorbing tensile forces, and the primarily compression force-accepting world of architecture. Creating symbiotic concepts by fusing the two opposite worlds, while respecting the autonomy of Textiles and Architecture, required progressive design thinking.

The studio process was accompanied by a series of lectures on marketing, application aspects and qualitative environmental studies, as well as acoustics, structures, material studies, energy and recycling. In addition, frequent interdisciplinary reviews involving critics from Saint-Gobain, CertainTeed and the various RISD departments created a place of true creativity and professional collaboration between students, industry and faculty, and advanced the various ideas from the experimental phase to the construction of full-scale models and prototypes.

With the conclusion of the academic year, funding allowed for the relocation of the studio from Providence to the Domaine de Boisbuchet in Lessac, France, and the installation of three conceptual unique and distinct prototypes in the 19th Century Chateau, the center of the Boisbuchet Art and Architectural Campus. The final three Horizontal to Vertical Studio concepts - 3-Axis, Soft Grid and Anamanam¹ - described in this publication document that the sharing of a common goal by a creative multidisciplinary team, can lead to unique reinterpretations of an often conventional and common-day product – partitions and suspended ceilings, reinvented.

¹ The meaning of the term Anamanam is defined as the innate flexibility of something.

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VERTICAL

Experimental Phase Material Challenge What works? | How? | Why? Absorb & Reflect Light | Transparent | Absorb & Reflect Sound | Flexible vs Rigid | Color

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Tiffany Alonzo | Pedro Armelin | Gabrielle Ferreira What works? | How? | Why? Our experimental phase focused on the use of a structural grid that could be collapsible while allowing for acoustical and lighting performance. The interlocking of dowels in the X and Y directions allowed for the creation of a system. The experimentation with louvres above the grid allowed for the operation of the piece. As the grid opened and closed, a cavity was created for light and sound to be absorbed and directed, with the louvres acting as apertures for the system as a whole.

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Claire Harvey | Wilfred Rodriguez | Jennifer Thornton What works? | How? | Why? Our group was very focused on bringing textiles and architecture together in order to create a more functional and unique design. We were inspired by natural landscapes and organic surfaces, which dictated many of the design decisions in both the knitting and architecture shown. More so, we played with the idea of bringing variegated forms into organized structures that could be easily manipulated to control either sound or light. We wanted to push modularity and materiality of these pieces without losing simplicity.

Each of the pieces shown had a specific goal and all use entirely different materials and joining techniques in order to fully explore these concepts. As we proceeded, we introduced architectural formats into knitting in order to manipulate color, light and sound into one piece.

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3-AXIS Architecture | Pedro Armelin Wilfred Rodriguez Textiles | Claire Harvey Gabrielle Ferreira Jennifer Thornton

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3-AXIS DATE | 2018 MATERIAL | Monofilament, wool, mohair, elastic, MDF, and metal screws METHOD | CNC Cut and Industrialy Knit The fundamental idea for the project was to use a three dimensional cavity, present in structure and textile, as a means to control acoustical and lighting performance within a space. During the semester our series of experiments focused on dynamic material behavior, and a strong synthesis between a modular grid structure and a textile composed of three layers.

The use of a singular module that can be interlocked and repeated throughout a series provided the frame for a grid, outlining the X, Y, and Z axes. An iterative process of making allowed for the discovery of a three dimensional structural grid initiated from a two dimensional base. This part, becomes a unit and ultimately forms a system.

Accompanying the development of the structure, an industrially knit textile was formed from three distinct layers. The combination of wool, mohair, elastic, and monofilament allows for a multilayered extension that absorbs sound and retains and directs light. The combination of these fibers form distinct layers within the fabric that create an architectural logic within a single knit. The inner layers of wool and mohair help with acoustic and light control, and the monofilament adds dimension to the surface.

In tandem with the textile, the structural grid articulates the act of tension and compression.

The knit is applied onto the modular structure, creating a cavity and depth which follows the elevation changes inherent within the system. The tension and compression characteristics within the structure work to enhance the textile’s performance. As it maneuvers length and width wise, as well as both simultaneously, the movement of the structure allows for the textile to expand in areas and contract in others. This creates areas of openness and density.

As the unit structures interlock, a system is created. The maneuverability and ease of addition allows for adaptability within a space. We designed a light-weight system that works both horizontally and vertically, that re-thinks traditional ceilings and vertical partitions, in order to propose new functionalities upon acoustic and spatial performance.

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A

B A Assemblage of a part, which becomes an unit, and forms a system.

B Connection of units and system: ceiling attachment, single connection point for maneuverability, and 2 or 3 point connection for rigid placement.

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C C States of maneuverability: flat, width curvature, length curvature, and limited dome curvature.

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A

B

E A Sample exploring a linear corrugated fabric structure.

B Corregated sample using a loose stitch in the outer layer for an undulating exterior.

C Edge view of linear corrugated structure.

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C

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F D Back side of final fabric structure executed in nylon wrapped lycra, wool, and monofilament.

E Knit sample augmented with bent wire to add a hard frame to the interior of the fabric.

F Final fabric structure executed in technical colors.

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A A 3-axis is a modular system, built by an assemblage of units. The frame can become a freeform wall or hung from the ceiling using the method shown above. The frame itself is incredibly light-weight allowing a thin metal wire to be inserted through precut holes in the unit. The smaller holes are used here to attach the fabric in tension with the frame, but can also be used for electronic and lighting systems.

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B

C

D B/C The frame is assembled with ease and holds its own weight allowing for flexibility of form in any space. The units bend long the X and Y axis and when the knit structure is applied to the frame the Z axis is illustrated through the elevations of the textile itself.

D The structural frame applies tension to the knit exposing the channels in the interior, allowing light to pass through the knit structure.

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3-Axis is a modular system that works in conjunction with the friction and flexibility of its connection points. The individual structural system allows for various forms using the same structure. It is adaptable to any space, any ceiling, and any lighting or roof system.

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The structural system in conjunction with the knit textile can be assembled lengthwise and widthwise and when expanded to a certain extent can become a dome. Not only do the shapes hold these various forms, but the attachment points require very little hardware.

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A

B

C A/B The structural system is assembled with ease and holds its own weight allowing for flexibility of form in any space.

C When stitched to the structural frame the tension applied to the knit allows for both light transparency and sound absorbtion.

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Left to Right | Gabrielle Ferreira (TEX, MFA ‘19), Jen Thornton (TEX, BFA ‘19), Claire Harvey (TEX, BFA ‘18), Wilfred Rodriguez (ARCH, MArch ‘19) Pedro Armelin (ARCH, BArch ‘20)

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