The project is really trying to find a way to, it's researching ways to put drable form
in concrete with volumetric molds.
So rather than the typical MDF mold that you might carve out of with a CNC router, we're
looking at origami folding.
So trying to produce a volume with origami folding, so actually enclosing.
Can you not do that right now?
Anyway, producing a variable form in concrete using simple techniques of folding, simple
origami folding, and then...
So today what we're doing is folding all of the plastic to put together the nodes for
the final totem.
The nodes each node is made up of four different pieces of plastic.
There are two clear ones which are on the front so that we can see through the piece,
and then two matte ones on the back so that we can differentiate between the two.
Once those two halves are put together, we then put this rod inside of it to help with
the tensile strength and also to bridge cold seams.
So when we pour, we pour up to here, and then we wait eight hours and then we pour afterwards.
And Brandon over there is working on that.
The whole process takes us a little while per node.
As you can see...
Oh!
That's what he's got.
Will you hold this?
Thanks.
Right now what they're doing is just finding the exact...
We've already sorted all the pieces where they belong, and right now they're just prepping
the... we have some alignment holes that fit one node into the next, so there's a very
exact positioning.
Of course, they're all unique, so they have the exact place where they want to go.
And after we align it with the proper rivets, then it's ready to be stapled.
So the rivets do the check.
Once the rivets have it aligned properly, we can staple it, and that's the permanent
connection.
And that's where it's going to sit until we pour concrete inside of it.
For us, the stratified cast is the only way that we could really make this thing.
It's really similar to slip form casting, the same way that you see concrete silos or
cores of buildings being fabricated.
The difference being that, of course, rather than having a consistent formwork that we
just slide up, we have a varied formwork throughout, and we just cast one layer, but
it's set.
In our case, a set means eight hours.
We're using an accelerator, which is, according to our tests, enough time to give it the
compressed strength that we need.
And then after that, we can move on to the next pour, the next pour, the next pour.
You can see a couple of points when we have some shoring in there, which is more of a
precaution.
We don't necessarily think it's completely necessary, but it's a good idea.
So one little bit at a time, one layer at a time.
So three days of pours with eight hours between, and you get, hopefully, a completed totem.
We haven't made a name for it yet.
I don't know if it's a totem or a chimney or a smokestack.
So far, working with Maché has been excellent.
It's kind of sad that he's going to be gone for the rest of the week.
He has to go to Buffalo.
He's a really busy guy.
I'm glad we could just get a couple days this week with him.
Yeah.
It's just a really awesome project, I think.
The formwork needs to be pulled off.
It's just a thin skin of formwork.
And so that part is, over time, we kind of developed the nomenclature, the name Shocking.
So we call it, of course, like you do with corn.
But the shocking is, it's wonderful to reveal the final concrete, but it's also a very violent
act.
You really cut yourself a lot when you're doing this.
The staples rip into you.
We have very robust staples, we call them super staples.
And when you're pulling them out, you often open them up and you cut yourself very often.
The process of making is really fundamental to my mode of research.
I think that I couldn't really, I don't think, personally, I mean, this is really subjective.
I wouldn't personally be very satisfied with another mode.
Architectural research has really begun to embrace that, re-embrace that.
And I feel like there have been times when that has fallen out of favor or fashion.
But I think that the process of prototyping, of iterating, of making mistakes, of learning
from those mistakes, of mocking up, of screwing up.
That's all critical to this mode of research, this kind of research.
And I can't envision, there have been so many lessons that we've found that you couldn't
have foreseen.
You just couldn't have found it had you not actually made it yourself, had you not made
it and screwed it up.
And I mean, I think the intent is to always produce more and more and more so that each
subsequent project you step into, you have a larger body of knowledge.
You can pull from and hopefully make, start with enough assumptions to launch a body
of research, to launch a new angle of research, a new tangent or trajectory, but still have
it informed, but have it still speculative, have it be something that is not completely
defined, right?
Research.
And I feel like our team is really at the heart of that.
It's hard for me to imagine my blood for design without my first true love of dinosaurs.
