Have you heard of NeoCon yet? Well, contrary to what the name might make you think, it is not a convention for the next wave of Conservatives. (No fun.) NeoCon is an annual exposition of the latest design for interiors: furniture, flooring, tile, wall papers, fun, etc. Yours truly will be tearing up the floor every day of the expo with an eye out for products related to mass-customization, laser-cutting inspiration, and of course, rapid manufacturing.

While at NeoCon, I will be part of a twitter campaign initiative between the Merchandise Mart and Designer Pages. Designer Pages was created to provide a virtual platform and resource for design; they currently have over 50,000 member submitted products. (Register and submit your designs here.) You can browse and buy, save to your favorites, or check out staff picks and curated collections like Inhabitat’s Green Design Collection.

In efforts to raise awareness of the NeoCon event, the social media loving team behind Designer Pages has implemented a pretty impressive twitter bombing campaign—a good kind of bombing,  like glitter bombing—which includes raffling off two ipod nanos every day. Every tweet you send is another chance to win, just be sure to include the hashtag #Neocon09.  For three days, myself and several other twitterers will be walking the floor an introducing exhibitors and attendees at the show to twitter. You can follow all of the action here. And if you’re at the show, Designer Pages will help you start a twitter account from their beautiful 7th floor booth 3094. Plus, you can follow the communal buzz with a glance at any of the five giant screens installed at the Merchandise Mart.

Once the show closes for the evening, I’ll be back to post the highlights of my favorite Ponoko-pertaining products.

Cavernous walls created using wood off-cuts collected in dumpsters, sidewalks and wastelands

French Architect Paul Coudamy previously mentioned on the Ponoko Blog by Kristen for his Cardboard Office has now turned his sustainable design eye to a new office space for beartech in Paris.
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Office dA is a Boston-based firm whose principal partners are Monica Ponce de Leon and Nader Tehrani. The work of Office dA is diverse in scope and scale, ranging from the broader scale of urban design and infrastructure to architecture, interiors and furniture design. Of particular interest to Ponoko users is their use of CNC in the realization of their impressive furniture design, including the Laszlo Files, Vero Dresser and Otto Table.

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Detail of an ‘Oasis in a Corn Desert’ by Min|Day

The Lake Cabinet by Min|Day is the primary built feature in the master bedroom of a vacation house on a lake in rural Iowa. The Lake Cabinet challenges the modernist notion of the detail as the expression of a joint {between two or more elements}. The piece is essentially an 11’-4” x 6’-0” x 1’-6” storage cabinet lifted 12” above the floor. The architect studied the form of water ripples from several photographs of the lake. From these they developed a range of parameters for a computer animation of the behavior and interference of rippling water. The result is a massive cabinet with a surprisingly supple surface quality.
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Further Undulating CNC Walls by Ambitious Students…

To catch the eye, steer the gaze, and focus attention. That is the idea behind this exhibition stand, designed and built by five architecture students at the Institute for Lightweight Structures and Conceptual Design (ILEK) under the supervision of Professor Werner Sobek at the University of Stuttgart.

The system serves as a filter between observer and object. The planar elements of the honeycomb-like structure are oriented at specific angles so that only a portion of the area behind the wall is revealed to the viewer. From the outside, only objects that lie within these defined focal points can be seen. Each of the items on display receives its own focal point, according to its size and location. Inside the wall the opposite effect is achieved – the view to the outside from the focal points is completely unobstructed, allowing a panoramic perspective as the honeycomb elements are aligned perpendicular to the observer’s eye.

Each element of the structure is unique, generated by algorithms based on the location of the wall and the locations of the items exhibited. Once generated, the element shapes were transferred directly to a CNC mill for fabrication. This process was performed using a custom-programmed plug-in for a 3D design software package. The honeycomb elements and their connectors were first generated in three-dimensional space. Two-dimensional drawings of the elements were then produced, and using CAM (computer aided manufacturing) software, translated into machine code for the milling process. Labeling the individual pieces was crucial, as the structure comprises 2142 different planar honeycomb elements connected by 1376 unique pairs of joint elements. To maintain order within the system, the honeycomb elements were numbered sequentially, while the connectors were labeled according to the elements they were joining.

The Institute for Lightweight Structures and Conceptual Design is based on a targetted and interdisciplinary procedure, the institute deals with the conceptual and material-comprehensive development of all kinds of construction methods and loadbearing systems. The scope ranges from modern building techniques using textiles and glass to the advanced possibilities of traditional reinforced and prestressed concrete. From the details to the entire system the aim is to optimize form and structure in view of material and energy expenditure, durability and reliability, recyclability and environmental compatibility.
The use experiment and test equipment for the formfinding of structures/intra-network connected to the University Computing Center, for form generation and structural analysis, for word, graphics and image processing/library with approximately 5.000 volumes, comprehensive archives of photographs and literature on lightweight and concrete structures in architecture, civil engineering, technics and nature/studio equipment and laboratory for photography/ model- and mechanics-workshop.

Via Dezeen

Professor Ingeborg M. Rocker, of Rocker-Lange Architects - developed with students at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University develop a robotic built wall.

The project presents a digitally generated and fabricated wall consisting of wooden bricks. The Project is the outcome of a synthesis of computer generated design and computer aided construction research at the GSD under the guidance of Professor Ingeborg M. Rocker.
The aim of the project was to produce a 1:1 scale wall using the GSD’s Robotic facilities.

Going beyond the model scale, and working with the Robotic arm set up new design challenges which were tightly linked to the construction techniques, material constraints, and structural limitations encountered in full scale building modus. Using a modular unit of the masonry brick the team developed a systematic aggregation creating a wall consisting out of 4100 bricks.

The wall’s double layered running bond varies from a straight line to a maximum undulation, which creates an inhabitable space. The emerging space and pattern is the resultant of a set of principles (algorithms) applied to a simple rectangular brick module, taking into account its material and technical parameters.

The scale, precision, and vast number of units of the final design scheme necessitated an automated process based on script and robotic construction. Materials, adhesives, work flow optimization, and production techniques were among the many considerations that had to be researched and tested prior to and during each stage of the process.

Ultimately the design manifests the performative potential of bricks, expressed through the wall’s curvature and porosity as it affects the acoustic and visual qualities of the wall-space created.

Inspired and advised by Professor Rocker the project became realized through the enthusiastic work by student team leaders, Jeff LaBoskey, Teresa McWalters, Misato Odanaka, Benjamin Franceschi, and the Students of the March1, 1st year.

The teams work was made possible through the coding by Jessica Rosenkrantz, Jesse Louis-Rosenberg (of N-E-R-V-O-U-S) and Christian J. Lange, Rocker-Lange Architects. The studio design by Mathew Swaidan and Jeff LaBoskey served as an initial inspiration for the wall’s scheme.

For NERVOUS SYSTEM’s take on the project check out their blog..

found via ArchiCentral

Begun and directed by artists Freya Bardell and Brian Howe, Greenmeme brings together people of various expertise to design innovative systems and structures that focus on sustainability. Their work “ provides a multi-layered experience of unique urban and natural ecosystems, integrating living, playful sculptures into informative environments.”

Live within Skin is a modular wall garden made from water jet cut steel. The cross pattern is both decorative and functional; the corners can be pulled out to create a sort of pot for the plants.

MyPOD Life is a similar concept, but this biowall is made from Corian and is also a light box.

Plastic Nastic is an experiential sculpture made from laser-cut plastic threaded with a shape memory wire. Inside the large flower is a sonar sensor which informs the sculpture of the audience approaching, causing it to twist and change axis.

Most companies focused on sustainability are really just trying to minimize the environmental impact of whatever it is they want to make. What I like about Greenmeme is how their work is actually about the environment. The natural world is the star of the show, not just another thing to consider or a criteria challenge. To see more of their unique aproach to ecological design, visit Greenmeme.com.

It was the Graphic Design graduates at this year’s MFA Exhibit for the School of the Art Institute of Chicago that showcased work which incorporated laser-cutting…

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Interview with Enrico Dini of D_Shape on Shapeways

In a post late last year we talked of CNC Houses becoming a Cyberpunk Reality but this is starting to get a step closer with Enrico Dini of D_Shape.

d_shape is a new robotic building system using new materials to create superior stone-like structures.
This new machinery enables full-size sandstone buildings to be made without human intervention, using a stereolithography 3-D printing process that requires only sand and our special inorganic binder to operate. d_shape is a new building technology which will revolutionize the way architectural design is planned, and building constructions are executed. By simply pressing the “enter” key on the keypad we intend to give the architect the possibility to make buildings directly, without intermediaries who can add interpretation and realization mistakes.

The system works with a rigging that is suspended over the buildable part(you can see it at the top of the image above). The system deposits the sand and then the inorganic binding ink. No water is necessary. Because the two components meet outside the nozzle, the machine does not clog up and can keep up its accuracy of 25 DPI. Enrico and D_Shape are currently talking to construction & engineering companies and architects about their technology.

Check out the full article on the Shapeways Blog

A Family of Free Web Tools for Remote 3D Reconstruction

Maarten Vergauwen and Luc Van Gool have developed a group of web tools, allowing users to upload digital images to their servers where they perform a 3D reconstruction of the scene and report the output back to the user. They also provide a tool for producing and visualising the 3D scene using the data computed from their servers. Originally developed for the use of 3D information in the field of cultural heritage now everybody can now make pictures in 3D, with a regular photo camera and the free ARC 3D website.

You only have to take a number of pictures from an object from different angles, load it onto the website and you will be notified when you can pick up the 3D photo from the ARC 3D ftp-site. With the ARC 3D model viewer you can generate your 3D model, ready for viewing on the internet. For this you need to save it as a vrml or x3d file and download a 3D viewer from the internet for viewing in a webbrowser. You can also save the model in other higher quality formats. The free MeshLab software provides professional tools to enable you to refine and enhance your 3D model.

Just in case you could not pick it, the photo of the Baptisterium, Pisa, Italy is above or left, and the 3D model on the right or below…. (Photo: Bas Bogaerts)

Thanks to my new friends at FreeFormFab