Category: Miscellaneous

Miscellaneous, Our research, Structures

The effect of mechanics on love

Some disciplines like poetry, painting and music draw inspiration from emotions that revolve around the human heart. The movie “Engineering and Love” (Tonislav Hristov, 2014 ) reinforces a universally held concept that engineers inhabit a planet many galaxies away from planet Venus.  But it is less known that certain mechanically well designed and crafted artifacts have been crucial in the successful evolution of a love … Continue reading The effect of mechanics on love

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Miscellaneous, Our research, Structures

Not being afraid of the dark: Halloween, Szukalski’s ghosts and gothic cathedrals

Welcome back to the Form Finding Lab blog. With Halloween coming up, there is no better time to look at structural immersive environments that make us face and conquer our fear of the dark. Halloween is my favorite American celebration because it is magical, teaches me not to be afraid of the dark, and fosters creativity. (I promised myself to not include pictures of the … Continue reading Not being afraid of the dark: Halloween, Szukalski’s ghosts and gothic cathedrals

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Engagement, Miscellaneous, Structures

Why civil engineering students should make things

In today’s Member Voices article, my co-instructor and visual artist, Joe Scanlan and I discuss the value of haptic learning for civil engineering students; why learning and working with their hands makes them better civil engineers. The American Society of Civil Engineer’s Future World Vision calls for creative and motivated students to be attracted to the civil engineering profession so that they can bring novel … Continue reading Why civil engineering students should make things

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Miscellaneous, Our research, Structures

Lace rod networks at the intersection of engineering and art

How can art inspire engineering systems? We have been working with bobbin lace and textile artists to find out. Our work is exhibited at the 2021 Joint Mathematics Meetings. Interlaced bigons from Lauren Dreier on Vimeo. Inspired by a traditional bobbin lace pattern, ‘torchon ground’, elastic strips are interlaced to create a gradient of out-of-plane behavior. The key structural element is a bigon which consists … Continue reading Lace rod networks at the intersection of engineering and art

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Engagement, Miscellaneous, Our research

(On-Line) public speaking

Over the years, the research and teaching at the Form Finding Lab, has been disseminated through a wide range of video and audio material.  I have collected some of it here. ART AND ENGINEERING: When dancers dynamically interacted with manmade nets in our choreographic piece “In*Tension” (Seattle, June 2019), the nets exhibited counterintuitive stiffness properties. They stiffened under increased dancer impact loading and this phenomenon … Continue reading (On-Line) public speaking

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Interviews, Miscellaneous, Structures

What I am thinking: structural designer and poet Jun Sato

Jun Sato is Associate Professor at University of Tokyo / Visiting Professor at Stanford University / Chief Executive Engineer at Jun Sato Structural Engineers Co., Ltd.. He has developed transparent, lightweight and ductile structures with geometries of naturalness through his collaborations with architects such as Kengo Kuma, Riken Yamamoto, Toyo Ito, Sou Fujimoto and Junya Ishigami, and through workshops with students. He worked at Toshihiko … Continue reading What I am thinking: structural designer and poet Jun Sato

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Miscellaneous, Structures

DESIGN EXPERIENCE 5: Advancing the design: drawing as a communication

Architect Michael Graves, a former Princeton faculty member, retells the story of how he started to draw design to pass time at a boring faculty meeting. When he got stuck, a colleague silently drew in a few lines. They passed the drawing back and forth several times. This was a dialogue without words, using instead the language of drawing. Previously, we have seen how we … Continue reading DESIGN EXPERIENCE 5: Advancing the design: drawing as a communication

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Miscellaneous, Structures

DESIGN EXPERIENCE 4: Iterative Design Process – A Reflective Conversation

The beauty of design is that there is rarely one correct solution. As we make drawings, we generate several alternatives. From there we revise and eliminate alternatives until we arrive at our final design. The design decisions that we make along the way are countless and ultimately determine the quality of the final design. A good design not only uses constraints but also other parameters, … Continue reading DESIGN EXPERIENCE 4: Iterative Design Process – A Reflective Conversation

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Miscellaneous, Structures

DESIGN EXPERIENCE 3: Precedents and inspiration

Design has the a reputation of being associated with wild creativity. Yet engineering design must involve a harnessed use of that creativity. Imagine how inefficient it would be if every bridge designer in the world started designing his/her first bridge without prior study of an existing bridge. Engineering design has the beautiful advantage of a starting point: precedents. “I have a feeling that good design, … Continue reading DESIGN EXPERIENCE 3: Precedents and inspiration

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