Origami on steroids

After grappling with gravity and wrestling with 48 x 96" plastic panels, I am delighted to have completed an installation for the 2016 Oregon BEST Fest. The wave forms were inspired by how Oregon BEST helps strong "cleantech" ideas resonate in a larger arena. They are taken from curved experiments to maximize form by cutting and scoring a continuous sheet of paper.

When I first tried to scale up one of my favorite patterns, I had doubts about how to make it large. Would modularizing it ruin the flow of the curves? What kind of frame would be needed to give body to the shell?

Given the temporary nature of the gig, my assistant Hannah Melling and I experimented with draping whisper-thin translucent carpet underlayment.

But given the crude nature of these images, the client preferred that I adapt an earlier wave pattern to Portland's World Trade Center auditorium setting. I used Grasshopper's graph mapper to give a wavelength and amplitude gradient to interpolated curves.

My brother Jim had a huge roll of Tyvek that I enjoyed playing with, but it was way too floppy. And I looked at ways to create a frame that could support recycled window blind slats.  (Ugly fail not shown.)

Luckily, I was able to get expert advice from Dave Collins of Superfab who recognized that a stiff shell would be much more effective and true to the nature of the design than constructing and skinning a frame. We tested milling 1/8" bending poplar, 1/32" High Density Polyethylene HDPE and 1/16" Low-density Polyethylene LDPE. The wood was beautiful but too fragile and stiff for the radii needed and would have required taped seams. Both plastics worked well, with serrated or half-depth seams for folding. The best plastic available in large sheets was 1/16" HDPE, 10 lbs per sheet.

Prior to the Labor Day holiday, I was biting my nails over whether the milling could be done on time. So I was thrilled to receive the perfectly cut pieces on Friday rather than Tuesday! That left me with plenty of time to learn how to crimp ferrules onto wore rope with a gigantic swager borrowed from Beaumont Hardware. Given the number of zip ties that gave their lives for this project, and the huge heaps of test scraps, it is not quite the green construction that I envisioned. But I am delighted to have the little 18" model reach its 15'-6" height! Thanks to Scott of Peak AV Services for the lighting help.

Let me know if you want to give it a temporary home after Friday, as I am happy to experiment with dynamic lighting and sensor actuation.