An installation produced through collaboration between Rory Hyde and BKK Architects for the Pavilions For New Architecture exhibition at the Monash University Museum of Art.
Program: Installation
Project Team: Rory Hyde with BKK Architects (Tim Black, Lotte Starr & Christian Froleich)
Location: Monash University Museum of Art
Curators: Max Delany and Geraldine Barlow
Status: Demolished
Photo: Andrew Curtis
The original form was generated by radiating the hexagonal grid of a geodesic sphere and trimming the resultant surfaces with an inner and outer cube. The resulting network of cells gives the impression of a sphere caught within a cube.
Using parametric software, variables such as the position of the centre point or the size of the intersecting cubes can be easily modified to quickly test a number of iterations. The individual cells are then automatically unrolled and numbered to form templates.
A number of 1:5 scale paper and cardboard prototypes were produced during development to test materiality, lighting, fixing and suspension methods.
The design and fabrication process formed a closed feedback loop whereby design information is automatically repurposed as fabrication information to produce a prototype. Feedback from assembling this prototype can then be fed back into the design model as improvements, and the loop repeated.
While this project employs high-end digital fabrication software and design techniques, due to cost constraints it was cut out and assembled by hand.
The completed project is a 2m cube constructed from hand-cut 2mm white cardboard fixed together with double-sided tape and suspended from the gallery ceiling by stainless steel cables.
Photo: Andrew Curtis
A small black step allows the viewer to position their head at the focal point of the radiating structure, so only the edges of the structure are visible, giving a sense of infinite projection.
“In an era of head-line grabbing buildings, of ‘non-standard geometries‘ rendered in biomorphic or organic forms (a category of architectural special effects), it is interesting to note that a building of roughly orthogonal proportions can contain and derive its tension from the interplay between a square format and other kinds of surface/geometric gymnastics.“
- Dr. Karen Burns, Curious Cabinets, Exhibition Catalogue, 2005
“BKK‘s floating frame continues a fascination some Melbourne architects have for a structure that represents all things − a kind of architectural version of the big bang theory − or a plastic form that describes order in chaos.‘“
- Norman Day, The Age, 21.09.05
