Classical architecture is defined by "orders" -- ways to connect a column to a building, to articulate the joining of materials and structural forces. Colloquially, these orders are based on elemental forms: the tree trunk, the plank, the scroll, the leaf. Michael Hansmeyer is adding a new elemental form: the subdivision algorithm. He turns his math and programming skills to making ornate, organic, hyperdetailed columns generated from lines of code and then comped up in cross-sections of cardboard, almost as if they're being 3D printed.
His recent work with cupolas and domes is even more mesmerizing, like looking deep inside an organic form of near-unbearable complexity. See images at digital-grotesque.com >>
“His work is composed of sixteen million faces and made from 2,700 layers of cardboard. It is the result of a cutting-edge computational process, and people's responses to it are just as improbable.” — Laura Alsop, CNN
Architect Michael Hansmeyer is not one for the T-square. As he explains in a fascinating talk from TEDGlobal, this “computational” designer took inspiration from nature — specifically from morphogenesis, aka the splitting of cells — and created algorithms that help him design highly unusual shapes. Instead of the same old boring Doric, Ionic and Corinthian […]
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