ABSTRACT

Singularities: Flabella and T-Stool When conceptualizing matter it is hard to imagine how any material process could be considered a singularity, but there are circumstances, like the Damascus blade where the internal capacity of the metal gives rise to multiple levels of organization. e term singularity does not refer to the number of materials, but instead to the distinct behaviors that result from a single path of development. A signicant portion of our work that involves casting and forming has evolved through singular processes. In 2007, my partner Katrin Mueller and I were invited to participate in an exhibit entitled Useless at Project 4 in Washington, D.C. e show focused on industrial objects that had failed during the production process. We had been experimenting at the time with dierent casting methodologies that would allow us to cast forms in various states of equilibrium, and in response to the call we developed Flabella I (Figures 26.3-26.4). To study this we began by lling folded sheets with liquid to ll out the shape of an elastic membrane. Depending on how it was oriented, its center of gravity would change. e Flabella series represents a signicant change in the way we approached the material’s agency. We began to develop a more conservative approach toward variation. e character of the form we were aer was a malleable response to the pressure of the plaster and the elasticity of the membrane. is should not be confused with form nding since we were not searching for an optimal form. In fact, prior to folding the membrane we did not know what the form would look like, and this resulted in numerous failures (Figure 26.3). Our interest stemmed from wanting to achieve a dierentiated form through the plastic development of a singularity.9 While we could not achieve this with the open forms of Flabella I, it was eventually accomplished in the design of the T-Stool. e resulting modularity of the stool is the product of buckling, and folding, a single, two-dimensional disc (Figure 26.5). We developed more precise methods for locating the placement of the folds, the tiebacks, to hold the exterior of the surface in place, and knockouts that would keep the internal surfaces separated enough that we could cast between them. Our success with the stool was due largely to the fact that we were able to develop a topological method of folding the membrane inward to produce internal modularity, while osetting the pressure of the cast. We knew that we would eventually be limited by the weight of the material and its tendency to destabilize or break the mold. Any time we put pressure back on the mold, we were not able to capture the curvature cleanly and while the malleability was a virtue of the process, it oen

resulted in unwanted dents and dimples. is presented us with a new set of problems that were more easily addressed with digital tools. Once we understood how the material would behave we abandoned the casting on Flabella 2 and concentrated on the denition of the membrane in the computer (Figure 26.6). is process of transferring the physical mode into the computer was streamlined through the use of the 3D scanner. In designing the T-Stool ,we forced the singular nature of the surface to develop internally. e folding of the disc presented us with only a few possible outcomes once we took into account all the demands of the casting process. ere was a level of complexity that could not be extricated from the materials, and without taking into account the material’s variability, the denition of the work would not have been conceivable. At this stage we realized we were dealing with a system. In the process of designing through the material’s capacity we reached a plateau where the collection of knowledge that led to its possibility was no longer distinguishable from the material’s behavior, appearing as matter of fact when it was, in fact, highly complex.