ABSTRACT
Fluid Crystallization, exhibited as part of the 2013 Architectural League Prize exhibition, is a project that investigates hierarchical and non-deterministic self-assembly with large numbers of parts in a fluid and turbulent environment. The physical units for Fluid Crystallization were made from water-filled spheres with plastic armatures holding a pattern of magnets in the formation of a carbon atom. The highly dynamic self-assembly characteristic of the system offers a glimpse of the material phase change between crystalline solid, liquid, and gaseous states. A number of local assembly patterns were observed, ranging from one-dimensional chains to two-dimensional polygons and three- dimensional polyhedra. The global assembly patterns represented the dynamics of the system and the macro-scale material properties, whereas the local assembly patterns demonstrated the inter- and intra-molecular bonding patterns. Tracking and simulation may ultimately help precisely define the energy landscape and the relationship between energy input and the resultant structural formation.
