Play Against Lines
The Opening
Lines are flat, stretched and elongated, so as time. Flatness has neither a limit, nor a horizon. When travelling in time, we can only face forward. Yesterday is a metaphor for presence in the past, and tomorrow will soon become yesterday. Linearity dominates the relationship between time and space.
On paper, lines are primitively thought of as a two-dimensional drawing technique. It is a medium that links imaginary and reality, whether it re-draws a scenic memory or illustrates a speculative ideology. Today, flatness describes how digitality has restructured our society, as all our existence has become a net, through the web, on a flat-screen.
In the traditional workflow, designs are explored through simulations of drawing and making. However, this used-to-be human-only interaction has extended to human-to-machine with the introduction of digital fabrication. Under this shift, we intend to offer the computer certain agencies to design. By creating a bespoke workflow coupling existing techniques and mediums, including 3D printing, speculative animation, imagery, and novelty texts, our project establish an alternative framework for how the conversation between humans and machines can drive the design process. It is an interdisciplinary exploration, focusing on the non-linear interpretation between two-dimensional and three-dimensional forms, and navigating through the analogue and digital worlds.
Digital Twins - 3D printed 3D scans
Glitch: Machine-made vs Man-made
The Twist
We first evaluated our relationships with architecture:
What is a ‘space’? How do we live with and feel the space?
We looked into the mirror and found ourselves standing in the room, who objectively coexist in the same volume. Everything, everywhere, we are all at onceness. What has really drawn our attention was what we had always had direct contact with, but also stopped us from direct contact with the space, which was shoes. They are stand-alone; they shelter, accommodate, and vary in shape. They are mini-architecture-like essence we have been wearing every day.
We documented the digital double of our own and the shoes we wore by 3D scanning. All scans are in contrast to each other on many levels - concave or convex; abstract or figural; single or compound; large, medium, or small-scale… Digital documentation of these physical objects started a thread, allowing us to follow up with responses to experiments.
We first evaluated our relationships with architecture:
What is a ‘space’? How do we live with and feel the space?
We looked into the mirror and found ourselves standing in the room, who objectively coexist in the same volume. Everything, everywhere, we are all at onceness. What has really drawn our attention was what we had always had direct contact with, but also stopped us from direct contact with the space, which was shoes. They are stand-alone; they shelter, accommodate, and vary in shape. They are mini-architecture-like essence we have been wearing every day.
We documented the digital double of our own and the shoes we wore by 3D scanning. All scans are in contrast to each other on many levels - concave or convex; abstract or figural; single or compound; large, medium, or small-scale… Digital documentation of these physical objects started a thread, allowing us to follow up with responses to experiments.
The Turn
The design was approached by ongoing simulation, by re-appropriating different combinations of the documented objects. Evolutions of the scheme were extracted from frozen frames. Simultaneously, physical models were made alongside. Rather than assembling them piece by piece, using 3D printing as a medium has changed the perception of ‘making’. The concept of ‘lines’ has been assigned with a three-dimensional life. Lines are no longer flat, nor 2D. The nozzle travels in space, extrudes filaments in ‘lines’ alongside time, and becomes volumetric artefacts.
Through observing the 3D printing process, we also asked:
Who has the authorship of physical objects created by automation? Can glitches be considered new forms of the design? Can we make a post-perfect version of the pre-simulated digital model by ignoring the tolerance in reality?
Digital Reproduction of Digital Glitch
The Pavilion
The Closing
To be able to answer ourselves, on the one hand, we repeatedly documented 3D models made in different states. On the other hand, a ‘perfect’ digital version of the 3D print inspired our design of the pavilion by hacking the G-code files. In the final stage, the linear texture of the 3D prints is adopted by the architectural language, inspiring the making of structure, and furniture within the spaces.
This pavilion is now built for a theatrical Play Against Lines, a novel about the new normality of design.
Fin
To be able to answer ourselves, on the one hand, we repeatedly documented 3D models made in different states. On the other hand, a ‘perfect’ digital version of the 3D print inspired our design of the pavilion by hacking the G-code files. In the final stage, the linear texture of the 3D prints is adopted by the architectural language, inspiring the making of structure, and furniture within the spaces.
This pavilion is now built for a theatrical Play Against Lines, a novel about the new normality of design.
Fin
^in collarboration with Nix Liu Xin