Thesis Students Present “Great White” Installation at ACSA Annual Conference

Monday, March 25, 2013

Taubman College

Thesis Students Present “Great White” Installation at ACSA Annual Conference

Robert Yuen (MArch ’11 and MS_DT ’12), Ted Teng (MArch ’12), and current thesis students Geoffrey Salvatore (MArch’13) and Andrew Wolking (MArch ’13) presented an installation called, “Great White: A Plastic Folded Plate Structure” this past weekend at the ACSA Annual Conference.

The “Great White” is an installation piece embodying speciﬁc developments within fabrication processes to aid in material research. Utilizing CNC technology to machine High Density Polyethylene planar stock material, the project explores the aggregation of units and assemblies of component parts. The research analyzes and balances the precision of digital fabrication with the elastic properties of plastics, while demanding processes and methods of designing precisely, imprecisely. The interior space of the installation capitalizes on the translucency of the HDPE plastic. The folding and creasing of the material simultaneously expands and contracts creating a dynamic space allowing for the interplay of light with the plastic. Great White revisits folded plate structures to reactivate a dialogue and research trajectory through contemporary and analog means, and also pursues the unique spatial qualities made possible by this geometry.

This project is the result of work completed between a collaborative teaching between A571 and A591 taught by both Maciej Kaczynski and Glenn Wilcox. This project wasn’t feasible without the generous funding provided by Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. It was an experimental course that allowed collaboration between students in the MArch and the MS_DT program.