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Research, Outreach, and Funding / Research Through Making Grant

Project Title

Resonant Chamber

Project Team

Geoffrey Thün, Wes McGee and Kathy Velikov
with Lisa Sauve, Mary O'Malley, Adam Smith, Colin Ripley, Katie Wirtz, David Lieberman, Ian Ting, Lief Millar

Consultants

ARUP Acoustics Raj Patel, Terence Caulkins and Dave Rife

Resonant Chamber is an interior envelope system that deploys the principles of rigid origami to transform the acoustic environment through dynamic spatial, material, and electro-acoustic technologies. Our aim is to develop a soundsphere able to adjust its properties in response to changing sonic conditions, altering the sound of a space during a performance and creating an instrument at the scale of architecture, so flexible and nimble that it might be capable of being played. The project is developed through three streams of iterative research and development in both computational testing and full-scale prototype installation: Dynamic Surface Geometries; Performative Material Systems; and Variable Actuation and Response.

Additional support has been generously provided by

UM Office of the Vice President for Research 2011 Small Projects Grant; U-M Center for Wireless Integrated Microsystems; Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada Research Creation Grant