X-Blur

X-blur VR-Panorama

2010-07-29T14:46:00.000-07:00

To take a virtual walk, click on the pictures below (Filesize 2mb),
for Fullscreen, simply press left button in navigation bar

X-blur in "Das Konstruktiv"

2010-04-27T11:59:00.000-07:00

read the .pdf

new exhibition-pics

2010-02-03T05:05:00.000-08:00

4th Conference of CNC-Milling Technology

2009-12-01T13:03:00.000-08:00

4th Conference
CNC Milling Technology in Architecture, Art and Design
Sustainability in Computer Aided Manufacturing?

Since 2006 this annual conference at TU Vienna has been bringing together researchers, practicing experts and business representatives in the field of CNC manufacturing. The major aim is to exchange research results, teaching approaches and ideas of state-of-the-art CAM-technologies with future opportunities to implement in architecture, art and design. This year’s conference will discuss the question of sustainability related to Computer Aided Manufacturing.

Time: Friday, 18.12.2009, 9.30 - 16.30 Uhr
Location: TU Vienna, 1040 Vienna / Karlsplatz 13 / staircase 1 / 4th floor / Kuppelsaal
Free Admission
Conference Language: German and English

Organisation:
Sigrid Brell-Cokcan department for digital architecture and planning, TU Vienna
Anita Aigner department for three-dimensional design and modelmaking, TU Vienna

Speakers:
Erwin J. van Maaren Milling: Target or Medium for freeform design?
Andreas Vogler Digital Craftsmanship and the MercuryHouseOne
Markus Stürzenbacher, Hannes Tallafuss, Bernhard dal Bianco Exhibition Design: Archdiploma 2009
Florian Rist Low Cost Five Axis Laser Material Processing
Robert Rentz CAM Design and Prototyping in Aviation, Automotive, Rail and Waterpower Applications
Sigrid Brell-Cokcan & Johannes Braumann Flank Milling: Optimizing Digital Design and Digital Production
Anita Aigner Digital Ornament - Creative Use of CNC-milling Technology in Facade Insulation
Christian R. Pongratz Design Research as Surface Parametricism

New X-blur publications!

2009-11-29T11:46:00.000-08:00

X-blur was published in Architektur Aktuell 11/2009 and Architektur und Bau Forum 09/2009

Archdiploma - X-blur pics

2009-10-10T20:01:00.000-07:00

great photos of the archdiploma-exhibiton by our friend Alexander Kamenski:

The medium is the message

2009-10-08T12:12:00.000-07:00

Speech and discussion
20.Oct / 18:00 / Kunsthalle Wien

Kari Jormakka (exhibiton-concept)

Heimo Schimek (digital design methods)

Markus Stürzenbacher (X-blur)
Hannes Tallafuss

Bernhard dal Bianco (surface relations)
Raimund Krenmüller

Setup at Kunsthalle-Vienna

2009-10-06T18:11:00.000-07:00

production - projection boards

2009-09-25T11:27:00.000-07:00

Archdiploma is coming closer and after weeks of discussion about the projections boards we decided to give our favourite version a chance. (See schematic sketch below.)
Production finally could start so far, only 158 thread rod, 600 nuts, 550 beveled washers and 1,2... 155 projection boards are between us and our ambitious aim Archdiploma 2009.
Time is running out, and only 1 week to go!

We searched for a rigid and lightweight material with a matt, white surface, machinable with a laser cutter and found forex-smart boards.

laser production of our boards, still 100 to go

archdiploma 2009

2009-09-16T06:44:00.000-07:00

archdiploma2009 – Material Visions

The subtitle of the archdiploma2009 exhibition, Material Visions, refers to a duality that underlies architectural practice as a combination of art and technology: the artistic vision of an architect is incomplete without its technical realisation. At the same time, the title also refers to a similar duality in the institution of an exhibition: rather than an immaterial moment of pure consciousness, vision is a material act of the body. Hence, this exhibition not only celebrates the students’ architectural visions but also focuses on the act of seeing as a physical action. This is achieved by setting up different situations of looking at the exhibits and also acknowledging the temporal dimension of looking. In other words, the exhibition itself is staged as an architectural event.

For reasons that have to do with the contingent history of academic disciplines, architecture is often grouped together with painting and sculpture as one of the visual arts, one that focuses on (interior) space as opposed to planar compositions or volumetric developments. Coupled with the modernist ideology of purity, this idea leads architects to focus on visual space as the essence of their art. Yet, architecture is inherently impure or theatrical in the specific sense intended by modernist critics, such as Michael Fried. In his seminal essay ›Art and Objecthood‹ Fried claimed that a minimalist sculpture could not be understood optically in terms of its own visual composition because it depends on the beholder and is incomplete without him. For Fried, such dangerous theatricality involves the commingling of the viewer’s space and the space of the artistic work, the temporal unfolding of the experience created by the work and the somatic apprehension of scale – all qualities that are central to architecture.

The exhibition design aims to call attention to all of these aspects of the architectural experience. Thus, a series of different viewing situations is set up, involving different scales, distances, body positions and movements, as well as forcing a certain temporality to the foreground. Upon approaching the exhibition venue, the visitor might first catch a view of the media mesh wall that fills the entire wall of the Kunsthalle on the side of the Rechte Wienzeile with images of the projects in the show. Inside the gallery, it is possible to get quite close to the media mesh and examine how the image is created – at closer distance, however, the large-scale digital image disappears and the media mesh allows for views to the outside.

A different setup is provided opposite the media mesh. Video images of design diplomas are projected onto a curved screen wall, designed parametrically with an algorithm that derives complex shapes from the viewer’s and projector’s positions. While these images can be looked at much in the same way as in traditional museums – with the viewer standing before the screen at a respectful distance – only a few viewing points provide for an undistorted image, thus implying the preferred perspectives. Moreover, additional information about the projects can be gleaned from looking through the screen where models and drawings are positioned. Thus, the visitors will have to use their bodies to get information about the design projects.

In addition to design projects, the exhibition also includes diploma theses oriented towards research, both from the field of architecture and planning. Such work cannot be appreciated in an instant, and thus the exhibition design takes on another aspect of the modern art museum. Half of the Kunsthalle is already functioning as a café, and this function is extended to the gallery space by presenting the theoretical diploma theses on café tables. Sitting relaxed on bean bags and sipping coffee, visitors will be able to view films that allow a view into the world of research.

As a whole, the exhibition design attempts to respond to the kind of modernist space it occupies as theorised by the phenomenological philosophers Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Although it is oriented in various ways, the gallery space aspires to being neutral and homogeneous. But the living body and its bodily space break the homogeneity asunder. What counts for the orientation of the spectacle is not the given space in its physical definition, nor the body as the zero point of experience, but the visitor’s body as a system of possible actions, a virtual body with its phenomenal ›place‹ defined by its task and situation. As Merleau-Ponty states, ›my body is wherever there is something to be done‹ and the space that we experience is constituted by such a dynamic body.

Merleau-Ponty wants to break down the Cartesian subject-object dichotomy and proposes instead the concept of ›flesh‹ as the substance that is sensible in two ways: it senses and it is sensed at the same time. Interestingly, vision is also divided in itself in the same chiasmatic way. The word ›vision‹ refers to both the faculty and the act of looking as well as the object of such an act, namely that which is seen. Vision is thus the agent, the action and the object.

Kari Jormakka, Dörte Kuhlmann, Oliver Schürer, Curators

Link: www.archdiploma.at

scripting - projection boards

2009-09-15T11:18:00.000-07:00

assembly 2

2009-09-07T08:08:00.000-07:00

assembly 1

2009-09-01T07:38:00.000-07:00

X-blur - promotion pics - update

2009-08-15T03:45:00.000-07:00

Here are some new pics we made for the exhibition guide:

perspectives:

floorplan:

diagrams:

production - boards 2

2009-08-08T16:59:00.000-07:00

production - boards 1

2009-07-31T10:34:00.000-07:00

scripting - production

2009-07-25T10:46:00.000-07:00

The most imported thing for production and right assembly is the inscription of all parts. In grasshopper we tagged every cross with serial numbers. The two associated elements get the numbers “1” and “2”.
A special production - script positions both elements of a cross onto one board, prepared for milling.
Every number of the connectors has four digits. The first represents the number of the wall, the others the number within the wall.

production - connectors

2009-07-19T11:40:00.000-07:00

scripting - connectors

2009-06-21T10:51:00.000-07:00

To design the connectors we first generated circles at the intersection-points of the boards. The radius determinates the circumcircle of the elements. By intersecting the circles with the crosses we obtained the intersection lines, which we extruded to three-dimensional solids.

To stick both elements of each cross together a plug connection was developed. With the intersection – lines, where both boards overlay themselves, we created a quadrangle, which was be extruded along the direction of the focus – point. This solid was cut out of the board.

final presentation

2009-06-17T07:25:00.000-07:00

floorplan:

prototyp

2009-06-16T21:05:00.000-07:00

this weekend the built a model in 1:1 scale for the final presentation on Wednesday.
Here are some images of two days of work:

scripting - boards

2009-06-06T09:34:00.000-07:00

Based on a double- curved surface we generated a grid of points, modifiable by grasshopper – sliders for each direction. After reading out the points of the list in the right order we connected them with lines to crosses, the basic design of our project. To get planar quads the lines had to be extruded to the focus point with present length. With an offset of the required board-size we got the resulting elements. At last the length of the boards had to be reduced, so that we get distance between the elements, to bring in the connectors.

presentation, June 4

2009-06-04T02:28:00.000-07:00

presentation, May 26

2009-05-26T01:31:00.000-07:00

Variant 1:

Variant 2: