top of page
Search
  • Writer's pictureAnnamae Muldowney

Trial and Error through Digital Manufacturing

- Building on from Semester two


At the close of semester two, I had completed a speculative retrofit design showing the possibilities of curating acoustics in a building using cymatic forms. This design was always described as speculative as there were factors which I had not fully developed. In the third semester, I looked to approach these areas such as practically of spaces, tectonics and testing of acoustics in reality. To investigate this fully, an due to the problematic nature of scaling acoustics, I decided to construct a large 1:1 scale model of a space as it would sit a building.



- Digital Manufacturing


The designing of the cymatic space was largely trial and error, with a series of test models. Each iteration brought up a difference problem from being too costly, being too difficult or not having the tools to construct, materials weren’t strong enough or there were mistakes in the computation of the model.


This process was a good representation of the problems that would be faced when trying to construct a cymatic building. Each version was designed digitally with Rhino and Grasshopper. I choose a cymatic shape with a frequency of 146.8 htz and tested on my computer how much I could alter this without it changing the acoustic response. I used grasshopper to calculate ribs/ slices required to create the internal shape of the space.


I tested different methods of creating this shape, from stacked slices and shells to the final and successful waffle variant When a design option was ready, I prepared 2D cad files and set up GCode Files and used these to cut the model out on the CNC cutter.

















4 views0 comments

Recent Posts

See All
bottom of page