Hi Archinect!
Like most schools of architecture, the GSD has a tradition of students installing projects in and around the building. Some of these last longer than others, and some are better thought-out and executed than others. Some are not installations at all, but just crumbling pieces of projects or works-in-progress that got left behind and that people were too lazy to remove and dispose of properly.
In this context, Flatland--designed by recent M.Arch.II grad Casey Hughes and developed and installed in collaboration with Hiroshi Jacobs and others--raises the bar. Depending on where and how you look at it, the cords can either look immaterial or very material, weightless or heavy, soaring or constrained.
The design, selected through a school-wide competition, features red and blue bungee cords spanning between pairs of metal cables, creating a geometry that varies from a pure hyperbolic paraboloid (a "hypar") only through the force of gravity acting on the elastic cords and relatively inelastic cables. In terms of its exploitation of geometry, attention to material properties, and (appropriately simple but crisp) detailing, Flatland also exemplifies many of the design values that typify the GSD's M.Arch. programs in recent years.
Here are some photos. For more information on Flatland and on Casey's firm, you can visit his website.
[All photos courtesy Casey Hughes.]
Thanks for reading!
Lian
P.S. Flatland is dedicated to the incoming students of the Graduate School of Design. (Which is code for saying: if you don't know what a hyperbolic paraboloid is now, incoming M.Arch.I students, you will in very short order!)
P.P.S. Flatland's credits are as follows:
Design: Casey Hughes
Mock-ups and Development: Casey Hughes, Hiroshi Jacobs
Installation: Casey Hughes, Hiroshi Jacobs, Christina Yessios, Rachel Dao, Sara Newey, Day Jimenez, Emily Wettstein, Olayinka Dosekun, Benjamin Lehrer, Jon Scelsa, Sandra Herrera, and Matthew Waxman.
Lectures and exhibitions, life in the trays, happenings around Harvard...and once in a while, some studio and course work. Bringing it to you live from Cambridge, MA. Please note that all live blogs are necessarily abridged and approximate. I do my best to avoid misrepresentation! If you want to see exactly what happened, in most cases a video of the event is posted online by the event's hosts. If you have concerns about how you are quoted, please contact me via Archinect's email.
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