Dadaocheng Waterfront, Taipei
Computational design for Loop.pH
Art Direction & Concept Design
: Rachel Wingfield
Creative Technical Direction
: Mathias Gmachl
Design Team: Andrei Jipa, Harri Lewis, Karla Torio Rivera, James Fox, Alice Bosc, Kaja Ritzau-Reid
A dynamic light commission activated at speed by participants and staged during Velo-City Global 2016, the world’s most important cycling conference hosted in Taipei.

VelO2, designed by Loop.pH, highlights the importance of an active lifestyle and air quality in building sustainable smart cities.

Fleeting trails of light are created as participants physically interact with the installation through cycling at speed. The light visually communicates local air quality with dynamic branching structures reminiscent of trees and the tubular networks in our lungs. The installation uses an advanced air quality sensor provided by Change London to collect the fluctuating live data that measures six different air pollutants from three gasses and three different particle sizes. It then translated the live data from the sensor into seven different breathing rhythms and colours of light, passing from green to a dark red for dangerous levels of pollutants and creating a kind of warning system based on the international standard Air Quality Index.

VelO2 draws on the field of aerodynamics, the study of air in motion, to communicate the dynamic and borderless nature of our planet’s fragile atmosphere. On top of the tree like structure is a network of ephemeral tunnels that move gently with the breeze.

Visitors to the installation are provided with bikes to try out the tracks as we hoped that encouraging citizens to take up cycling in a fun and social environment could help Taiwan tackle its air pollution issues. Air pollution is a huge problem in Taipei, as lung cancer has increased 2.3 times and asthma in children has doubled in the last two decades. Densely populated by motor vehicles, schemes to adopt cleaner modes of urban mobility are essential.

Living with air pollution has become a reality for millions of people around the world, and latest research from the World Health Organisation describes the situation as a ‘public health emergency’, causing 3.3 million premature deaths across the globe every year. A combination of transport fumes and toxic gases from chemical industrial processes have contributed to the significant rise in air pollution, leaving approximately 7 out of 8 of the urban population living in cities where air pollution is higher than the levels WHO recommends.

As well as causing localised environmental effects, air pollution can travel long distances, and plays an important role in the earth’s atmospheric circulation, contributing to the global weather system. This highlights that air pollution is not just an environmental issue, but a political one too.

Cynthia Wu, Director of Shin Kong Life says ‘Shin Kong means bright light in mandarin and as a company we wanted to celebrate this, but equally the role of healthy and active light in our lives. This light installation concretizes the connection between air pollution and quality of light, and promotes cycling as a healthy and sustainable way of living, a value dear to Shin Kong. Vel02 allows us to share and create with people a fun event which also addresses a serious environmental issue.’

Mayor Ko Wen-je of Taipei acknowledges that ‘cycling embodies the spirit of sustainable living’. He believes the existing public bike infrastructure in Taipei is satisfactory, but there is always room for improvement. He continues to promote sustainable and active living taking the lead by cycling regularly.

The project, commissioned by the Shin Kong Life insurance company introduced Loop.pH to Taiwan’s Minister of Environment to discuss the next phase of the project in Taiwan. Not only will the project repeat in other Cities but the installation in Taipei leaves a legacy behind as the cycling track was donated to a local children’s project at the close of the installation on 6 March.

VelO2 is a public engagement initiative that advocates clean, healthy cities and will be repeated in other locations, following the launch in Taipei. (Source: Loop.pH)

Please get in touch with Loop.pH if you are interested in hosting VelO2!
February 2016

Image courtesy of Loop.pH

The Walk, Dubai
Computational design for Loop.pH
The public art installation, designed by Loop.pH was inspired by the moon calendar and illustrates the changing light of the lunar phases during the month of Ramadan. I supported the team with computational design development and research into the archilace construction technique and standardization of the pre-assembled modules. The structure is based on a truncated dodecahedron and built in glass fiber reinforced plastic rods and carbon fiber rods for added strength locally.
July 2015

Top view

Primrose Hill, London
Computational design for Loop.pH
Noah's Prism, designed by Loop.pH, was a 650m² temporary structure situated in North London, in the backyard of a house where Sigmund Freud lived for a short while in 1938. I was involved in the form-finding process of the 25m by 25m tent structure, collaborating with Will Pearson (Format Engineers) to set up a physics simulation in Kangaroo for Grasshopper which was used to calculate the deflections and dimension the members by the engineers. The experimental structure was erected around 4 internal scaffolding poles and a number of perimetral vertical supports using a hoisting mechanism from the ground. The columns were temporarily anchored with a network of braided steel guy wires while the cable net and prismatic PVC film was fixed in place.
October 2015

Side elevation of the digital model

Nine Elms, London
Loop.pH team:
Art Direction & Concept Design: Rachel Wingfield
Creative Technical Direction: Mathias Gmachl
Computational Design: Andrei Jipa, Agostino Nickl
Production Design & Fabrication Team: Karla Torio Rivera (Lead design on the Experience Design and workshop series); Federica Tedeschi (Lead design on the inflatable); James Fox (Lead design on engineering details and integration); Adam Harris (Lead design on horticulture and plants); Eve Izaak (graphic design)
Master of Ceremonies during event: Hannah Ringham
Music: Mileece
Huge thanks to: Kaja Ritzau-Reid; Marco Cosmi; Anna Ekonomou; Alice Maffei; Orla Lawn; Jinhee Park; Emilia Ochocka; Noor Khazem; Hye Lee; Chris Lewis; Maria Vasquez; Celestina Vinci; Will Cook; Tamara Cortez

Project Partners:
Loop.pH; The Nine Elms Vauxhall Partnership; The Brick Box; Haeckel’s Made of Margate; Format Engineers; Machines Room; Pendred Fogging; Hedge Herbs; Handmade Apothecary; Meditation by Frankie Walker & Richard Holroyd
I joined the amazing Loop.pH team for this temporary public space positioned on the Thames River Path, hosting an experimental tea ceremony featuring nebulized fragrances inside an inflatable structure. I was involved in developing the parametric model of the hyperbolic gridshell entrance structure and prepare it for fabrication. 18mm plywood pieces were milled using a CNC router, sanded, varnished and glued in the studio and finally assembled on site.
June 2015

Image by Loop.pH

Buro Happold, London
Mamou-Mani Architects:
Architect: Arthur Mamou-Mani
Lead Collaborator: Andrei Jipa
Collaborators: Bilal Mian, Naomi Eszter Danos, Mayalen Calleja, Zoe Laughlin, Alex Drioli, Esha Hashim, Agnieska Tarnowska, Toby Plunket, Aslan Adnan

BuroHappold Engineering:
Andrew Best, Neil Bilet, Emma Greenough, James Solly
The Wooden Waves is an architectural installation suspended in the reception areas of the BuroHappold Engineering headquarters at 17 and 71 Newman Street in London, providing a visual motif connecting the two. This functional art piece celebrates global engineering practice BuroHappold’s multiple innovations in the field of complex gridshell and other types of timber structures and was designed in collaboration with Mamou-Mani Architects and BuroHappold. The structure was made at the Mamou Mani fabrication laboratory in London, The FabPub.

The components of The Wooden Waves form sinuous streams folded into unexpected configurations through an open-source and innovative digital fabrication technique of “lattice-hinge-formation”: This is a parametric pattern of laser-cut lines that alters the global properties of plywood sheets making them locally more flexible and thus controlling the 3D form without significant supporting framework. The lattice hinge method is a development of the traditional timber bending technique, using the kerf (beam-width) of the laser to form torsional springs within the material.

The modules diffuse light through the opening of the cuts when bent and also absorb sound and stabilise temperature through acoustic and phase-changing material layers integrated into the design.

More than a hundred prototypes were tested to inform the digital model and master the curvature of the final piece which forms a seamless, soft and continuous stream.

The supports of the modules were generated through a digital process called “Topological Optimisation” in which force flows are assessed and un-used material is discarded. They hold the patterned plywood sheets in their current forms through a male/female connection requiring no glue.

The Wooden Waves installation makes use of flat, off-the-shelf plywood from an FCC certified supplier, demonstrating that complex forms can be achieved through application of innovative engineering and architectural technology to a sustainable, transportation-optimised material. The piece is left untreated, showing the natural grain characteristic to engineered timber.
March 2015

Image by Zoe Laughlin

Dynamic parametric installation
A parametric pavilion inspired by the umbrella mechanism. More coming soon...
23rd October - 14th December 2014

Baicoi, PH, Romania
Client: Cristina and Mircea
Architectural and Interior Design: Andrei Jipa

Single family house in a small town in the Romanian countryside.
December 2014

GF living room

Sto Werkstatt, London
Architect: Arthur Mamou-Mani
Lead Collaborator: Andrei Jipa
Exhibition Curator: Amy Croft

Described as ‘skyscrapers-for-one’, the Cloud Capsules are a series of site-specific parametrically-developed 3d printed objects. These 2-metre-high installations demonstrate measured changes in the levels of light diffused through their forms. Visitors had the chance to observe the 3D printer on-site and follow the creation of these micro-pavilions throughout the duration of the exhibition.
23rd October - 14th December 2014

XinTianDi Style, Shanghai
Architect: Arthur Mamou-Mani
Lead Collaborator: Andrei Jipa
Local Consultant: Stephany Xu
Local Partner: Green City
Sponsors: HypeCask (3d Printers); Voltivo (3d Printing Material)
Special Thanks: Joris van Tubergen, MODX, XinFab, Maialen Calleja, Joann Siim, Madeeha Maham

The 3d Printing Pop-up Studio was a temporary installation enabling visitors to discover the world of 3D printing and the beautiful forms that can be created with this innovative technology. It took place during the Shanghai Fashion Week, between 25 September and 12 October 2014.

A development of Joris van Tubergen's work, the studio was made of 200 different modules which were all 3D printed with varying opacity, creating a beautiful lace-like forest of cocoons lit from the inside. The geometry of the installation at different scales is based on trigonometric functions: the overall shape, the components and the pattern on each component, as well as the parametric variations were all achieved using computational design tools and programming languages.

The fabrication process of the 200 components took place in Shanghai over a one month period, employing 3 Delta Tower FDM 3d Printers, using PLA bio-plastic. The machines continued to print during the event as part of an exhibition and series of workshops to explain the process to the visitors.

“We had been pretty intrigued by the novel way of using the 3D printer to create objects which have not a lot in common with the traditional objects created with FDM. Those lantern-like structures which materialised in front of our eyes had a much more textile and elegant feeling to them, looking like being weaved instead of printed layer by layer” Dr. Stephan Weiß, co-founder, Hypecask 3D Printers
July - October 2014

The pattern was achieved based on a variation of the parameters of the 3d printing process.

Parametric acoustic panels
Credits: Collaborator on research project by Foteini Setaki (Studio Phi)

Acoustic panels developed through parametric design tools to be fabricated with FDM 3d Printing technologies for specific acoustic requirements in various materials (sand, polyamide, polylactide). To achieve sound absorption on specific frequencies, the principles of open porous absorbing 3d printed materials at various scales and Helmholtz resonators were applied to build digital models and physical prototypes. Part of the project was to develop a study for a 3d printed acoustic curtain for the Canal House in Amsterdam, designed by DUS Architects with the Kamermaker 3d printer.
August 2014

3D printed cities
Credits: Year 5 MArch project in DS10; Tutors: Toby Burgess and Arthur Mamou-Mani

If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern. William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 1793

A design essay in speculative urbanism, exploring the possibilities of emerging technological research, built around an exaggerated future scenario, in which the world is in crisis, overpopulated and threatened by global warming and the continuous ocean-level rise.

The potato (lat. Solanum tuberosum) becomes the de facto financial standard. Genetically modified species are the main source of carbohydrates for more than 85% of the world population and are used to produce bio-fuel and electricity, as well as PLA (polylactic acid) – a highly efficient, recyclable potato-starch derived 3d printing bio-plastic, widely used ever since the era of Adrian Bowyer’s RepRap. Cheap, accessible and highly adaptable, the delta 3d printer emerges as the main-stream tool for digitally-driven construction, using inexpensive recyclable, long-lasting, fibre-enhanced biopolymers.

Solano.polis - the potato city - grows ad infinitum, emerging as a new metropolitan mega form from fractal space colonization algorithms embedded in the firmware of the autonomous machines. The network of artificial brains designs an evolving parallel virtual city transposed directly into the physical realm by the independent heated extruders. The boundary between algorithm, virtual model and built city disappears as the numerical instructions are repeated endlessly by the bots , drifting across the inhabited fractal geometries, updating the master-algorithm as demand requires.
May 2014
View gallery

3d printing rails












Useful Resources for everybody!!

We want to learn, website of DS10 Westminster

Parametric 3D Printing
Credits: Silkworm was initiated by: Adam Holloway, Arthur Mamou-Mani, Karl Kjelstrup-Johnson

Silkworm is a plugin that translates Grasshopper and Rhino geometry into GCode for 3d printing. Silkworm allows for the complete and intuitive manipulation of the printer GCode, enabling novel printed material properties to be specified by non-solid geometry and techniques of digital craft.

Project Silkworm is an open project to develop the concept of digital craft via the resources of open source 3d printing technology. The revolution of 3D printing is seeing a rise in novel methodologies of material design communication, from concept through to fabrication. Now additive processes can be manipulated through data driven logics programmed directly by the designer. Silkworm offers the designer a vocabulary to choreograph these processes and develop the way the printed object is conceived.
March 2014

Prototype 01 (62x75mm)

Digital Ernst Haeckel
Credits: Year 5 MArch project in DS10; Tutors: Toby Burgess and Arthur Mamou-Mani

A research project aimed to assemble a catalog of radiolarians as fabrication-ready digital models. The project was inspired by the work of German biologist Ernst Haeckel who published Kunstformen der Natur in 1904.

The book consists of 100 lithographic prints representing beautiful organisms realised by Ernst Haeckel over the course of his career. It was an influential piece of work, inspiring architects and artists of the Art Nouveau movement. Ten of the plates were dedicated to Radiolaria, Foraminifera and Diatoms, which had not been researched before and were thus brought to the attention of the Victorian scientists.

The Radiolaria - microscopic protozoa organisms found in the zooplankton throughout the ocean - produce intricate mineral skeletons with needle-shaped pseudopodia, composed of bundles of siliceous microtubules which aid in the Radiolarian's buoyancy. wikipedia.org

A parametric tool was designed which allowed the generation of a broad spectrum of radiolarian structures, based on twelve predefined geometric archetypes, each having the possibility to be further refined and fine-tuned through sets of parameters. The tool produced a clean mesh geometry, to be sliced into gcode instructions for FDM 3d printers. The models were fabricated using a self-built Rep-Rap type 3d Printer.
November 2013

View of the parametric model

Mathematics, fractals, architecture
Credits: Year 4 MArch project in DS10; Tutors: Toby Burgess and Arthur Mamou-Mani

Homer’s work hits again and again on the topos of the inexpressible. People will always do that. We have always been fascinated by infinite space, by the endless stars and by galaxies upon galaxies. How does a person feel when looking at the sky? He thinks that he doesn't have enough tongues to describe what he sees. Nevertheless, people have never stopped describing the sky, simply listing what they see. Umberto Eco
May 2013
J(z) = z^2 + c
c = -0.8 - 0.2i
A Julia set of a quadratic polynomial; In a Julia set, an arbitrarily small perturbation can cause drastic changes in the sequence of iterated function values.

Plateau Minimal Surfaces
Credits: Year 4 MArch project in DS10; Tutors: Toby Burgess and Arthur Mamou-Mani

WikiBubbles was inspired by Alastair Parvin's WikiHouse project, promoting open source design and encouraging public participation through improvements, adaptations and continuous updating of the core design.

WikiBubbles is a concept based on Plateau's laws that describe ideal configurations for clusters of soap film bubbles and are a result of minimal surface geometries. A valuable consequence is that all angles between surfaces or members in such Plateau geometries are equal, and therefore they generate geometries with a high degree of structural stability.

A useful architectural interpretation is that all required joints are identical, no matter how complicated the cluster is, the only variable being the length of the members. Fabrication-wise, this implies a single type of connector piece and a flexible member that can be easily cut to length, i.e a high degree of standardization, reducing costs and simplifying the building process.

A parametric model was developed which generates a bubble cluster based on custom input variables (number of cells, dimension, etc) and returns the number of joints required as well as the length of the members and an identifier for the construction sequence.
November 2012

Growth sequence of a soap bubble cluster

Soap film interference
Credits: Year 4 MArch experiment in DS10; Tutors: Toby Burgess and Arthur Mamou-Mani

Part of a photographic study of the beautiful colourful interference patterns that appear in soap films.
October 2012

Isometric crystal system
Credits: Year 4 MArch experiment in DS10; Tutors: Toby Burgess and Arthur Mamou-Mani

In crystallography, the cubic (or isometric) crystal system has unit cells in the shape of a cube. This is one of the most common and simplest shapes found in crystals and minerals.

The primitive cubic system (cP), found in pyrite and table salt consists of one lattice point on each corner of the cube. Each atom at a lattice point is then shared equally between eight adjacent cubes, and the unit cell therefore contains in total one atom (1 ⁄ 8 × 8). source: Wikipedia
October 2012

A large physical model that concluded the experiment.

Hydroponic farm towers
The Team: Andrei Jipa, Lilia Obletsova, Victoria Hamilton, Kimberley Stott; coordinated by Martin West @RHWL Architects

The brief: The LOFT London Farm Tower Competition was organized by Architecture Workshop in Rome, requiring the design of a vertical farm with a residential use in London's Potters Fields. In the city there is still a strong demand for housing and for public functions in downtown areas where the presence of public transportation makes the site extremely strategic. The city offers the chance to build a real vertical village, including a public plaza, shopping areas, restaurants and residences. Londoners welcome these macro-structures that allow them to experience the city as well as possible. At the same time this project allows people to enjoy both indoor and outdoor activities, regardless of the weather.

The proposal: The Vertical Field is a new formulation of urban living in which individuals and families cohabit with methods of aeroponic food production, a metaphor to traditional self-sufficiency farming where the link between the plot of land and the owners goes beyond simple economics. The open space market on the ground floor, integrated under a raised public space platform is closing the loop of the traditional subsistence agriculture system. The aesthetics of the structure is inspired by the image of crop fields on a landscape out of which extruded vertical field towers emerge.
July 2011

The marketplace on the ground floor

Peak District installation
Credits: Year 3 Undergrad project at the University of Sheffield; Tutor: Ranbir Lal

Parallax is a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight, and is measured by the angle or semi-angle of inclination between those two lines. The term is derived from the Greek παράλλαξις (parallaxis), meaning "alteration". Nearby objects have a larger parallax than more distant objects when observed from different positions, so parallax can be used to determine distances. source: Wikipedia
September 2009
The installation lightly touches the landscape

Cigresyl dica edimalyhteid
If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern. ― William Blake, "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell"
Click to enlarge



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