Kaleidoscape Installation
Steven Meier and I teamed up to design an installation for the headquarters of Johnson Controls. The client wanted something that represented energy (their business) and nature (the campus theme) while floating in the large open air mezzanine. We decided to utilize the clearstory to play with the sun light that pored into the mezzanine using fresnel, dichroic, and translucent materials.
View from the South West corner. Floor 2
Planning
Our installation was scheduled to be the weekend of flush out giving us 2 days for build on site. We had to prefabricate as much of the chandelier has possible, while making the installation a snap.
Rhino/Grasshopper
Parametric Planning
The premise was to hang light weight cluster of shapes using aircraft cable. Along the angulating ceiling, I mapped out 23 anchors that held each cluster using thin wire. No cluster could be over 50 lbs. In total we suspended over 720 unique shapes spanning 5500 cubic feet.
Engineered our own hardware
Engineering
My sourcing efforts hit a snag when I couldn't find anything to hold the acrylic shapes. Due to the shipping, each cluster had to be folded in then unfurled after connecting to the anchor. Using brass rods we milled out fasteners with 3 axis of adjustment, finally bring everything together.
