MIES - Subtle Sobl

A Boat Factory off the Coast of the Adriatic

This is the work of Stephan Sobl, a very young architect who, in the summer of 2008, spent time designing for Greg Lynn's studio at SCIARCH. This particular design was Sobl's submission for a boat factory along the Adriatic Sea in Croatia. His goal "was to create an intricate system of long span industrial structure combined with the sophisticated design attitude of boatbuilders."

Early Conceptual Development by Rhino

The Computer-Generated Fiber/Grain Used for the "Muscle Tissue"

For design reference, Sobl used the muscle tissue - a common reference point among many designers who use algorithmic architecture (which emphasizes continuous strength and redundancy) - and considered three different stages of materiality:

• - alteration of fibers and solid elements
• - attributes provide solutions for transitions, crossings and connections
• - subdividing the overall appearance

Sobl's designs show a penchant for the overbearing - he has other designs which include an airport with far too many columns (appropriately labeled as such, too) and an inverted skyscraper within sight of the Hoover Dam.  Both of these designs, while interesting, don't capture the nuances of more established conceptual architects such as Hadid or Lynn.  Fortunately for him, this one gets damn close.

My impression from his work is that he's going to be a great designer.  The curves he employs as of the moment seems a little contrived.  However, for a warehouse or factory (where there is much space required for the construction of boats) this kind of design seems more practical.  Architecture deserves to have a sense of realism about it - you just can't dream everything up, unfortunately - but with designers like Lynn and Sobl, architecture can definitely afford to dream a little more as well.

Sections of the Boat Factory 

Site Plan of the Boat Factory 

MIES - Hexagonal

This design is from PROJECTiONE (pronounced Project One), a design / fabrication studio in Indiana.  Their intention was to create a simple, hexagonally based, component system that would act as a lit “drop ceiling” for the space, as the ceiling height would allow for quite a bit of variation in the surface. Everything was accomplished in Grasshopper other than the input surface from Rhino, this includes all unrolling for fab, label, patterning, and connections. There was no hardware used for connections besides the given hangers for the lamp cords, cutting costs and allowing the materials to work to each other’s benefit.

The overall constraints for the project were as follows:

*Timeline- 5 Days: One day devoted to design, one day of modeling in Rhino / Grasshopper and materials testing, and three shared days of fabrication, assembly, and installation.

*Budget- $500 materials budget: white acrylic, white polystyrene, and 55 cord sockets and bulbs.

*Site- Ceiling above the foyer at the west entrance of the architecture building.

Tabs on the styrene lock into the solid acrylic connectors as a rigid sidewall, causing the material to bend within the component as apposed to at its edges. This let all the components meet evenly and created a rigid shell after being connected. The lit hexagonal panels act as the hanger connection point for the piece, and a custom acrylic tab was created to hold the socket cable after being thread through the component, which attaches to clips tied to the waffle grid.

This kind of installation piques my interest.  It relies heavily on both smart technology (such as laser cutters and Grasshopper) but also shows how algorithmic architecture can be used to create lush interior space.  Also of note is how Ball State University partially helped work on the project with the studio, as seen in the photos above.  Projects like this are good for students because it opens their eyes to the things they will see in the design world in the next ten to fifteen years.