exhibition3

Searching for the obvious
Mårten Nettelbladt

When you bend a thin strip of plywood you get a beautifully shaped curve. What geometry does this curve follow? There is a peaceful simplicity to the shape, and yet, it doesn't fall into the normal categories of basic geometric shapes as we know them. The exhibition shows two different ways to approach this challenge. Part one: A plywood strip, twelve meters long, curled and twisted into a double loop shape. This geometry is a result of the material trying to resist, and thereby minimize, the forces of bending and torsion. Part two: A computer generated surface, curling and twisting according to user input. Two lists of values control the curvature and the direction of the surface. The resulting single-curved surface will always be developable and unroll to a straight strip. Question: Is there a simple mathematical solution that will produce the same geometry as in the plywood loop? The search continues.

Special thanks to
David Rutten, McNeel
Andy Payne & Jason K. Johnson, Firefly Experiments
Grasshopper Forum