Stone PolySphere

StonePolySphere is an installation that investigates the potential of digital fabrication applied to the stone industry. It is a lithic sphere with a diameter of 1.4 meters, composed by a massive hemisphere below and a stereotomic hemisphere above.
The CNC machine Tc 1100, produced by Thibaut SA, allows the complex machining of all the parts. The massive hemisphere is obtained by sawing and milling a stone piece made of Pierre Bleue de Savoie (1.4 meters wide and 0.8 meters high); the stereotomic part consists of 120 perforated blocks, fabricated by milling four blocks of stone, containing 30 blocks each, in the average size of 1.60 m and 10 cm thick.
The blocks are constituted by two glued layers of stone, returning a two-colour effect varies depending on the morphology of the block itself. The stones used are Pierre Bleue de Savoie to the darker part, and Blanc d’Angola for the clearer part. The sphere was modelled parametrically using Grasshopper.

Credits:
Stone supplying: Yelmini, France
Location and machining: Chevrin-Geli, France
Fabrication and construction: Thibaut SA, France
Design and video presentation: New Fundamentals Research Group
New Fundamentals Research Group team:
Scientific Supervision and Design: Giuseppe Fallacara
Design, Computation and Video: Maurizio Barberio

Thibaut SA team:
Chairman: Jacques Thibaut
Technical Director: Alain Calas
Service Engineer: Bruno Combernoux
Coordinator: Claire Capel
Music: Benga – Chapter II To Inspire