INSTALLATION: SYSTEMATIC NARCISSISM (2012)

SYSTEMATIC NARCISSISM:

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*Update: Systematic Narcissism has been selected as a Finalist for the Architizer A+ Awards 2013. Please show your support and vote for the Public Vote Award.

Systematic Narcissism is a hybridization through the notion of the planetary grid system and the symmetry of narcissism. The installation is based on the obsession of the physical reflection of the object/subject relationship, created by the idea of man-made versus planetary projected planes (grids) of which humans have made onto the earth. I.e.: Pierre Charles L’Enfant plan 1791 of the golden section projected onto Washington DC.

The fostered form is found based on a triacontahedron primitive and developed within the family according to the primitive angles. Every angle has an increment of 0.25m and is based off a logic-based system of derivatives. As indicated, the geometry of the world (or the globe) is based off the planetary grid system, which is a hexakis icosahedron grid system of the earth according to Bethe Hagens and William S. Becker; thus, the formal mathematical aspects of the installation are created by the offset within a basis of that geometric form.

The base of the planetary grid and narcissus reflection of the modular pieces act as intersections that operates as a system to shape the devised geometry of the interfacing modular, which upholds the installation.

image


BACKGROUND:

Poetics:
Narcissus is the origin of the term narcissism, a fixation with oneself. The Greek myth which depicted a prince who sat by a reflective pond for days being self-absorbed by the beauty it contained, as he looked at the reflection of his own beauty.

Mathematics:
In 1978, Professors William Becker and Bethe Hagens extended the Russian model, inspired by Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome, into a grid based on the rhombic triacontahedron, the dual of the icosidodecaheron Archimedean solid. The triacontahedron has 30 diamond-shaped faces, and possesses the combined vertices of the icosahedron and the dodecahedron.

Their new model, which they later title “The Ring of Gaia”, revealed 15 great circles, 120 scalene right-triangles (with no equal sides or equal angles) and 62 node-points. The great circles divided each rhombic face into four right-triangles. Although having no interest in Earth grids, Fuller had previously noticed that these triangles and recorded their internal angles in planar and spherical notations.

The model was eventually developed into the “Unified Vector Geometry” (UVG) projection, a connection of all of the vertices of the five Platonic solids placed inside a sphere, using Fuller’s “great circle sets” from Synergetics II. A total of 121 great circles appeared, increasing the number of vertices to 4,862. They proposed that the UVG grid could be a new geometric model for Gaia.

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DESIGNER:                
Wendy W Fok | atelier//studio WF       

PROJECT TEAM:                
Jose Aguilar / Dillon Philips               

PRODUCTION CONSULTANTS:            
Tommy Joe / Julie Truong       

CONTACT:
info@studio-wf.com

WEBSITE:
http://studio-wf.com

VENUE:
the Old Truman Brewery, London, UK

EVENT:
TENT, London Design Festival 2012

DATES:
18 - 23 September, 2012 

SPONSORED IN PART BY:
Burdette Keeland Jr. Design Exploration Center
Gerald D Hines College of Architecture, University of Houston
Saifee Signs & Graphics, LLC 
atelier//studio WF

PRESS:
+ GLASS MAGAZINE
+ DEZEEN (interview)
+ Art Served
+ suckerPUNCH
+ Architizer A+ Awards (Finalist)

image

PRESS RELEASE:
Download / Postcard

image

image

image

image

Copyright © atelier//studio WF

INSTALLATION: SYSTEMATIC NARCISSISM (2012)

SYSTEMATIC NARCISSISM:

image

*Update: Systematic Narcissism has been selected as a Finalist for the Architizer A+ Awards 2013. Please show your support and vote for the Public Vote Award.

Systematic Narcissism is a hybridization through the notion of the planetary grid system and the symmetry of narcissism. The installation is based on the obsession of the physical reflection of the object/subject relationship, created by the idea of man-made versus planetary projected planes (grids) of which humans have made onto the earth. I.e.: Pierre Charles L’Enfant plan 1791 of the golden section projected onto Washington DC.

The fostered form is found based on a triacontahedron primitive and developed within the family according to the primitive angles. Every angle has an increment of 0.25m and is based off a logic-based system of derivatives. As indicated, the geometry of the world (or the globe) is based off the planetary grid system, which is a hexakis icosahedron grid system of the earth according to Bethe Hagens and William S. Becker; thus, the formal mathematical aspects of the installation are created by the offset within a basis of that geometric form.

The base of the planetary grid and narcissus reflection of the modular pieces act as intersections that operates as a system to shape the devised geometry of the interfacing modular, which upholds the installation.

image


BACKGROUND:

Poetics:
Narcissus is the origin of the term narcissism, a fixation with oneself. The Greek myth which depicted a prince who sat by a reflective pond for days being self-absorbed by the beauty it contained, as he looked at the reflection of his own beauty.

Mathematics:
In 1978, Professors William Becker and Bethe Hagens extended the Russian model, inspired by Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome, into a grid based on the rhombic triacontahedron, the dual of the icosidodecaheron Archimedean solid. The triacontahedron has 30 diamond-shaped faces, and possesses the combined vertices of the icosahedron and the dodecahedron.

Their new model, which they later title “The Ring of Gaia”, revealed 15 great circles, 120 scalene right-triangles (with no equal sides or equal angles) and 62 node-points. The great circles divided each rhombic face into four right-triangles. Although having no interest in Earth grids, Fuller had previously noticed that these triangles and recorded their internal angles in planar and spherical notations.

The model was eventually developed into the “Unified Vector Geometry” (UVG) projection, a connection of all of the vertices of the five Platonic solids placed inside a sphere, using Fuller’s “great circle sets” from Synergetics II. A total of 121 great circles appeared, increasing the number of vertices to 4,862. They proposed that the UVG grid could be a new geometric model for Gaia.

image

DESIGNER:                
Wendy W Fok | atelier//studio WF       

PROJECT TEAM:                
Jose Aguilar / Dillon Philips               

PRODUCTION CONSULTANTS:            
Tommy Joe / Julie Truong       

CONTACT:
info@studio-wf.com

WEBSITE:
http://studio-wf.com

VENUE:
the Old Truman Brewery, London, UK

EVENT:
TENT, London Design Festival 2012

DATES:
18 - 23 September, 2012 

SPONSORED IN PART BY:
Burdette Keeland Jr. Design Exploration Center
Gerald D Hines College of Architecture, University of Houston
Saifee Signs & Graphics, LLC 
atelier//studio WF

PRESS:
+ GLASS MAGAZINE
+ DEZEEN (interview)
+ Art Served
+ suckerPUNCH
+ Architizer A+ Awards (Finalist)

image

PRESS RELEASE:
Download / Postcard

image

image

image

image

Copyright © atelier//studio WF

Posted 9 months ago & Filed under London Design Festival 2012, TENT, the Old Truman Brewery, SYSTEMATIC NARCISSISM, 1 note

Notes:

  1. we-designs reblogged this from studio-wf
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About:

spatial / geometrical / mathematical / material processing

The endeavours of Wendy W Fok's research-based projects are dedicated to the creation of designs interlaced within the principals of procedural-based mathematics, logics, and material studies, within the field of architecture, digital media, and design. Her designs are substantiated through explorations between the cross-pollination of spatial installation arts and novel architectural innovations embedded within urban cityscapes.


Wendy W Fok, director/founder and team member of WE-DESIGNS.ORG, LLC (Architecture) and atelier//studio-WF (Art), winner of the Hong Kong Young Design Talent Award (2009), and a selected designer of the Perspective 40 under 40 Award (2011), has a Master of Architecture & Certification of Urban Policy/Planning from Princeton University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture, with a concentration in Economics (Statistics) from Columbia University. Notably, WE-DESIGNS.ORG, LLC has been selected by Twenty+Change (co-curated by Heather Dubbeldam and Lola Sheppard) as one of twenty Emerging Canadian Design Practices (2011) in Canada.

Fok has an international background from Vienna, New York, London, Paris, Tokyo, Beijing, Hong Kong & Canada. Her art installations have been displayed in Dubai, Vancouver, Toronto, Hong Kong, Shanghai, New York, Athens, Venice, & Prague, and has worked on several international architectural projects, exhibitions, & competitions-- including the HKSZ Bi-City Biennale 2012, 12th La Biennale di Venezia 2011, the Shanghai Expo 2010, Athens Fringe Festival 2009, & Lower East Side Tenement Museum 2004/05.

Fok's interests are toward the investigations of contextual and content-related natures of fabrication, partnered with cradle-to-cradle material investigations that compliment scaled prototypes within architectural design. Meanwhile, her design methodology is to challenge the dynamic significance in structuring and mapping the ideals of art, architecture, and urbanism within the processes of [design | optimisation | fabrication] for resilient planning, material research, and alternative methods of fabrication with progressive aims within the built environment.

On her spare time, Fok is the founder & administrator of (C)ODE-(C)OLLECTIVE-- a collective forum for Grasshopper, Rhino, Parametric Modeling, & other digital media / design tools, which pose as an educational & developing archive site to formulate the critical utility of digital design-- an Associate Member of the HKPDA (Hong Kong Parametric Design Association), and Contributing / Overseas Editor for the a+a magazine, published by the Architectural Society of China.