Week 09 | Tooling

The efficiency of process does not change when we shift from 2-dimensions to 3. In fact the designer's (your) level of 'programming' has to become even more attuned to the tools that are available. When lines/curves/primitives act as your only medium, the design is much more reliant on your concept to provide its intelligence. However, the process of selecting tools based on the input and its desired but effectively inconceivable output. The title, Tooling, suggests that the most important decision made in this design process is the initial selection and understanding of the creation tool.

We are only investigating surface tools in Rhino. Extrude, loft, sweep (1 rail), sweep (2 rail), and Rail Revolve. Your charge is to define an 'armor' using only one of these tools. This is not to say that you can only use one tool one time. The basis of this class and also this assignment is discovery through multiplicity. Without the relativity of multiple successes and failures there could be no measure for discussion and therefore, no measure for improvement. The process of armoring your movement from the last assignment is a design of protection and also of resistance.




This image is referenced from theverymany.net. Although this surface was derived from scripting within Rhino, the development of your surfaces should contain a similar logic. There are obviously two systems at work in this image. Sweeping across the larger scale, think about using this technique in forming against the body and then smaller texturing type surfaces create the larger move. A single swept surface could never document the complexity and intelligence of this surface. Remember that multiple layers of information are key to reading into the surface and its purpose.

Stepping back for a moment, consider what this assignment is asking of you and what precedents you could possibly reference. Often we pressure ourselves into thinking that the most modern and digitally advanced ideas we can learn from may be our most promising assets. However, the origins of body and plate armor are highly relevant and should be viewed with as much potential as a scripted Rhino surface.



Consider this, often the most unprotected areas of the body while wearing plate armor were the joints. While understanding the medium available, hammered metal, the pliable areas of the body were made of mail. Mail was a metal mesh of sorts that would allow some protection with little resistance to movement. These areas required a new method, relate this to your own movements and systems of protection. Not all parts of the body in these images will be rendered mobile by the same system of surfacing. This is not to say that one tool will limit you to create multiple systems of surfacing. This is again where the multiplicity of using one tool allows you, as the designer, to re-think and re-program the tool to work in your favor. In other words, know the rules before you break them.