Wings to Dreams by artist Dixie Friend Gay celebrates the native fauna of Erie, Colorado through an unexpected medium: polished stainless steel. To bridge humanity’s present with nature’s past, Gay envisioned natural forms crafted from one of the most resilient materials in the built environment. JunoWorks translated her concept into a detailed fabrication model using Rhino 3D, breaking down the design into components suitable for production. CRAFT was brought in to evaluate the structural performance of the delicate marque elements.
Preliminary design development focused on defining a fabrication strategy and determining detailing requirements for each marque component. This process relied on hand calculations, while the central structural pipe was specified for global demands. Special consideration was needed for the delicate sculptural expressions; although solid and perforated plate profiles were chosen for their visual lightness and cost-efficiency, they still needed to be stiff enough to withstand high prairie winds without rattling. With such complicated forms, traditional structural modeling techniques fell short of the task.
The organic forms of the marque fauna also required an organic modeling process. Without parametric geometry development and a distinct lack of rectilinear geometry, creating 2D lines and surfaces with properly aligned nodes suitable for finite element analysis would require an extraordinary amount of model manipulation. Using Rhino with Grasshopper plugins, the sculptural elements were shrink wrapped and represented as a single closed-mesh suitable for FE analysis.
The organic forms of the marque fauna also required an organic modeling process. Without parametric geometry development and a distinct lack of rectilinear geometry, creating 2D lines and surfaces with properly aligned nodes suitable for finite element analysis would require an extraordinary amount of model manipulation. Using Rhino with Grasshopper plugins, the sculptural elements were shrink wrapped and represented as a single closed-mesh suitable for FE analysis.
At CRAFT, we believe no single tool can solve every challenge. We continue to develop new techniques in computational analysis, 3D model manipulation, data management, machine learning, and more so that we can address any design challenge effectively. No matter how complex the geometry, we have the tools to understand the engineering principles behind structural systems of all shapes and sizes.
PROJECT TEAM
Artist: Dixie Friend Gay, Fabricator: JunoWorks
