Skin and Bones Paneling

As we began the skin and bones design project. We had the goal of each creating a model that dealt with each persons thesis project. This would give us each a model that would be a section of our individual thesis. Each of us has a different lattice structure that is unique to our project. The goals was the create three different examples of our structures and how we used skin with the structure.

In the first iteration, the bones were required to be extremely small in scale to allow it to read as a doubly curved surface and ultimately could have resulted in the failing of the project. It had printed but because the 3d printer had malfunctioned in saying the glue was full and it was actually empty it did not print. Due to the time sharing amongst our own group and other groups we decided to work with the other two iterations of the group.

Idea: The idea behind the surface was to create a paneling system for exploration. This frame would be able to accept any panel as long as it could relate to the different dimensions that the system presents. Those shapes area a four sided polygon and a six sided polygon. The angles and actual dimensions differ from every panel. This allows for situational experimentation.

The second iteration, consisted of an organic structural frame that had round openings in it. The idea behind this skin and bones design is that the bones are on the exterior, bringing the skin to the inside. It becomes an exoskeleton sort of structure. The module unit is designed as a prefabricated piece that connects itself to the larger frame. In a way, when all the modules are connected to the frame, the modules then become the skin. The frame was created as a bone structure. The module would have a glass frame skin that is on the inside of the shell, although that part of the project has not been produced yet.

For the third and final skin and bone exploration, Ashley explored a lightweight space frame that would hold up an ETFE double-curved panel surface. The base surface and grid system for this project was created by lofting two shifted arcs. From that surface, using the paneling tools in Rhino, she created a grid from surface UV. From this grid and surface, two panel systems were created.

The first system was a diagonal panel system. The diagonal panel system was offset in relation from the original surface, 1". Between these two panel systems, a voronoi pipe script was used to create a space-frame structure. This structure was capped to create a solid form. To prep this model for the 3D Printer, we exported the space frame model as an .stl and loaded in into the 3D printer's software, ZPrint.

The second panel system was created from the original lofted surface. This surface was paneled using a flat-face, box pattern through the Rhino Paneling tools. After creating the flat panels from the surface, we unrolled the panels to create a laser cutter template file. In order to keep the panels in order, we labeled the panels according to which row and column there were in. On the laser cutter, we used two vector settings; one for cutting the panels out and one for labeling them. Our cut setting was: power 3%, speed 10, and ppi 300. Our vector setting was: power 1%, speed 15, and ppi 300. We ran of these cut paths twice to reduce melting the plastic.

After completion of the printing process we had to begin the post processing phase. The laser cutting had left a burnt rusty look on the edges of the plexiglass which we decided to try to cover. The clear plexiglass was also not looking like we wanted because it did not show up well when it was clear transparency. We decided to frost the plexiglass to create a frosted look blurring the transparency. This gave a better look to the skin and also helped to cover the burnt edges a bit as well.

To attach the skin we had to tack glue it to the frame. This was the only option we had because we did not design a system to connect the two together before hand. The pieces were individually numbered so that we were able tell which pieces needed to go where. This made the connection process go fairly quick. We did not design the skin for any tolerance, using only the width of the laser cut as the tolerance. The pieces were able to fit together and curve along the frame when it was all completed giving a look of frosted glass with a space frame system behind it. The translucency of the skin created a abstraction which enhanced the look of the skin and bones design.