EX_3 NOX_D-Tower

Image: AD_Magazine, Vol. 75 No. 1 (p.68)

Project: D-Tower
Architect: Lars Spuybroek (NOX)
Artist: QS Serafijn
Location: Doetinchem, The Netherlands
Date: 1998-2004

"The D-Tower is a project where the intensive (feelings, qualia) and the extensive (space, quantities) start exchanging roles, where human action, color, money, value, feelings all become networked entities."

-Lars Spuybroek

Image: ArcSpace.com, NOX

Blue = Happiness

Image: ArcSpace.com, NOX

Yellow = Fear

Image: ArcSpace.com, NOX

Green = Hate

Image: ArcSpace.com, NOX

Red = Love

The 15 meter tall "bulbous, vegetal" tower produces emotion through symbolic colors. Depending on responses by the 45,000 people of Doetinchem to a questionnaire written by the project's artist, Serafijn, the lamps contained inside the epoxy structure change colors.

Image: D-Toren.nl, NOX

Each night after the questions have been answered for the day, the Tower transmits "the State of the Town" by emitting the color associated with the emotion. At the beginning of each month, a new set of narrowed questions are added each pertaining to human emotions: Happiness, Fear, Hate and Love. All the answers create an "Emotion Landscape" which maps out the emotions of the city.

Image: d-toren.nl, NOX

Three components make up the artwork: "a website (accessible to everybody), a questionnaire (accessible to a hundred different people each year that have a special password) and a Tower" linking all three parts together. They post a web cam for a continuous update on the structure.

Image: Arcspace.com, NOX

Being a prefabricated structure precise modeling and effort went into the Tower's realization. The epoxy panels of the tower were created from milled styrofoam. The panels aren't all unique pieces as they may seem, but actually "some panels repeat four times, others two or three" which allows these non-standard geometry to be affordable without having to redesign them to basic flat planes and cilinders.

Image: ArcSpace.com, NOX
Stress Analysis

The structure also links to the past Gothic Vaults in its surface and columns sharing the same continuum. (noxarch.com)

Sources/Links:
noxarch.com
ArcSpace.com(Design)
ArcSpace.com(Built)
D-Toren.nl
Bullivant, Lucy. Architectural Design. John Wiley & Sons Ltd Co. 2005.
Vol. 75 No. 1, Jan/Feb 2005. pg. 68-69

EX_2 Wall Animation

Here is how the wall would be transformed to meet each condition of the spaces. The stretching of the walls along with rotation links directly to the rubber band exercise.

EX_2 Full Animation of Spaces

The Rubber band exercise allowed space to be created and utilize my wall system derived from my pattern. The pivoting of the walls from point to point allowed for a different space setting each time.

EX_2 RubberBand Animation

The following Exercise 2, consisted of an exploration in the arrangement of space using rubber bands, pins, a story with a set of rules, and a 1 inch by 1 inch grid on a 24 inch by 24 inch piece of wood. The rubber band exploration allowed me to create my set of rules for deriving space. The pivoting and rotating of the rubber bands opened and closed space relating to a story board that was initially created.

EX_2 3D Model

The Pattern was taken into Rhino and modeled into a 3D object. This would later become my wall structure for my animation. The lines were projected to a Full Sine curve surface, piped, and then mirrored about the center. This created a stacking pattern which when you look from the side you can see the original pattern.

EX_1 Full Pattern Tile

This is the full titled pattern that I created from the original 6 images.

EX_1 Pattern Process

Here I demonstrated the pattern process in which I derived my final overall pattern. Taking a piece from each preceding image, I used the methods of rotation, mirroring and moving to create a further rendition of my pattern. Ultimately arriving at the tiled image in the center.

EX_1 Pattern Compile

Exercise 1 was a pattern making exercise using 6 images. In taking my 6 images, 2 Nature, 2 Machine, and 2 Movie, I combined them by overlapping and changing the opacity to create a black and white composite vector image in which all other patterns were derived from.