column speculations

At the tail end of the 19th century, the advent of steel allowed for the construction of ever taller buildings. The technology to produce this material at this time was not yet sophisticated enough to make monolithic structural columns. This issue was addressed by riveting together less complex shapes in order to make the profile that could bear the requisite load.

This project builds upon that work by imagining infinitely complex columns for theoretical structures. A relatively simple algorithm takes steel profiles as an input and randomly aggregates them, before mirroring to create a symmetrical column profile.

This algorithm was written in Grasshopper for Rhino and utilizes the Wasp plugin.

I have plotted these speculations with a modified 3d printer and a cnc router with a custom plotting head to create plan drawings. Of course these are plans that can only be constructed theoretically.

The frame is made to display this large graphite drawing is made of ash, a species that is being wiped out by the invasive emerald ash borer, and was built to display the plan in its correct orientation.

I also used the RapLum lightprinter to create a column made from light.