Algorithmic columns

Computational architect Michael Hansmeyer makes incredibly elaborate columns out of cardboard and wood. Co.Design's John Pavlus writes: "Hansmeyer's column stands nine feet tall, weighs about 2000 pounds, and is made out of 2700 1mm-thin slices of cardboard stacked on top of wooden cores. It contains somewhere between 8 and 16 million polygonal faces -- too complex for even a 3D printer to handle, according to Hansmeyer." The World's Most Complex Architecture: Cardboard Columns With 16 Million Facets [Co.Design via Inhabitat] Columns [Michael's website]

• [nemryn]

  Guh. These things have the same queasily-organic feel as the Mandelbox.

• [Mark Dow]

  Athenian Greeks used continuous curves! That’s right, no two neighboring points had the same tangent. Try that on a 3D printer. Even Hansmeyer can’t handle an infinite polygon count.

  • [dculberson]

    What!!? Next you’ll try to tell me they were high def or 3d or something. No way!

    • [Mark Dow]

      No this is way back in analog TV days. I think they used Sensurround.

  • [SamSam]

    Isn’t a sphere an object with a continuous curve? So, basically, Athenians invented the ball?

    These columns look more intricate than plain balls would be, so I’ll go with these over the Athenians.

• [HeatherB]

  Beautiful. I wonder if they make heuristic columns as well.

• [dagfooyo]

  These are beautiful. I only wish there was some way to translate them into stone so they’d have the endurance of normal columns. Future generations need to see these. Beats the hell out of Corinthian style.

  • [Ito Kagehisa]

    Cast them in Coade stone.

• [Anonymous]

  Boy, Cthulhu’s gonna be pissed when he wakes up and realizes these are missing from R’lyeh.

• [xzzy]

  Those are absolutely creepy. I’d be afraid to touch them due to fears that things are living in the holes and are going to bite me.

  • [marco antonio]

    That’s what I love about them!

    If you ever take take hallucigenics chances are you’ll come across this exact type of architecture and its in habitants – which is the most exhilarating experience… unless you find it creepy, in which case you’ll have quite the harrowing experience. (Have you seen ‘Enter the void’?

    I love fractal-like architecture! :D

• [Mista Spakuru]

  Needless to say, dusting them is a bitch.

• [marco antonio]

  I can not find a reference anywhere to the fact that these are created on timber and cardboard, sorry.
  “A full-scale, 2.7-meter high variant of the columns is fabricated as a layered model using 1mm sheet.”

  “The initial prototype uses 1mm grey board. Tests using ABS, wood, as well as metal are under way.”

  So they’re using 1mm grey board sheets, and they’re testing other materials – which may prove to be viable or not.

  Hence, even though the headline sounds great, it’s not accurate.
  “Artist TRYING TO make incredibly elaborate columns out of cardboard and wood.”

  • [usonia]

    I’m confused – there’s a photograph here: http://www.fastcodesign.com/1663306/the-worlds-most-complex-architecture-cardboard-columns-with-16-million-facets#4
    So it is true that they’ve succeeded in making cardboard & wood prototypes. Each piece could be cut from steel or acrylic (though the bottom layers would probably shatter from compression), it would just be expensive.
    I have a laser engraver right next to me now, I want to try making these…

    • [marco antonio]

      There is no confusion. As I mentioned earlier: the current cut-outs are made of 1mm gray board (as shown on the photo), NOT cardboard.

      As it says on his website, ‘tests are underway’ for cardboard.

      Hence, headline should read “Computational architect Michael Hansmeyer makes incredibly elaborate columns out of 1MM GRAY SHEETS, HOPING TO DO SO ONE DAY WITH cardboard and wood”

  • [Anonymous]

    I agree. I find it disturbing that these are discussed on several websites as real, yet no photograph exists of them in the real world just renders.

• [jimkirk]

  I’d like to see a column made out of a family of Julia sets.

• [dtbrady77]

  Reminds me of the Jain temple at Ranakpur, India. 1400 unique pillars carved out of marble. Some shots I took:

  http://www.flickr.com/photos/16444612@N04/2837575189/

  • [Ito Kagehisa]

    Thank you for sharing your pictures! Wonderful craftsmanship.

• [Chrs]

  Damn, this is absolutely fascinating. I do occasionally wish that I had much of a chance of getting moderately wealthy, just to be able to have things like these.

• [JimEJim]

  Considering where 3d printing is now and where it will be in a few years, I’m actually pretty excited to see what architecture will look like in the future. We got a little boring over the last 100 years since we’ve been targeting cookie-cutter homes that were easy to mass-produce, but 3d printing should make it cheaper to make more intricate designs.

  The tech already exists and just needs refinement:

  http://www.shapeways.com/blog/archives/217-3D-printing-buildings-interview-with-Enrico-Dini-of-D_Shape.html

  http://www.rockprinter.com

• [blueelm]

  These are really so beautiful. Amazingly so. I’d really like to see them made in a way that can last.

• [Giant Robot Architect]

  What the heck is a computational architect?

  • [EH]

    This here says it’s a discipline at least 25 years old:
    http://www.generatorx.no/20060524/computational-architecture-theverymany/

    There’s lots more in Google. Also, check out one of my favorite forms of art, paper architecture:

    http://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/104031

• [Anonymous]

  3D printers are great, but we’re really at the point where it is amazing they are doing it at all and are not anywhere close to monuments of precision.

  Considering what the artist is actually doing, a better comparison would be against a cnc cutter, which would probably give him a run for his money than 3D printing.

• [empathy44]

  I wonder if these are any way castable? Such complex surfaces. I was thinking that somebody making a movie should call him.