SplineGraft featured in Swedish journal Arkitekten, 2006 (in Swedish).

SplineGraft structural rack

The SplineGraft project sets up a reactive environment in which sound dampening panels are continuously reshaped by a network of actuating devices, triggered by user movement. The panels are grafted into an existing environment, supported by structural racks allowing a range of different configurations. SplineGraft can be set in different overall shapes independent of its behavior. The different parts are grafted onto each other; the profiled polyurethane panels are articulated by the configuration of the structural racks. The texture of this primary form is reshaped in real time by the control system integrated in the structural racks; a continuous form finding process with emergent patterning effects. In return, the spline ridges of the panels disperse these transformations horizontally.

Structure
The supporting structural racks are assembled from cnc-milled clear acrylic units, each integrating the actuating mechanisms, milled tracks for cabling and etched nickel brass conduits for inter-unit connectivity. The angle between each structural component can be set in five different positions, allowing the rack to be set at a convex or concave configuration, while maintaining conductive links between each part. Each rack of five units is controlled by a micro controller, steering the integrated actuators in the form of dual shape memory alloy wires. The central intelligence of each rack communicates with neighboring racks through radio.

SplineGraft behavior
The behaviour of the SplineGraft is controlled by a genetic algorithm; a computer program that simulates and compresses the geologically slow processes of natural selection to nanoseconds of computational time, in order to evolve solutions to specific problems. The Spline Graft algorithm is in this way trying to emit patterns of movement which stimulate occupation of the space it has been grafted in to. The matching of sensor readings and motor reactions in an apparently intentional way by the Spline Graft, transforms architecture into a cybernetic agent involved in the making and production of space.

Simulated SplineGraft panel

SplineGraft materials
CNC-milled acrylic structural components with integrated wiring, machined polyurethane foam, etched nickel brass conductors, IR Movement Sensor, custom made PCB Cards, AVR Atmega8 Microcontrollers, Radio Modules, diverse electronic components, Flexinol® shape memory alloy actuators with protective Teflon tubes.

Credits
SplineGraft was developed by Krets partners Pablo Miranda and Jonas Runberger.
Electronic hardware developed in collaboration with Åsmund Gamlesæter.
Supporting development Team: Nick Flygt, Emma Sander, Sanna Söderhäll and Sandra Westin.
The SplineGraft project development was supported by AKAD, Vitra Design Stiftung and the Helge Ax:son Johnson Foundation.

With PARCEL Krets suggests new ways of establishing relations between the material, audiovisual and digital techniques that are increasingly forming the environments around us. The project considers off-the-shelf technologies normally used in the packaging industry and consumer electronics as integral parts of an architectural design.

Punched plastic sheets equipped with computational intelligence through microprocessors, printed circuits, and a variation of sensors, lighting and speakers, are folded into volumes. When combined they form a wall-paneling system integrating information technology and infrastructure as well as illumination and sound. The folded sheets create depth from surface and respond to the color scheme of the Stockholm Concert Hall. The rendering of the color shifts as a result of the inherent curvature in the pieces and the integrated light.

Background
The PARCEL project emanated from an interest in a number of specific phenomena and readily available technologies:

1. The material cultures and fabrication principles of disposable articles and printed matter. The short-lived “throwaway” is easily produced and distributed and thus interesting in relation to a growing need for rethinking the use of plastics in architecture. Initial studies examined tectonics, modularity, detailing, recombination and assembly, looking at ways to deploy these at an architectural scale.

2. Cheaply produced electronics are increasingly infusing our environment with cellular intelligence. Computing power is becoming ubiquitous and readily available to such an extent that it takes on disposable qualities. Previously large and exclusive electronic devices are rapidly collapsing into cheap devices of the size of a pinhead. Electronic circuits can nowadays be printed onto almost any surface, making it possible to integrate microprocessors in products and environments ranging from household appliances to surveillance systems and clothing tags. They make up an invisible but nonetheless present and active part of our public and domestic spaces.

3. Equally important, but less apparent, is the software driving these integrated devices. Their code plays a potentially important role in scripting the interaction between individual and environment, as well as social interaction between individuals. Coding is becoming an act of design, where the scripting of behaviors is increasingly linked to the ambience of our environments.
Design Development

Design and material development within these three fields was done in parallel, covering four areas of investigations.

• Material and production looked at key aspects of the disposable product including production and assembly, as well as a range of conductive materials including tape, glue and paint.
• Within design and method the folded structure, as well as modularity, patterning and detailing, was developed.
• Program and performance included algorithm development, user recombination and network communication protocols.
• The presentation area includes internal testing of systems, as well as continuous documentation and presentation of the conglomeration of the different tracks.

The cellular principles of the programmed intelligence suggested a similar approach to the physical components. A system of partially folded units with specific curvatures and sets of folds was developed. The inherent curvatures provided structural stability as well as visual effect. The units retained qualities of the sheet, while achieving volumetric capacity. The name PARCEL originates from the way that the singular units are partially enclosed to be able to house electronics but not hiding them from view. Another connotation of parcel would be the act of distributing parts, to “parcel out.” The assembly principles of PARCEL explored the potential for a striated and non-uniform expression, in the way that the different parts could be recombined. The structural logics provided for a vertical positioning, suggesting the idea of a wall paneling system.
Production
The production patterns developed were used as master for the punch tool, setting cuts and fold lines, original for printed circuits and instruction for electronic components. In essence, the complete information for the production of one PARCEL unit was integrated in a single drawing. In this way the formal logics of the PARCEL prototypes were imported from printed matter and disposable articles, transferring their qualities to an interior scale.
Performance
The local digital conduits within the single PARCEL unit form a network with all other units when assembled into an installation, with physical connectors also closing the electric links. The physical and electronic architectures were both a cellular and parallel model, as opposed to traditional sequential computer processes.

The immaterial reactive characteristics of PARCEL are based on white noise, often used to control sound conditions in an environment. Surrounding sound is picked up locally through microphones to be dispersed to other units of the installation through the integrated network. During this transfer the sound signal is transformed by other inputs and emitted through loud speakers and LED lighting, establishing local environments. The interchangeable units of PARCEL, each with specific formal and operational characteristics allows dynamic recombination by users/visitors while the installation is in operation. The striated pattern of the complete installation can be reconfigured at will and the emergent behavior of the distributed intelligence in the local environments changes.
Conclusion
The transfer of strategies from other fields to an interior architectural scale introduces an oscillating ambiguity between graphic and spatial infrastructures. The multifunctional quality of the graphic pattern as instruction for production suggests an ornamental transition from graphic to electronic to spatial infrastructure. PARCEL blurs the relationship between model and building – in this case the wall, and prototype and product – in this case the wall paneling system, in its capacity to continuously react and interact electronically with its environment, as well as invite the visitor to recombine and transfigure the system.

Today’s individual and collective spaces are saturated with information networks and control mechanisms, ranging from automatic doors, to information displays and surveillance systems. The social protocols of such densely electronic material are very much dependent on the presence they have in a space. By appropriating these systems into the architectural design process, they become part of the overall design agenda, and can be articulated accordingly. An extension may lead to new models for social exchange in space, which can be compared to the spread of Internet communities over the past decade.

With PARCEL, Krets addresses the component level of architectural production, and the fact that the rational building industry of today is based on components with very specific geometry. There is a tendency for closed systems to be developed by individual actors based mainly on economic conditions and not integrating architectural quality. This limits the choices of innovative architectural design and shapes our environment in a profound way.

Lattice Archipelogics is an installation designed by Servo where a partnership was formed with Smart Studio of the Interactive Insitute, Stockholm, to design the responsive aspects of the installation. Integrating digital design, fabrication, and interactive motion-audio-lighting technologies, Lattice Archipelogics addresses conditions of emergent behaviour at circulatory and conversational scales. The design was developed in 3d software, and a prototype was produced through Rapid Prototyping. This prototype was used to vacuum cast 102 modules, linked up to create the clouds of the Lattice Archipelogics. The smart studio designed the Responsive Field, the hardware / software components which sets up the interactive aspects of the installation.

the Responsive Field
The responsive field – designed by the smart studio – is a dynamic interactive audiovisual environment. Moving through the physical space will affect digital ” agents” which exist in a hybrid physical/immaterial world. The movement of the agents will be rendered using lights in the modules and a 3D sound installation.The algorithm for the installation originates from a model shared by processes as diverse as the formation of anthills, cities, river basins, or even learning: a morphogenetic process that is based in positive reinforcement or amplification and in equilibrium seeking feedback loops.The means by which these feedbacks mutually interact could be compared to the way sedimentation (positive feedback) and erosion (negative feedback) reciprocally affect each other in some geological formation processes.

Servo
project leader: Ulrika Karlsson
design team: Daniel Norell, Clare Olsen, Jonas Runberger

Smart Studio
project leader: Tobi Schneidler
Algorithmic development: Pablo Miranda
design team: Olof Bendt, Magnus Jonsson, Fredrik Petersson

Lattice Archipelogics was shown in the Latent Utopias exhibition in Graz 2002, the Non Standard Architecture exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris 2003 and the Glamour exhibition at San Fransisco Museum of Modern Art in 2004.

Student project by Joel Hedgren and Andreas Hiller

An article discussing the notion of the test platform as a tool for architectural experimentation. Key aspects of contexts, formats and terminology are probed through historical references such as Archigram, Constant Nieuwenhuis of the Situationist movement and the practice of Paul Virilio and Claude Parent, as well as recent design studios in education.

The text is based on the Probing the Conjectural lecture of the NON course, August 2001.
Published in Trans magazine december 2001, ETH, Zurich
Co-written with Daniel Norell