top of page

GAUD 2015 Installation | Brooklyn, New York, U.S.A

Critic: Michael Szivos with Ryan Whitby | Spring 2015 | Pratt Institute | New York | U.S.A.

Project By: Milad Showkatbakhsh, Elisa Yi Feng, Zachary Grzybowski, Jeremy Hill, Eunmee Hong, Sasimanas Hoonsuwan, Wooseong Kweon, Maria Nikolovski, Danica Selem, T. Craig Sinclair, Emily Walek

This year’s GAUD exhibition grouped the visual work of the previous year in a large hanging installation. The collection of work takes the form of a field of hanging panels that have been precisely rotated to form a spatial catalog of the work. The panels are rotated in a way to both visually reveal and obscure slices of the work as visitors move around the floating volume forming a three-dimensional lenticular effect.
The rotation of each panel is held in place through a CNC cut disk, two strings, and a weight that keeps the panel aligned. The overall form of the piece is vaulted creating cavities for visitors to explore the work as well as view the models below. By faulting the volume it not only references the gravity driven nature of the piece but also allows visitors to be immersed in the paneled volume without disturbing them.
The hanging installation was made of over 800 panels. These were each custom laser cut, assembled, and clad with custom cut images. From underneath the gradual rotation of the panels towards the apex of each vault can be seen. This pattern helps produce a visually dynamic filter of the work that comes alive as you move around it, but also frames the work through the healthy turbulence that exists in the school and the work. It the experimental nature of the school that is the common influence and thread that connects everything in the curriculum. This turbulence can be seen as the force that exposes new conditions within the bounds of the program.

Text from SOFTlab website

My responsibilities in this project were designing the overall form, solving the mathematical and logical problems throughout the design of the form, coding and linking all of the pieces in a way that everything will be updated by any changes in any piece through the design process and finally generating a fabrication line for all of the pieces through grasshopper.  I was also one of the coordinators in the entire design and fabrication process.

860 custom made panels 

A

B

C

D

E

860 custom made panels are divided into 5 groups that represent 5 major design approaches at Pratt Institute, school of graduate architecture.The layout of the GAUD work is inspired by Charles Jencks’ theory of evolution in the architecture diagram. Which is a diagram of his personal, perceptive and provocative summary of the architecture of the twentieth. The idea for the GAUD exhibition is to group the work into clusters based on professors style/ theory. Image A shows the grid and zones, image B shows the strings, image C shows the metal balls, image D shows the panels and image D shows the entire installation.

The rotation of each panel is held in place through a CNC cut disk, two strings, and a weight that keeps the panel aligned. The overall form of the piece is vaulted creating cavities for visitors to explore the work as well as view the models below. By faulting the volume it not only references the gravity driven nature of the piece but also allows visitors to be immersed in the paneled volume without disturbing them.

There were designed and fabricated stands to hold the exhibited models in the gallery. 

GAUD 2015

Over 800 unique disks fabricated 

Extraordinary teamwork throughout the entire project led to the successful completion of the project.

Grid were installed first then panels 

This year’s GAUD exhibition grouped the visual work of the previous year in a large hanging installation. The collection of work takes the form of a field of hanging 

The unique rotation of each panel drove the audience to go around the installation and explore it.

860 panels with unique size and color laid out  

Each image is laid out on multiple panels based on their position in the overall form.

GAUD 2015

bottom of page