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Re: zomescape
2004.12.18 09:13
It was the images within your post of 4 December 2004--nanoshadow boxing--that made me think zometools was a software application. Then too the zomescape images have a 'virtual' quality to them that made me think they were a montage of software and reality. Anyway, zomescape is now even more like the current Calder exhibit in Philadelphia.
The design you refer to, an open frame with each level a plot of landscaping with housing, is by SITE, and I can see the connection with the City Tower project (which was a schematic proposal to replace Philadelphia's City Hall). A new physical model of the City Tower project was constructed just over ten years ago for the Kahn exhibition back then. I knew the model builders, and the design turned out to be much more subtly complex than first expected. I'd love to construct a computer model of the project, but without sufficient data, it's futile for me to attempt. Basically, it's one of those designs that is abundantly virtual in that there is no real building and even the schematics do not fully render what the real building would actually be like. Like you suggest via the SITE example, the City Tower project could wind up containing just about anything.
Anne Tyng is also a key player here, and should not be forgotten. She's the one that was most interested in numbers and geometric constructs as structural systems. Her theoretical writing (from back then) is dense and often obtuse, but perhaps worth reading again with more understanding eyes.
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