Fireball

The 2015 Basic Design Studio was one of the good seasons. The project named “Fireball” is an example of high concentration. A group of students developed a material system from a very weak connection detail. The interesting part of the project was making it possible to stand by itself. They created the result purely by experimentation. In the beginning, they decided on the components and the overall geometric composition. So their research focused more on the possibility and precision of the materials and the connection details. They realized the composition with the help of many trials and errors. This was one of the successful student projects in the 2015 Spring season of Computation-based Basic Design Studio. The studio was coordinated by Şebnem Yalınay Çinici at İstanbul Bilgi University.

In the design process, the students experimented with the natural characteristics of material computation. While watching a documentary film about arboriforms in nature, the students gathered different project proposals. Then, they decided to focus on the very first meaning of arbiforms which was highly related to ‘’branching’’. They abstracted the term “branching” into a behavior. This resulted in an abstract model that interprets classical branching and changes some parts of it, adding new connection rules. Then, they tested different materials and developed the connection details composed of thin wooden sticks and rubber bands. Finally, they managed to figure out all questions regarding the realization of the branching model. This project had a Rhino model accompanying the physical counterpart.

Students of the Fireball project are Dila Kırmızıtoprak, Ecem Karabıyık, and Melis Gültunca.