Re(Calibrator) Phase5 part2

Previously, I have mentioned about the Z Brushes having a great potential for generating endless varieties of topologies. While exploring the brushes, I put together a small catalogue of different surface manipulations achieved with the Z depth brushes.

Z Depth brush overview 1

This helped me create a Z brush language and to illustrate the richness of the different forms achievable with Z-Brush.

Z Depth brush overview 2

Each brush can be endlessly modified by the inputs of alpha channels, textures, z intensity, the drawing method etc.

Z Depth brush overview 3

This catalogue is not exhaustive at all, in fact this is only a fraction of what really is possible to accomplish with the software.
I have then continued experimenting with the geometry, this time applying more sophisticated techniques and tool sets to the geometry.
                 

The Surreal Landscape

It is worth mentioning that this kind of geometry creates a very heavy mesh, which any 3D modelling software, including 3Ds Max, Rhino, Softimage etc will find very hard to cope with, due to the enormous number of polygons created in the process.

The mesh view in 3Ds Max 

However Z-Brush works with complex shapes with no problem, regardless of the number of polygons, because every time it renders the object as 2D rather than 3D and the brushes are working on a "flat" part of the object every time, while creating a depth/thickness. This is the core difference of Z-Brush and this enables for a highly detailed modelling that is practically impossible with any other well know 3D package, that works on a mid range computer.

Smooth and tessellated

The black fabric mesh

When I was working on these geometries, I have been drawing inspiration of architectural works by Frederick Kiesler, Paul Laffoley, Kathryn Findlay and Eisaku Ushida.
"The endless house" designed by Kiesler has always fascinated me with an overwhelming wonder, as I stared on the flowing "endless" lines of the house and the shapes would come to life in front of my eyes in a dynamic whirlpool.

The Endless House sketch by F. Kiesler

The sketches of Kiesler are really scribbles, this technique, he thought, was "the natural way of creating architecture, that is uncorrupted by human will" (page 57, Twenty buildings every architect should understand, Simon Unwin, 2010)There is indeed much interactive movement and such freedom in those curved spaces. The reason the Endless House is called endless, is because there is a continuous flow of the lines, where all ends meet, like that of a human body, where there is not really a beginning or an end.

Kiesler working on a prototype of the Endless House

All ends of living meet during twenty-four hours, during a week, a lifetime. They touch one another with the kiss of time. They shake hands, stay, say goodbye, return through the same or other doors, come and go through multi-links, secretive or obvious, or through the whims of memory. http://dprbcn.wordpress.com/2009/09/21/endless-house-frederick-kiesler/

The most finished drawings of the house

Although Kiesler worked on this concept for a long time, and many prototypes have been generated, the house was never built, but this "elastic", "organic" "endless" shell definitely influenced many architects since then.
Perhaps one of the best examples of this is the Truss Wall house, designed by K. Findlay and E. Ushida some 45 years after the Endless House. The Truss Wall house was built in suburbs of Tokyo in 1993.

The Truss Wall House drawing

Surrounded by rectangular geometry of suburban villas, the Truss Wall house curiously stands out. The main basis for its construction was the method of spraying the concrete on the armature of steel reinforcement. http://www.ushida-findlay.com/project/truss-wall-house/

The house amongst the orthodox builldings

These buildings bring forward the question of the relationship of the human movement and the form of the building where they inhabit. Somehow, such spaces suggest a more human like, alive, dynamic and customised lifestyle. On the other hand, perhaps nowadays it is much easier to generate similar organic looking unorthodox forms with the help of technology.
The "Das Urpfanze Haus"(Homage to Goethe) designed by Paul Laffoley, also bares similarities to that of Kiesler's early concept of the endless house.

Das Urpfanze Haus by P. Laffoley

But Laffoley’s house is completely different, he suggests that this is a home which would grow from seeds. 

It is evident that all these forms bare conceptual affinities with Mobius Strip and the Klein Bottle, as they have a single curved topological surface that wraps around itself and intersects itself in three dimensional space.