Thu Sep 12, 6pm @ Empac.

“Digital Grotesque”

Based in the CAAD group at ETH’s architecture department in Zurich, Michael Hansmeyer is dedicated in developing algorithmic architecture and complex structures by using generative art mentalities and other computational softwares.

” In the Digital Grotesque project, we use these algorithms to create a form that appears at once synthetic and organic. The design process thus strikes a delicate balance between the expected and the unexpected, between control and relinquishment. The algorithms are deterministic as they do not incorporate randomness, but the results are not necessarily entirely foreseeable. Instead, they have the power to surprise.”

– Michael Hansmeyer & Benjamin Dillenburger

The Complexity  in the digital design was represented in a featured 3D printing technique prototype: millions of grains of sand bind together to create the new typology of sandstone and subsequently treated to be glazed and gilded. The fully immensive, solid, human-scale enclosed structure with a perplexing level of detail unveiled a new chapter of computational architecture.