Muqarna Mutation at
Future and the Arts exhibition
AI, Robotics, Cities, Life - How Humanity Will Live Tomorrow
Mori Art Museum, Tokyo
Curated by Fumio Nanjo and Kenichi Kondo
2018-11-19 / 2020-3-29
Muqarna Mutation at Mori Art Museum
Muqarnas - elaborate ornamental vaultings - are some of the earliest and most impressive examples of a rule-based architectural design. They combine architecture, mathematics, and art to form highly intricate and complex stalactite structures. Today, advances in computational design and digital fabrication invite us to revisit these typologies.
How can these algorithmic muqarnas be brought out of the computer into the real world? For their 2019-2020 Future and the Arts exhibition at Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, the curators commissioned a Muqarna Mutation: an algorithmically designed, robotically fabricated, 6-meter wide muqarna to be installed in a central exhibition room. The project explores how - in the context of the fourth industrial revolution - computation and robotic fabrication can bring the splendor of such a rule-based geometric art into the future.
Muqarna Mutation uses the selective subdivision algorithm described above to produce a geometry that connects a massive pre-existing column at the center of an exhibition room to the room's ceiling. The algorithm generates hundreds of thousands of tiles set among sixteen tiers to create an extragavant ornamental transition from column to ceiling.
A mass-produced industrial product, extruded aluminum profiles, is turned into an elaborate ornamental structure through a radical use of information technology: an algorithm successively defines an intricate form, and robots refine and ennoble simple tube elements into an ephemeral ensemble. The resulting structure transcends the historical typology into something new and unseen.
Standing beneath the muqarna, visitors are struck by a mix of bewilderment and curiosity: a disorientating sensory overload partially obscures the underlying compositional logic. Patterns are readily discernible as one changes perspectives, only to disappear again amidst the endless reflections.
The basis of Muqarna Mutation is a massive, pre-existing 1.6m wide structural column situated at the center of one of Mori Museum's exhibition rooms. Rather than contructing a muqarna in the constrained space between the column and the room's walls, the column itself is used as the origin of the muqarna. Muqarna Mutation creates a transition between this column and the room's ceiling.
A selective subdivision algorithm uses the column's outline and the ceiling's contour to produce a muqarna plan with hundreds of individual tiers, and millions of tiny facets. The algorithm refines these countour lines to create a vast landscape with seemingly endless detail, alternating between stalactives and concave formations. This initial design is depicted in the concept development images.
For fabrication, a mass-produced industrial product - extruded aluminum profiles - is robotically refined and ennobled into a elaborate ensemble. Tiling patterns are articulated as 15,000 individual aluminum tubes.
Reflections and interferences between the shiny tubes create a saturation effect that mirrors the muqarna's historical predecessors. Patterns appear and disappear as one moves beneath it and changes perspectives.
Fabrication of the Muqarna Mutation's took place at the ROSO Coop laboratory of Feng Chia University, Taiwan, under the expertise of Yu-Ting Sheng and Shih-Yuan Wang.
The muqarna was partitioned into sixteen horizonal tiers, and these in turn were divided into 40 separate components to facilitate transport and assembly. Individual tiers were robotically milled out high-density EPS. In a second step, thousands of holes of different depths and diameters were robotically drilled into the tiers. Separately, a smooth plastic foil was laser-cut and attached to the tiers to improve the surface quality. To articulate the the tiles of the original design, 15,000 individual hollow aluminum tubes were inserted into the tiers and glued into place. Specific tubes were custom fabricated in order to minimize their weight.
The completed muqarna has a surface area of 24m2 and a height of 2.4 meters.
Fabrication Team
| Lead: |
Yu-Ting Sheng 盛郁庭 (Feng Chia University) Shih-Yuan Wang 王識源 (National Chiao Tung University) Meng Hao 孟浩 (RoboticPlus) |
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| Structural support: |
Chen-Tung Chen 陳建同 (YUMU) Kuan-Fan Chen 陳冠帆 (FA.S Studio) |
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| Fabrication Assistants: |
Fei-Fan Sung 宋非凡 Che-Wei Lin 林哲蔚 Wei-Tse Hung 洪維澤 Yu-Hsuan Pang 龐宇軒 Chung-Chieh Cheng 鄭中杰 Yi-Heng Lu 陆亦恒 Nai-Wei Lai 賴乃葳 Chieh-I Liu 劉婕怡 Chang-Chin Lee 李長錦 Shih-Kai Fan 范士凱 Yu-Syuan Wei 魏雨萱 Ching-Yun Tseng 曾慶芸 Ying-Yu Chen 陳盈佑 Yu-Wei Cheng 程昱維 Qin-Fei Liu 劉沁霏 Yen Heng Cheng 鄭硯恆 |
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Partners and Sponsors
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• Graduate Institute of Architecture - National Chiao Tung University • RoboticPlus 大界機器人 • Nan Pao Resins Chemical • YUMU Manufacture and Research • A.S. Studio 原型結構工程顧問有限公司 |
Muqarna Mutation in figures
| Venue: | Mori Art Museum, Tokyo. Future and the Arts exhibition [未来と芸術展] |
| Installation: | Muqarna arising out of the central column of a 110m2 exhibition room |
| Geometry: | 300,000 individual tiles in 16 tiers |
| Material: | 15,000 aluminum tubes, high density EPS base |
| Dimensions: | 5.8m diameter, 2.3m height |
Advances in technology over the past few years are now starting to have a significant impact on various aspects of our lives. It is said that not too far in the future, human beings will be entrusting many of their decisions to AI (artificial intelligence) which will then supersede human intelligence; the advent of “singularity” will potentially usher in enormous changes to our society and lifestyles. Another development, that of blockchain technology, looks set to build new levels of trust and value into our social systems, while advances in biotechnology will have a major impact on food, medicine, and the environment.
It is also possible that one day, we humans will be able to extend our physical functions, and enjoy longer life spans. The effect of such changes may not be necessarily and universally positive, yet surely we need to at least acquire a vision of what life may look like in the next 20-30 years, and ponder the possibilities of that new world. Doing so will also spark fundamental questions about the nature of affluence and of being human, and what constitutes life.
Future and the Arts: AI, Robotics, Cities, Life - How Humanity Will Live Tomorrow, consists of five sections: i.e. “New Possibilities of Cities;” “Toward Neo-Metabolism Architecture;” “Lifestyle and Design Innovations;” “Human Augmentation and Its Ethical Issues;” and “Society and Humans in Transformation,” will showcase over 100 projects/works.
The exhibition will aim to encourage us to contemplate cities, environmental issues, human lifestyles and the likely state of human beings as well as human society - all in the imminent future, via cutting-edge developments in science and technology including AI, biotechnology, robotics, and AR (augmented reality), plus art, design, and architecture influenced by all these.
Full Description - Future and the Arts at Mori Art Museum