Artist:
Ball Nogues Studio
Title:
Cradle
Year:
2012
Adress:
Santa Monica Place
www.ball-nogues.com:
An aggregation of mirror polished stainless steel spheres, the sculpture functions structurally like an enormous Newton’s Cradle - the ubiquitous toy found on the desktops of corporate executives in Hollywood films. Each ball is suspended by a cable from a point on the wall and locked in position by a combination of gravity and neighboring balls. The whole array reflects distorted images of passersby.
Aside from the Newton’s Cradle reference, we wanted the overall shape to elicit things that we thought might be slightly provocative when inserted into the glitzy Santa Monica urban landscape.
On one hand the installation resembles a big banana hammock (the type worn by unashamed men at the beach) and on the other it suggests the female reproductive system. Sometimes we think of it as a giant fly eye with hundreds of little lenses and at others its like sea foam or coral. Sometimes it resembles an urban scaled wall sconce and at others, a kind of imaginary awning for an invisible storefront. Regardless of what it looks like, it was an opportunity to develop a new kind of building system.
Cradle is as much a sculpture as it is an approach to making experimental structure in the post-digital era. We were interested in exploring ways of producing large scaled self-organizing structures. Cradle is comprised of an 'informal' arrangement of parts; the relationship between each cannot be accurately modeled with digital software. The work is, however, an outgrowth of digital technology.
A key technical concept for Cradle is 'sphere packing' – the phenomenon where multiple balls squeezed together and self organize under the effect of gravity, a process we could only approximate, at best, using computer modeling. Software was useful for visualizing Cradle and for designing the overall shape of the formwork used to make it but not for predicting where the spheres positioned themselves in the physical world.
The fabrication process was a bit like the process of slip casting ceramics except instead of pouring ceramic slip into a mold we 'poured' hundreds of spheres. To our knowledge, this was the first time this technique has been used.
Commissioned by the City of Santa Monica, Cradle is situated on the exterior wall of a parking structure at a shopping mall – originally designed by Frank Gehry. The site is near the beach, and is heavily trafficked by tourists on foot and in automobiles.
Principals in Charge: Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues Project Manager and Lead Fabricator: James Jones Custom Software Design: Ayodh Kamath Project Team: Benjamin Jennett, Rachel Shillander, Alison Kung, Daniel Morrison, Jielu Lu, Amador Saucedo, Ron Shvartsman, Lawerance Shanks, Norma Silva, Andrew Lyon, Tim Peeters, Will Trossell Structural Engineer: Buro Happold, Los Angeles. Matthew Melnyk lead engineer. Kurt Komraus.
wwww.architizer.com:
An aggregation of mirror polished stainless steel spheres, the sculpture operates structurally like an enormous Newton’s Cradle - the ubiquitous toy found on the desktops of corporate executives. Each ball is suspended by a cable from a point on the wall and locked in position by a combination of gravity and neighboring balls while reflecting the a distorted image of passerby in both cars on foot.
Commissioned by the City of Santa Monica; the sculpture is situated on the exterior wall of an existing parking structure at Santa Monica Place – originally designed by Frank Gehry. Near the beach and the Third Street Promenade, the site is heavily trafficked by tourists on foot and in automobiles.
www.ball-nogues.com:
Ball-Nogues Studio is an integrated design and fabrication practice operating in a territory between architecture, art and industrial design, led by Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues. Their work is informed by the exploration of craft. Essential to each project is the 'design' of the production process itself, with the aim of creating environments that enhance sensation, generate spectacle and invite physical engagement.
An aggregation of mirror polished stainless steel spheres, the sculpture functions structurally like an enormous Newton’s Cradle - the ubiquitous toy found on the desktops of corporate executives in Hollywood films. Each ball is suspended by a cable from a point on the wall and locked in position by a combination of gravity and neighboring balls. The whole array reflects distorted images of passersby.
Aside from the Newton’s Cradle reference, we wanted the overall shape to elicit things that we thought might be slightly provocative when inserted into the glitzy Santa Monica urban landscape.
On one hand the installation resembles a big banana hammock (the type worn by unashamed men at the beach) and on the other it suggests the female reproductive system. Sometimes we think of it as a giant fly eye with hundreds of little lenses and at others its like sea foam or coral. Sometimes it resembles an urban scaled wall sconce and at others, a kind of imaginary awning for an invisible storefront. Regardless of what it looks like, it was an opportunity to develop a new kind of building system.
Cradle is as much a sculpture as it is an approach to making experimental structure in the post-digital era. We were interested in exploring ways of producing large scaled self-organizing structures. Cradle is comprised of an 'informal' arrangement of parts; the relationship between each cannot be accurately modeled with digital software. The work is, however, an outgrowth of digital technology.
A key technical concept for Cradle is 'sphere packing' – the phenomenon where multiple balls squeezed together and self organize under the effect of gravity, a process we could only approximate, at best, using computer modeling. Software was useful for visualizing Cradle and for designing the overall shape of the formwork used to make it but not for predicting where the spheres positioned themselves in the physical world.
The fabrication process was a bit like the process of slip casting ceramics except instead of pouring ceramic slip into a mold we 'poured' hundreds of spheres. To our knowledge, this was the first time this technique has been used.
Commissioned by the City of Santa Monica, Cradle is situated on the exterior wall of a parking structure at a shopping mall – originally designed by Frank Gehry. The site is near the beach, and is heavily trafficked by tourists on foot and in automobiles.
Principals in Charge: Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues Project Manager and Lead Fabricator: James Jones Custom Software Design: Ayodh Kamath Project Team: Benjamin Jennett, Rachel Shillander, Alison Kung, Daniel Morrison, Jielu Lu, Amador Saucedo, Ron Shvartsman, Lawerance Shanks, Norma Silva, Andrew Lyon, Tim Peeters, Will Trossell Structural Engineer: Buro Happold, Los Angeles. Matthew Melnyk lead engineer. Kurt Komraus.
wwww.architizer.com:
An aggregation of mirror polished stainless steel spheres, the sculpture operates structurally like an enormous Newton’s Cradle - the ubiquitous toy found on the desktops of corporate executives. Each ball is suspended by a cable from a point on the wall and locked in position by a combination of gravity and neighboring balls while reflecting the a distorted image of passerby in both cars on foot.
Commissioned by the City of Santa Monica; the sculpture is situated on the exterior wall of an existing parking structure at Santa Monica Place – originally designed by Frank Gehry. Near the beach and the Third Street Promenade, the site is heavily trafficked by tourists on foot and in automobiles.
www.ball-nogues.com:
Ball-Nogues Studio is an integrated design and fabrication practice operating in a territory between architecture, art and industrial design, led by Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues. Their work is informed by the exploration of craft. Essential to each project is the 'design' of the production process itself, with the aim of creating environments that enhance sensation, generate spectacle and invite physical engagement.