THE MECHANICAL

Strategizing towards mechanical vector representations

(vector-diagram in progress)

Different transformation strategies (solutions to moving parts and attachments) of the components that makes up the mother-traincar. The nested vehicle is a component that is being held in the mother-car's receptacle. It is able to detach itself and move freely as a service vehicle. It acquires it's energy from a rechargeable port of the mother-traincar that acquires its energy from recycled kinetic energy of the moving train that it attaches itself to. The component that is the factory and the home are sharing it's spatial configurations through an intelligent wall system. It is able to share a confined area through movable and interchangeable mechanical wall components. The 'Hand' is the main component of a semi-parasitic attachment of the mother-traincar to an existing running train that defines it's traveling method through the global train routes.

Transforming Train Wall

Transformation of the traincar wall system that allows the factory+home space to open up to the outdoors in ways of expanding it's confined territory at certain moments when the mother-traincar is parked at specific locations. It is a moment at which there is an indoor-outdoor relationship, as the nomadic community inhabiting the mother-traincar are indoors most of the time during the train travel.

Nested Vehicle ( iteration 01)

Development in progress.

[based on discussions with vito, the idea of the nested vehicle should be a fluid-organic solution in contrast to the more mechanical characteristics of the mother-traincar. It is a shape-shifter. It is able to blend in any environment and maneuvers itself through different terrains and site conditions. It has no specific identity. It is a service vehicle that goes and comes back. It is out in search of food supplies (daily,weekly etc), collecting waste materials that is then being processed in the 'factory'. It returns bringing all these materials for the community. Hence, the nested vehicle is the more free form than it's mother. It is free.

MIDTERM SLIDES

MT010

MIDTERM REVIEW

March 09th 2009

2.00pm - 8.00pm

Higgins Hall North

3rd Floor Hallway

Pratt Institute

Panels:

Carl Chu (pratt)

Ezio Blassetti (pratt)

Joseph Grima (director of storefront for art & architecture)

.. (robotics engineer)

.. (collegue)

SECTIONAL PROFILE

Carving the space of the usually rectagular profile of the train car. Adding elements that could fold and collapse. Multi-functional components.

S001

The collapsable space
self-sustaining planters, energy harvest on train roof

S002


The nested vehicle parks itself and recharges in its recepticle. The KERS technology is proposed in harvesting the kinetic energy and transforming it into battery power to run the service-vehicle.

preliminary sketch

THE COMPACTED SPACE
idea of the foldable, 'suitcase' wall

;plan

SUB-VEHICLE COMPONENT
mother train-car has a nested service vehicle of a smaller scale.

PRECEDENT: F1 Cars Kinetic Energy Recovery System

Formula 1 cars, including the Red Bull RB5, are set to get KERS, "an ingenious mechanical device that recovers wasted kinetic energy generated while braking, converting it into electric energy, which gets stored in a battery on the car's front."

source: http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/f1-cars-to-get-kinetic-energy-recovery-system

KERS : KINETIC ENERGY RECOVERY SYSTEM

The Flybrid Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) is a very small and light device that meets the FIA regulations for the 2009 season.






The key system features are:

A flywheel made of steel and carbon fibre which rotates at over 60,000 RPM inside an evacuated chamber
The flywheel casing features containment to avoid the escape of any debris in the unlikely event of a flywheel failure
The flywheel is connected to the transmission of the car on the output side of the gearbox via several fixed ratios, a clutch and the CVT
60 kW power transmission in either storage or recovery
400 kJ of usable storage (after accounting for internal losses)
A total system weight of 24 kg
A total packaging volume of 13 litres

source: http://www.flybridsystems.com/F1System.html

KINETIC ENERGY TO REGENERATIVE ENERGY

Regenerative Energy

Electric railroads may be powered from any source, including emission-free renewable energy, and in many areas with very little loss in transmission. Through "regenerative" breaking, an electric locomotive descending a grade also converts otherwise wasted kinetic energy into electricity that helps power other trains on the grid.

Kinetic Energy

The kinetic energy of an object is the extra energy which it possesses due to its motion. It is defined as the work needed to accelerate a body of a given mass from rest to its current velocity. Having gained this energy during its acceleration, the body maintains this kinetic energy unless its speed changes. Negative work of the same magnitude would be required to return the body to a state of rest from that velocity.

Kinetic energy for single objects is completely frame-dependent (relative). For example, a bullet racing by a non-moving observer has kinetic energy in the reference frame of this observer, but the same bullet has zero kinetic energy in the reference frame which moves with the bullet. The kinetic energy of systems of objects, however, may sometimes not be completely removable by simple choice of reference frame. When this is the case, a residual minimum kinetic energy remains in the system as seen by all observers, and this kinetic energy (if present) contributes to the system's invariant mass, which is seen as the same value in all reference frames, and by all observers.

source: wikipedia.com

CONSERVATION OF ENERGY

" Energy cannot be created or destroyed, but it can be converted from one form to another. "

DESIGNING THE HYBRID

i thought this was funny but at the same time smart!

simplicity in concept

hybrid machine = the grocycle

DESIGNING A SYSTEM MORE THAN IT IS FORMAL ARCHITECTURE

notes / questions to think about:

looking at designing a new system of functions

simplistic in theory but sophisticated in design?

or

sophisticated in theory but simplistic in design?

the ROBOTIC HAND

PRECEDENT TRAIN DESIGNS

Interests: multi-level ways of dividing the space of the train car. not just limited to one level.



Interests: smooth curvature profiles of the body and form of the train.

RAIL TRAVEL

design parameters to think about based on current rail travel conditions:

1. RAIL TRACKS PROFILE
2. TRAIN CAR DIMENSIONS
3. TRAIN SPEED
4. ENERGY SOURCE
5. JUNCTURES
6. TRAIN HUBS | STATIONS

the PROGRAM

preliminary proposal

vito's project brief:

HOUSE
+
VEHICLE
+
CLOTHING

} all three functioning at the same time

=

my translation:

TRAIN CAR
+
HOUSE
+
INCUBATOR/FACTORY/STUDIO
(collecting waste -> distributing materials/products)
+
NESTED COMPONENTS
(sub-vehicle, sub-layer, intelligent skin)

the SITE

trans-country : trans-ocean

In my translation, the notion of the transmigrational space is that it allows itself to be mobile and transient in nature. As a preliminary strategy in extracting the parameters of the site as well as the characteristics that will inform the nature of my design, I am looking at the routes of the train lines as a possible site for my project.

At present, the train tracks, globally has predetermined routes but I wish not for that to constrain the design process. I wish to study these routes as well as rethinking the functions and capacity of this mode of transportation system that goes back to late 1800s.

I am developing my own route based on the mode of train travel as the site for my project. This is a prefatory phase at mapping the existing routes of the global train network, as well as thinking about cross-ocean travel as the train routes are limited to land use. I envision the project to be an extensive global system that in principle, look at the transformation of inexpensive traveling methods as well as finding solutions in recycable energy.

SITE PATH:

existing global train route



cross-ocean route

PRE-IMAGERY

reincarnation

While rethinking the idea of merging the functions of the house, car and clothing, I immediately (no concrete explanation to this, it might be some sort of calling of the subconcious) thought about the idea of 'reincarnation'. I had an image of the process of 'rebirth'. Thinking about an object that is able to create or re-enact the process of rebirth. Maybe it is clothing that was reborn into a vehicle then reborn into a house/residence. Maybe it is a machine that is able to give life/ new functions to what was discarded or disposed. An intelligent object that re-enacts the process of reincarnation, able to renew existence. It might not make any sense right now, as I myself am still a little vague about this translation. But what i am getting at is the notion of 'rebirth'.

Here are just some images I encountered while googling 'reincarnation'.

[paintings+images]

REINCARNATION

Reincarnation;

literally "to be made flesh again", is a doctrine or metaphysical belief that some essential part of a living being (in some variations only human beings) survives death to be reborn in a new body. This essential part is often referred to as the spirit or soul, the "higher" or "true" self, "divine spark", or "I". According to such beliefs, a new personality is developed during each life in the physical world, but some part of the self remains constant throughout the successive lives.

[wikipedia.com]

PROJECT BRIEF

vito acconci studio:

goal of studio; produce something that functions as a house, as a car, as clothing. it should function as all three of these things, these things all at the same time.

call it an instrument, maybe an agent; now that this instrument is a vehicle, now that it's moving, it can gather things, it can pick up things as it goes. The vehicle reflects its surrounding, the vehicle diappears as it goes through one surrounding after another. it can be more physical; the vehicle can be absorbing something as it travels, it takes a layer of something as it goes, it takes on something like clothing as it goes.

what we're designing shouldn't be fantasy. it might be science-fiction. we should be designing with 5 - 10 - 15 years in mind. palpable, realizable in our own lifetime.

addenda:

..time is fast, space is slow. space is an attempt to place time and understand time; space is a need to have something to see and solid ground to stand on; space is a desire to follow the course of events and to believe in cause and effect. the electronic age obliterates space and overlap places...The electronic age establishes the primacy of time..In a fast time, public space - in the form of an actual place with boundaries - is a slowing-down process, an attempt to stop time and go back in history and revert to an earlier age. The plaza, bounded by buildings and owned by a corporation, is a nostalgia for 19th century nationalism...

- public space in private time 1991


...furniture is midway between clothing and architecture. the way the skin covers the bones, clothing contains the body; a chair then contains the body-contained-by-clothing - a room, then contains the body-contained-by-clothing-contained-by-chair...furniture is one move out of privacy, one small step towards going public. you can after all, hold something in your hands; but as long as you do, your hands are tied, your hands aren't free to touch and grab hold of anything else. so you put the thing away, in ab ox, in a drawer. once you walk away from the chest of drawers, your possession is out of your hands, out of sight and up for grabs. the closed door, the pulled in drawer, provokes other people's desire...

- homebodies 1985

vito acconci