Remediation Drones:
Kinematics & Animations
SPRING 2016: ATOMIC CITIES STUDIO VIII
This studio was a follow up to the Cut and Fill I & II site remediation studios that examined ways to leverage the collaboration between architect and intelligent machines. This studio built upon the software applications and CNC remediation landscapes of the previous studios to design the machines that would conduct the remediation work itself. The studio embraced a probable future, where robotic remediation would be the norm, and focused on how such work could be best accomplished by architects. It sought a blue ocean strategy for the expansion of our discipline’s role in shaping landscapes of the future.
Objectives: The studio set out to make an animation depicting robotic machines designed specifically to address the particular issues at the PGDP site. The animation would require students to understand several softwares common to architectural practice, and demand that students communicate complex spatial and transformative concepts in an apprehensible manner, something also common and vital to architectural practice everywhere. The studio, like previous Atomic Cities studios, was aimed at convincing students and stakeholders that intellectual, creative, spatial, transformative effort is as essential directed towards and on behalf of environmental stewardship as it has been directed toward the production of buildings. Recognizing that an animated Hollywood feature could take hundreds of professionals years to make with unheard of computing power, the studio also sought to show what’s possible when twelve people work together productively for the mere duration of a single semester.
Outcomes: The studio produced a four and a half minute animated feature, depicting a ‘day in the life’ of several autonomous remediation drones conducting their work at the site. In addition to the design and kinematic articulation (animation) of the drones, the studio composed and produced an original musical score to accompany the animation. In addition, the studio produced a one-hundred page booklet articulating the design, writing, production and directing efforts undertaken to accomplish the work. Most interesting are the several scripts, and storyboards that show the various narratives students explored in the process of discovering the best way to achieve the studio aims stated above. In preparation for the work of the semester, students reviewed the work of previous studios, and reprised the idea of Paducah as global-remediation-technology center, and branded the remediation drones as a product of a Paducah-based tech company – Oxeye Remediation Technologies.
PROJECT TEAM
INSTRUCTOR / Co-PI:
Associate Prof. Gary Rohrbacher
Co-PI:
Associate Prof. Anne Filson
POST-GRAD RESEARCH ASSISTANTS:
Chris Westfall
Eric Shockey
