**** FINAL REMINDER ****
** PLEASE CIRCULATE ** ALL WELCOME **
DEVELOPABLE SURFACES AND D-FORMS
An LKL Maths-Art seminar by
Tony Wills , Wills Watson + Associates
and
John Sharp, London Knowledge Lab
Tuesday 12 June, 6.00 – 7.30pm
Every so often you learn of a new concept that is so simple you
wonder why it was not thought of before. One such case is D-Forms, where
surprising and often new three dimensional forms are created by joining
the edges of two flat surfaces that have the same length of
perimeter. D-Forms are developable surfaces because they are formed
from flat sheets. This talk will begin by looking at the properties of
developable surfaces and their different types. Since D-Forms have much
in common with the sculptural forms of artists such as Barbara Hepworth,
Constantin Brancusi and Naum Gabo, it will also touch on the use of
developable surfaces in art and architecture.
The concept of D-Forms was invented by Tony Wills. As a product designer,
Tony has developed such products as the D-Form street furniture range
which uses D-Forms as moulds into which artificial stone is cast to
create elegant architectural elements. They have also been investigated
for aircraft propeller shapes.
The flat surfaces for creating a D-Form should be made of material that
does not stretch or shear. This excludes woven material, though this does
not mean that the concept cannot be extended in that direction, except
that the surface will deform. Depending on where you have chosen to start
the join the two surfaces, each face “informs” the other what three
dimensional form to finally produce. The emerging D-Form continually
changes shape as the edge joining progresses. The final D-Form that
results only appears when the process is complete.
John and Tony have worked together on exploring D-Forms, and one result
of the collaboration is the concept of "Anti D-Forms". Rather
than work with pairs of surfaces, we decided to try to join two holes
with equal perimeters. Not only did this work but we found we could take
the surfaces that we had removed to make the holes, construct the
“positive” D-Form from them and insert it precisely within the anti
D-Form. This is just one illustration of the possibilities we will
show. John has written a book to be published later this year,
covering the basic geometry of D-Forms with a set of models to construct.
TIME: 6.00 - 7.30pm, Tuesday 12 June 2007
PLACE: London Knowledge Lab, 23-29 Emerald St, London, WC1N 3QS
[Travel information / Maps at:
http://www.lkl.ac.uk/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=42&Itemid=32
]
All welcome. No reservation required, but an email to
[log in to unmask] would be appreciated for planning
purposes
NEXT SEMINAR: September (speaker and date to be announced)
Visit the website and seminar archive:
http://www.lkl.ac.uk/maths-art
Join the email list for future seminar announcements:
http://www.dcs.bbk.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/lkl-maths-art
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Dr Phillip Kent
London Knowledge Lab - Institute of Education
23 - 29 Emerald St
London WC1N 3QS
[log in to unmask]
tel 020 7763 2156 mobile 07950 952034
www.ioe.ac.uk/tlrp/technomaths
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