Aeolian Lanes
Design Team: Michael Frederick, James Diewald, Jon Ford, Dante Doberneck | Advisors: Heather Roberge
Project Date: 2010
Aeolian Lanes is a prototype for an aluminum rain screen system. The system was designed with a specific aluminum alloy in mind. These special classes of alloys when heated exhibit plasticity generally only displayed in thermoplastics such as PETG. The unique properties of these alloys allow the aluminum panels to be stretched and formed in ways simply not possible with traditional stamping processes.
The system was designed with two panel types that when combined produce a range of geometry-induced surface effects. These surface effects operate at multiple scales through pattern. Locally, the geometry occupies ambiguous topological territory between surface and line. Globally, the pattern shifts between figure and field organizations thus adapting to local conditions or facilitating visual communication. Each of the two panel types is designed to be tileable thus each one is able to be combined with itself or its mate in any orientation while maintaining global continuity of the surface. Because the panels are triangulated the system is also capable of conforming to double-curved geometries through a modular substrate assembly.
