Q-BA-MAZE

Marble Run Sculpture: DINO ONE

At the close of the March 2008 interview with John Baichtal of Wired.com's GeekDad Blog, I said we were working on a brontosaurus, and now:

Here is DINO ONE!

DINO ONE is our first dinosaur design and we are about to follow this up with ROBOT ONE and BUTTERFLY ONE, TWO, THREE, and FOUR. You can find instruction plans for DINO ONE on our ever-growing plans page on the Q-BA-MAZE website. The plans page includes Q-BA-MAZE designs you can build using anywhere from 12 to more than 100 cubes.

Cantilevers, Counter-balance, Components and other Craziness

This photo shows a blue "straight-away" component cantilevering to the left, while a green "straight-away" component counter-balances the structure by cantilevering back to the right.

In this post, I illustrate a number of different "components" that can be built into a complete construction. I use the base configuration from Q20/plan03 (cubes 1-6) and then 4 blue single-exit cubes and 4 green single-exit cubes to create the various components.

This is a six-cube "zig-zag" component. Each green cube makes a right-turn and each blue cube makes a left-turn. The left-right-left pattern makes the zig-zag. An eight-cube "zig-zag" would have required further cubes on the opposite side as a counter-balance.

This is an eight-cube "switch-back" component. Each single exit-cube aims the pathway back under the previous single-exit cube. The result is very stable tower form that is just one cube wide and two-cubes deep.

This is an eight-cube "switch-back helix" component. The blue single-exit cubes each rotate 90 degrees with respect to the blue cube above. The green single-exit cubes aim the pathway back under the previous blue single-exit cube. The result is what appears to be a central blue column wrapped with a sporadic green helix.

This is an eight-cube "1x3 switch-back" component. The component is one cube wide and three cubes deep. The pathway goes straight through two cubes and then the third cube bends the path back under the previous two cubes. The set of four green cubes could be rotated 90 degrees with respect to the blue cubes and then you'd have a "rotating 1x3 switch-back".

This is a six-cube "straight-away" component. The two cubes on the left are necessary to counter-balance the weight of the "straight-away" as it leans far out to the right. It is not necessary for a structure to be symmetrical to have balance. There just needs to be enough weight to keep things from tipping. As you get more daring with your own designs, you'll have to experiment with trial and error. If your structure falls down, you probably went beyond some physical limit. Pushing these limits is part of the fun!

This is an eight-cube "helix" component. More specifically, this is a "2x2 counter-clockwise single-helix." Each cube turns the pathway to the left as it goes down, so the pathway spins counter-clockwise. If each cube turned the path to the right, it would be a clockwise helix. Looking at this helix from above, it fits on a 2x2 cube grid.

This is an eight-cube "2x2 counter-clockwise double-helix" component. It is much like the single-helix, but a second helix fills in the empty cantilevered spaces of the first helix. Here, one helix is green and the other is blue. DNA is a double-helix. Question: Is the DNA double-helix clockwise or counter-clockwise? and why?

This is an eight-cube "3x3 counter-clockwise double-helix." The two helixes will never touch. Double-exit cubes can be used occasionally as a "3x3 double-helix" is built as a means of connecting and stabilizing the two pathways. Cube #34 in Q50/plan01 is a double-exit cube used in this way.

This is an eight-cube "3x3 counter-clockwise single-helix."

The list of components goes on and on. Take a look at the post on 10 Billion Trillion Combinations and you will get an idea of just how many configurations are possible.

Have fun experimenting and exploring and finding the coolest components for your crazy constructions!

Why Cantilever? Example #1

Below is a Google Streetview of the Minneapolis Central Public Library by Cesar Pelli.

CLICK HERE to explore all sides of the Library via Google Maps (hint: move the little orange man to NICOLLET MALL and rotate the view to look back at the Library to see how the roof cantilevers on the other side as well)

Here is a night time view of the roof cantilevering out over Hennepin Avenue (a main thoroughfare in the city).

REASONS FOR THE CANTILEVER

1) This roof clearly announces the location of the entrances on either side of this public building. The roof grabs a person's attention and leads the eye to the entryway. The Library is sort of two separate buildings with a glass enclosed public space in between them. This huge cantilevering metal roof shelters this public space between the two halves of the Library. In this photo looking straight up from under the cantilever, you can look all the way through the glass-enclosed public space and out the other side of the Library. The entry vestibule on this side of the building doubles as a heated bus shelter. If you look closely on the ground level on the right, you can see what is probably the best selection and display of bus maps in the city. A coffee shop in the corresponding position on the opposite side of the building provides another bit of street level activity -- something sorely missing in Minneapolis generally, but sensitively planned for here. I think it is this combination of bold form and sensitive planning which makes this an already much-loved building in the city.

2) From a distance, this roof announces the location of the building itself. From many blocks away, the roof can be seen jutting out over the street. Special clearances from the city were necessary to allow this. Because this is a public destination, it makes sense for such a variance from regulations to be granted.

3) This roof provides horizontal counterpoint in a vertical city. The buildings behind the library are vertically oriented and reaching for the sky. The Library takes up a full city block, so it can have quite a bit of square footage without having to grow so tall. Without the cantilevering roof, the Library would just be a short building. The roof, however, emphasizes its horizontality.

4) Contextualism: The roof has a relationship to regional culture. Frank Lloyd Wright pioneered this idea of boldly cantilevered roofs in his Prairie Style houses, most notably, in the Robie House. Wright's idea was that on the flat landscape of the prairie, a roof should emphasize the horizontal. The roof of the Library, interestingly, is like an upside down version of the hip roof of the Robie House.

5) Contextualism (part 2): The Library and the Wells Fargo Building, both by Pelli, are a study in comparison and contrast. The Wells Fargo building can be seen in the photos as a glowing amber tower in the background. It has a stone facade with strong vertical elements that mimic the vertical column structure behind. The Library has a similar stone facade, but it emphasizes the horizontal instead by rimming each of the floor plates and thus highlighting a different structural component of the building. Pelli established an architectural vocabulary in the earlier Wells Fargo Building and is both repeating and adjusting it in the Library. The cantilevered roof participates in this dialogue between the two buildings.

I shot the photos of the Library at night because there is an optical illusion at night that makes the cantilever appear to be far longer than it really is. Since the roof is not too heavy, the columns supporting it can be slender and from a distance they sort of disappear.

Next buildings in this series on cantilevers are the new Walker Art Center by Herzog and De Meuron and the new Guthrie Theater by Jean Nouvel. Eventually, I'll also make a post about ways people can experiment with their own cantilevers using the Q-BA-MAZE cubes.

Here By Design Exhibit: Opening Snapshots

I'm on the right side of the display case describing the design process. The original inspiration came from the green wooden marble run on the right made by my grandfather, probably in the 1940s. My handmade plaster prototypes are at the far end of the case on the left. Two rows of rapid prototypes show the evolving generations of the design of the single-exit and double-exit cubes.

Another view of the display case.

Exhibit curator James Boyd-Brent is on the left. A wall system designed by Marc Swackhammer fills the background. I am demonstrating how a side joint on one cube can connect on all four sides of another cube.

YOU'RE INVITED: "Here by Design" Opening Party

Here by Design III: Process and Prototype

Opening Party
Friday, October 19
7-9 p.m. FREE
@ Goldstein Museum gallery
Minneapolis, MN

I'm honored to be part of this new exhibit, curated by James Boyd-Brent, Associate Professor of Graphic Design. The entire design process behind Q-BA-MAZE is on display -- inspiration, sketches, CAD drawings, rapid prototypes.  Visitors even get a chance to play with a multi-pack structure!  As part of the related symposium, I'll be sitting on a panel -- and a fellow panelist will be Vince James, one of my architecture instructors from the University of Minnesota.

"HbDIII will examine the ingenuity of Minnesota designers using digital fabrication for rapid prototyping innovative and sustainable design solutions. A related symposium will explore these issues in greater depth through panel discussions with the designers, tours to digital fabrication facilities, and a nationally-known keynote challenge speaker." Exhibit runs October 20, 2007 - January 20 2008

Watch for photos in the next few days...

Dreaming of Metabolist Architecture

Photo: arcspace

Metabolist Architecture was a movement of the 60s and 70s and this apartment tower in Tokyo is one of the best examples -- the Nakagin Capsule Tower by Kisho Kurokawa. The repetition of simple modular units is a basic principal of architecture. The bricks in a wall, for example, are all the same size, repeated over and over, but capable of making so many different forms and enclosing so many different spaces. The Nakagin Tower uses an entire apartment as the modular unit instead of just a single brick.

One day I hope to make it to Tokyo, but this landmark building will problably not be there anymore -- it faces the wrecking ball due to both neglect and rising land values. So the Capsule Tower must live on in dreams.

This Q-BA-MAZE construction is how I imagine the Capsule Tower at night -- with each cube being a modular apartment unit:

   

Angels and Firecrackers

Charles Eames once said that in the "world of toys he saw an ideal attitude for approaching the problems of design, because the world of the child lacks self-consciousness and embarassment."

When I came across this statement in The Work of Charles and Ray Eames: A Legacy of Invention (p. 139) it really jumped out at me. I have been doing a lot of play-testing with kids and adults and I have noticed how much more quickly kids learn. Children just proceed and experiment, they figure things out as they go along, they don't worry about rules, judgement or success.

The Eames House of Cards

The "world of the child" comment, led me to notice an underlying connection between the Eameses architectural design and their toy design (see this link for lots of photos of the interior and exterior of the Eames House). Both the Eames House and their toy the House of Cards have simple repetitive structural systems. The structural systems work, but it is the play of color and the collections/images of diverse things (in the house and on the cards) that brings them richness and meaning. Playing with the cards and living in the house are similar activities -- both involve a continual rearrangement of things, a richness of ideas that can come together in ways which inspire new unexpected and creative thoughts. Look closely at the photo here. Who ever thought of "angels and firecrackers in an archway"? These things don't go together. Such a combination is against the rules, but there are no rules in "the world of the child."

For more information on Charles and Ray Eames, see this website related to the Legacy of Invention exhibition organized by the Library of Congress and the Vitra Design Museum.

Transferable Skills and the Transformer Crate

People often ask me if I miss being an architect now that I am a full-time toy maker. Since I got into architecture because I love making things and I continue making things now, I don't sense a loss. The architectural mindset of problem solving through questioning and drawing also continues in my daily work. The Transformer Crate story shows this in action:

Preparing for the Toy Fair in New York, I was thinking through how to get a whole bunch of stuff to the convention center for the Q-BA-MAZE booth -- including a large light table. It struck me that if the shipping crate could transform into a light table, I'd have huge savings because the crate would be doing double duty.

My friend Noel is an outstanding woodworker who's always interested in a head-scratching design conversation. As we spoke about the crate, I pulled out a little sketchbook. We roughed out the basic concept: a plane of translucent white plexiglass hovering over a trough that can catch rolling balls. There is an arm and hand in the sketch because the edge of the plexiglass needed to be high enough to fit a hand underneath so that I could demonstrate the trick of how to remove balls from a Q-BA-MAZE structure by sliding it to the edge of a table.

The trough is part of an oversized lid that fits diagonally into the shipping crate. A blue fleece slip cover keeps the maple rim of the trough from getting scratched during shipping. Once the crate arrives at the show, the contents are removed, the top comes out and is fastened onto the crate, and the crate itself is wrapped with white poster board to disguise it's bruised plywood exterior. We had one more meeting to work out the details, and then Noel built the "Transformer Crate" in January.

At the show, the table worked as planned, with people gathering around (attracted by the light). I built an absurdly tall Q-BA-MAZE structure, just to show off how high I could build with only a 4 1/2" base. An unplanned part was a crew showing up from Dad Labs to interview me. Maybe I should smile the next time I'm on camera?! Whoops. But please understand, I had been standing for five days straight at the point they came for the interview...at least I sprang for the air sole shoes or I might have been grimacing like some other people at the show.

But the BEST thing was at the end. All of the exhibitors start tearing down their booths only to have to wait and wait for their crates to be delivered from storage, which might take 3-6 hours. Because our light table is our crate, we didn't have to wait. We just packed up, applied the shipping labels, and checked out with no line in front of us.

So you can see I get a total kick out of making designs that WORK, designs that improve life in some way. Right now the Transformers Movie is coming out and I have a total appreciation for Transformers. One of my favorite books is my Gundam Weapons: Zeta Gundam (ISBN 4-89425-133-7) of this figure that transforms from a giant robot into a fighter jet. I bought the book in a tiny toy and model shop in 1996, the year I lived in Mongkok (on the Kowloon side of Hong Kong), right when the whole designer toy scene was beginning. The book has such incredible graphics and the creativity of the designers of these toys is astounding. BUT while these transformer type toys are cool, I'd rather make my own "transformers" out of Lego (as in, old-school rectangular red and white bricks Lego). I get so much more psyched by designing and then using something as simple as the Transformer Crate, than I do out of owning a Transformer toy where somebody else (the designer) already had all of the creativity in coming up with the thing. And this really comes around to the whole idea behind Q-BA-MAZE: Q-BA-MAZE is also a "transformer" but the transformation, the design, the creativity in dreaming up the reconfigurations is for the user rather than the designer. I get such joy and satisfaction out of designing and building things and Q-BA-MAZE is my attempt to transmit a similar thrill to others.