Whirlpool

Taking us back to our childhood, the exercise reminisces the experimental activities one cherished in school and architecture school for creating things,. Things that are a mere bubble in a corner of our ever intrigued brain and bring it to life. Thus we try shifting mater in this experiment.

Ideology

Initial idea for this experiment was to fuel the matter with motion using electric fans. While evolving this concept we moved precisely and focused on streamlined motion. Thus we concluded to use centrifugal force to move our object. The first test was tried with sand and the patterns went out of bounds on the horizontal surface, so we shifted towards water. The reflection of the centrifugal motion was depicted with the use of colored water in different shades to express the displaced matter.

Process

In the process, we used a given surface, i.e one meter square horizontal board. A vertical pole with a stable round base was designed and an electric motor fixed to the base, a nine volt battery to run the motor, electric wires to connect the battery and motor, a piece of foam board that holds the containers, four cups filled with sand and water , acrylic colors to vary shades of water. The organised setup  tries to use water as matter that we wish to move around the surface.The setup holds a vertical surface fixed with a rotary motor holding four cups of water colored in different shades and filled with sand to dampen the rotation speed of the motor. The cups spins on the motor axis to drain water from the bottom face of the cups that have small punctures that move in a concentric circles, imprinting the horizontal surface below.  Our experiment focuses on the amorphous nature of water and its tendency to carve its own way into/onto an object/surface/volume.

Whirlpool is a project of Iaac, Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia developed at Master in Advanced Architecture in 2016-18 by

Students: Shashi Prakash Vyas and Prateek Bajpai

Faculty: Rodrigo Aguirre and Edouard Cabay