Volant Visions | Christopher Ooi, Ryan Chua

Volant Visions is an exploration in utilising computational simulation and advancements in technology as tools to promote the concept of upcycling and sustainability. Functioning not only as a display set, Volant Visions itself aims to be a display of the new possibilities of sustainable and circular design.

Option Studio: The Upcycle Studio
Instructor: Peter Ortner

Intention

Drawing inspiration from wings in nature, Volant Visions aims to imbue the strong and lightweight qualities of a dragonfly’s wings whilst maintaining the elegance and power of a bird’s wings.

Form Finding

By extracting editable contours at desired intervals from a base surface, Volant Visions uses an adjustable parametric approach to panelling the upcycled aluminium window frames. Existing connection points on these frames are identified and used as the basis for creating the connecting structure.

Structural and Material Optimization

To minimise waste and support customisability, an extensive multi-objective structural analysis optimisation is run through the Karamba and Octopus plugins for Rhino to reduce the amount of material usage while still maintaining structural stability.

Upcycling and Extensibility

More images from original source here.

Through the use of PLA filament and 3D printing technologies, parts of Volant Visions can be easily reproduced and adapted for other uses and scales through a wide range of 3D printers, from commercially available tabletop printers to much larger industrial printers. We imagine that this design system can be extended from small scale projects like desk displays to much larger applications like facades or screen walls, for which the PLA filament can be replaced with other 3D printable weather resistant materials like glass and metal.