I started thinking of string sculptures and ruled surfaces while working on my project for Materializing Design with Larry Sass… My partner (Linlin) and I were responsible for the interiors… and the idea of using strings/ a ruled surface for the interior appealed to me. As I did more research, I found the area an intriguing one to explore… See photos of the built project below.

Digitally fabricated curved pavilion with Ruled-Surface interior

Photo of built project. A ruled surface can be described as the set of points swept by a moving straight line…

Survey of previous work in the area

Gabriel Dawe

Ball-Nogues Studio

Jane Echelman

More work in the area: Fred Sandback, Michael Eisenberg

Project Development

Digital Model and Render of Fabrication and String Sculptures

String Sculpture 01

Structure designed to create String Sculptures.

After assembly of structure, yarn was woven through the openings to create the above design…

Liquid Plastic… mixing of parts for application…

Sculpture after applying liquid plastic…

String Sculpture 02

Larger structure of Masonite that was designed in Rhino, then laser cut.

Other pieces designed and cut to attach to main mold above. These pieces are used to construct sculptures, then can be removed from the main mold…. enabling the mold to be reused…

Larger string sculpture… A scaled up version of the smaller one above…

Structure is 32″ (2′-8″) tall…

Weaving of yarn

String Sculpture 02 was a learning lesson on what happens “in-between” as the scale increases…

After liquid plastic was applied to the sculpture, it was removed from the mold.

The colors of the yarn changed a bit after application… it became dull… With more exploration and experimentation the results of many varied algorithms, directions, and order of weaving can reap many results I am certain…

String Sculpture 03

After String Sculpture 02 was removed from the mold, it was time to attempt String Sculpture 03… This one would be a Hyperboloid Structure… The Circle structure was hot glued to the structure, with small pieces separating the two from each other for easy removal…

Weaving of the yarn between surfaces… The BLUE yarn would be rotated 90 degrees and MAGENTA yarn rotated 180 degrees.

I felt like I was reeling in fish! Pulled long distances of yarn for tapestry needles…

Close up shot of the yarn…

Part one complete… Now for Part two..

Weaving of the magenta yarn… woven at a 180 degree turn..

Bellissimo!!

Almost complete…. almost….

Finished weaving…

Really nice to the touch…

Photo of Sculpture after hardening with liquid plastic…

Challenges and Learning experiences

• The design of the pieces for easy demolding of the string sculpture – This becomes important when it comes to removing the sculptures after the application of the plaster… Separation of the sculpture from the mold so that neither is destroyed was a challenge.
• Scaling – moving from one scale to another changes the resulting form and spaces tremendously! By working at different scales a lot can be learned.

Future Work

• Create more string sculptures – I ran out of liquid plastic and would like to purchase more and harden more sculptures.. explore the possibility of their use beyond an installation. How can this be applied in architecture?
• Try Kinetic String Sculptures

This work by  Vernelle Noel is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.