3. Circular Open Source Fashion

References & Inspiration

For this week, I found very interesting the "lively" aspect of modular assembly. Indeed I wanted to work on this, imagine those presented modules as cellules and develop an esthetic more organic. The difficulty was to think of something that does not create more waste.

I thought about a pattern that could fit into a square but still generate several modules without waste.

• thought process : → labyrinth patern

→ generated pattern in processing by Claire Williams principle of Cellular automata

→ Turing's pattern or reaction-diffusion pattern, explanation here from Karl Sims.

"Reaction Diffusion models is a mathematical equation based on natural reactions found in geological, chemical and biological processes. Reaction Diffusion models are the key to understanf the formation of many shapes and patterns in the natural world: coral morphology, skin pigmentation of tropical fish, sport distribution on feline fur..." quotes from Ivan Murit's site

ALUMNIS

Modular balaclava - Mina Mayo Smith - FabLab Kamakura

0-waste garment - Alve Lagercrantz - FabLab Bcn

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Tools

• Paper + cisor or cutter + pen or pencil
• brother printer for tests at my parent's home
• TexTuring
• photoshop
• 2D modelling Illustrator
• Beambox Studio

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Process and workflow

It was very important for me to work with my hands before figure it out what I will do after.

Before using a generator turing's patter (Texturing) I drew one first by hand, but I found more interesting to work with something that I can't completely control (as nature).

Step 1 → Having fun with TexTuring program and create a module ←

Texturing is a customizable dithering software that applies Turing patterns to images, rendering them in diverse organic shapes.

↓↓↓↓ You can watch this tuto to understand how texturing works ↓↓↓↓

To be familiar with the program, I created shades patterns on illustrator and applied the turing pattern on them.

tests parameters :

According to the resolution of the image, the size of the pattern rendered differently. First I wanted to create a zero waste module, so I start with a square / rectangle to see if the turing pattern would fit the square(rectangle) :

The difficulty was to find a perfect proportion between the black part and the white part. Because at the end, after the cutting, the idea is to recognize the form and the counter-form of thi original pattern.

I decided to start with a module of a fixed size : a rectangle with the same proportion of the laser cutter.

I finally decided to stay on this one :

Step 2 → vectorisation/configuration of the pattern ←

I start by resize my module on 149,683mm x 199,786 mm, which mean that I can enter 8 modules in the laser printer (600mmx400mm)

Before compiled everything, I had to vectorised my module.

→ Then to repeat it as a patern I closed 2 sides of my module.

Now in a file size 600x400mm I have to copy and paste my module and delete doubles lines

and create a new section to separate modules, because it's not a all over pattern.

Step 3 → size and Cutting tests on paper ←

First I cut the 8 modules files

I wanted to connect every parts in a mirror position. But I realised afterall that the cuttings was too small. I tested another size twice bigger.

2 size tests on beambox

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Again the second file was too small, so I decided to cut the half of it and resize it twice bigger.

on beambox

Finally, I found too hard to construct with paper, so I decided to use felted fabric (synthetic). On the fabric I add connection randomly, because I didn't wanted to plan the construction, I needed to keep the mind open for it.

→→→ 1mm of thickness

I realised that I needed a thicker fabric for my pattern + the connections wasn't good, they were too loose!.

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Step 4 → New fabric and final result ←

Assembly tests in paper

Now I had my prototype in paper, I had to think about a way to assembly everything with constraints any possibilities of construction.

From Vimeo

Sound Waves from George Gally (Radarboy) on Vimeo.

From Youtube

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Fabrication files