This project was part of a program at Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia while abroad in Barcelona in Fall 2019. We sought to explore material properties as well as digital design and fabrication techniques, incorporating them into designing a chiringuito: a beachside bar/restaurant pop-up space.
Chiringuitos are temporary structures that are set up for the summer and taken down in the winter, so any structure we designed would need to be able to be deployed and packed up again every year. We were inspired by the use of origami folding patterns to deploy solar panels on NASA spacecraft, and started experimenting with ways to create deployable structures using origami tessellations.
We found that the Yoshimura tessellation suited our needs perfectly. When rigid triangles are attached to fabric, the structure can be rolled up in one direction, but will settle into a predetermined shape when bent the other direction. This would allow our entire chiringuito to be rolled up and stored in the winter.
By precisely varying the spacing between triangles, as well as their length, we could control the exact shape of the final 3D structure by changing only the 2D cut outs. We used Grasshopper and Rhino to perform the computation necessary to determine these specific triangle shapes and spacings. We manipulated the final form to resemble an ocean wave, perfectly fitting for the beaches of Barcelona.
Varied spacing and triangle size in the 2D plan
Resulting 3D structure
Our final prototype scale model was created with laser cut plywood glued to canvas. A full scale design would require different materials, but the same structural principles could be applied to create a unique and functional beach shade structure!
