Coursework_California College of the Arts_MArch_Fall 2016
Instructors_Thom Faulders, Brian Price

An experiment against the rightness of technological drawing, Figure Packing / Stacking confronts the ability of technology to draw infinitely precise geometry and translate them identically into physical form.

Phase one operated on circle packing and tiling patterns. Geometrically, the overlaying of circles on a diagrid functions as an arc continuously travels across the border of its bounding triangle tile. The infinite thinness of the border line allows for a clear reading of arrayed circles over the grid. Manipulating the thinness of that border however, and exaggerating its tolerances as a physical line with some physical thickness, or as a grout line between architectural tiling (a realm of real physical tolerance) breaks the continuity of the infill arcs and their reading as a whole in the circle pattern. This out of tolerance gap in the system is then navigated as an opportunity for exploration. Each fractured arc is reconnected across the void space by another set of tangent arcs, redefining the legibility of the overlay pattern yet in a new disfigured state.

Phase two continues the process to materialize the figures. While digital fabrication techniques precisely cut each profile and allow them to stack identical to their drawn predecessor, the new organizational system developed out of the initial wronging of the diagrid enables the forms to stack with various other logics.