teamwork, design iteration, and blowing people’s minds.

“Let’s do a design competition!” is not a phrase often heard in the context of trade shows. But that’s exactly what brick did when asked to sponsor TedX Marin and exhibit at a “see and be seen” 2-hour cocktail party for Marin’s most engaged community members. What followed was a 10-week design adventure, a lot of trial and error, and a bit of practical magic to bring a winning idea to life.

that’s unexpected.

To kick things off, we called up the show producers and asked if we could do something completely different. Luckily (and surprisingly), TedX Marin was excited by the idea of something outside the norm of the predictable table and easel displays. Brick was granted a 10×10-square-foot-area in the center of the event to create a structure, with the height constrained at 12 feet due to overhead string lights.

the formula

We had a mere two-hour window to show off our work, so the exhibit needed to be quick to build (and disassemble) with affordable materials. Ideally brick’s exhibit would speak to the practice of architecture while embodying TED’s acronym: technology, entertainment, and design.

the competition

With cash prizes on offer for the first- and second-place designs, brick’s architects and designers got together at a weekly “crowdsource” lunch to talk opportunities, constraints and design goals. Then individuals and small groups started developing concepts for an exhibit that would showcase ideas and encourage interaction and engagement with event attendees.

Concepts ran the gamut from wooden structures, to business card monuments, to kinetic sculptures and interactive “create as you go” data visualization. But one idea floated by the judges filled them with delight: Casey Crawmer’s concept for a pneumatic that relied on air and fabric to create form.

air-supported structures and 1960s radicals

originally intended to challenge traditional building methods and offer a simple, affordable means of creating temporary structures, the pneumatic led to large scale exploration of fabric and air-supported structures, such as the Hajj Terminal designed by SOM and structural engineer Fazlur Khan.

source: “Air Apparent: Pneumatic Structures” Will Mcclean, Architectural Review

the eleventh hour

The night before TedX: At the final scale, we made an unfortunate discovery. The sheer fabric leaked air. Too much air. We added fans. We experienced some dejected moments. Then we enjoyed the beautiful mitered corners on the roof and considered letting the cube be a pretty marshmallow. And then we went to bed.

midnight marshmallow with mitered corners.

air-assisted structure

The morning of the event, we tested an endoskeleton of PVC, hoping that the tension of the PVC against fabric combined with inflation would give us a cube that people could occupy.

It worked. The view of vibrant blue sky from inside was glorious. So good in fact, that Casey created a VR experience of being inside the cube so attendees could experience their real-time observations in virtual reality. Many people reported: “Mind blown!”.

would we do it again?

A competition for an exhibit with the lifespan of a mayfly was a crazy idea. The process was frustrating at times; implementation, costs, budgets, and timing were all challenging. But ultimately it was very satisfying. Those stalwarts who stuck with the project to the very end were elated when we pulled it off. We created an interactive experience that people loved and it made for some great questions and easy networking. As for the journey? Short term fabrication bends and stretches the mind in a way that revit and rhino can’t. And the team members bent and stretched in and out of the cube in ways they didn’t expect either!