The Rather Large Array

2011Concepts · Architecture +CommunicationCultural

Year: 2011
Category: Concepts · Architecture +Communication
Type: Cultural
Status: Built
Firm: Tim Durfee Studio
Location

This 50' x 50' suspended building-sized scanner was fabricated to both present and record the exhibition MADE UP: Design's Fictions (curated by Tim Durfee with Haelim Paek) in the Wind Tunnel: a gallery hosted by the graduate Media Design Practices (MDP) program at Art Center College of Design. The structure explores a possible future for architecture where sensors, cameras and other digital technologies are so central to the functioning of our cities that they become one and the same with the physical architecture.As visitors view the work in the gallery, the structure periodically scans the space with its 24 cameras.

The images are then compiled and plotted onto the exhibition guide, producing a "live" catalog of the exhibition (one in which visitors often find themselves among the work.)The installation is comprised of 256 thermally-formed PVC pods of 3 strands each: 1 for data, 1 for power, and 1 for structure. The designers worked with Buro Happold to engineer a one metric tonne suspended wooden beam which itself supports 14 video displays. While the purpose and technology of the RLA are utterly different than its inspiration - the famous Very Large Array, constructed in the 1970's in New Mexico - the underlying principles are similar.

Unlike the VLA and other landmarks of Big Science, however, The Rather Large Array uses only modest hardware store components: inexpensive microcontrollers, cameras, and lights. The construction approach allowed for nearly all of the material to be reused: few of the fourteen 20'-0" Douglas Fir beams were cut and could be reused; the steel rigging materials were rented for the installation period, and since no holes compromised the integrity of the 768 PVC pipes, they could be donated to a non-profit housing organization and urban gardening project.

MADE UP and The Rather Large Array were produced by amp (Architecture/Media Programs), an ongoing project studio founded by Tim Durfee that uses design as a mode of investigation, experimentation, and research on annual themes. Massive assistance by: Anne Burdick, Kevin Wingate. Additional assistance by: Rob Ball, Ji Su Choi, Etelberto Duenez, Jeremy Eichenbaum, Aurelia Friedland, Justin Gier, Link Huang, Dee Kim, Matthew Kizu, Hae Jin Lee, Mike Manalo, Matthew Manos, Jason McCann Joshua Moratto, Sarah Needham, Salvador Orara, Francisco Osorio, Rubina Ramchandani, Iris Anna Regn, Brandon Shigeta, Bora Shin, Dan Weinreber, Zhengxin Xi