Translating Movement to Structure
Project Duration: 14 weeks, Spring 2024

Tools Used: Rhino3D, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, Enscape, Laser Cutting
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Collaborators: Ross Mackenzie, Aashish Codada
Objectives
The final project for my Arch 2020 studio class was an extension of the class's midterm project. Both projects are presented here.

The first project was 7 weeks long, and the objective was to study a dynamic movement of the human body, and graphically represent the movement to characterize the motion of body parts, emotion, placement, and spatial nature of body parts in space.

The second project was 10 weeks long. The objective of this project was to design an exhibition space of a significant cultural institution whose structure is inspired by the spatiotemporal qualities of the body movement from project 1.

Project 1 Movement Selection

Photo Collage
The body movement that I selected was a baseball pitch. I chose this movement becuase it involves multiple parts of the body which rotate throughout the movement such as the arms, hands, legs, as well as the torso. As a former baseball player, I was very familiar with this movement and the force required to throw a baseball, and I wanted to use this as an opportunity to understand how force is transferred to different body parts throughout the movement. In my collage I used spacing, opacity, as well as blur effects to differentiate between faster and slower parts of the movement. As the movement begins on the left, it is slower and more methodical, as the frames are sharper and closer together. As the leg kick occurs and I throw the ball, the movement speeds up rapidly, and this is shown in the frame which are further apart and more blurry.  

Movement Exploration and Analysis

Orthographic Projections
‍After creating the collage, I arranged frames from three perspectives (front view, overhead view, and side view) orthographically in Rhino3D to create 3D representations of each figure to map the movement for further analysis. I chose the most essential frames to characterize the major parts of the movement.
Motion Analysis
After creating these orthographic projections, I aligned each figure to examine how different body parts flow and change orientation throughout the movement. I used lofts and tracing techniques to track the motion path of the hands, elbows, shoulders, hips, knees, and ankles. This process allowed me to visualize the way in which certain body parts

Motion Analysis and Drawings

Following the orthographic analysis in Rhino, I created plan and section drawings that show the movement of different body parts throughout the movement. I examined how the hips and shoulders were oriented throughout the movement, and used red and orange bars to track their position in relation to each other. This analysis shows how certain parts of the body go through a series of compression and expansion as the ball is thrown, representing how power is transferred from the lower body to the upper body.

Physical Model

My physical model was created using chipboard, acrylic, wood sticks, and spray paint. This model was made to a X scale. The images on the left show the process of laser cutting many sheets of chipboard and the construction of the final model.

Final Model Renderings