Sean Hanna is a Research Engineer at University College London, and currently teaches on the Bartlett Graduate School’s MSc in Adaptive Architecture and Computation.
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Part of his research is into structural optimisation and the design of space frame structures. He recently undertook a project with Antony Gormley, a sculptor who investigates what it feels like to be in a body in various positions such as standing, lying, crouching and falling.
Antony has created some of the most ambitious and memorable works of the past two decades including ‘Field’, ‘The Angel of the North’ and ‘Quantum Cloud’ situated in the River Thames at Greenwich.
The ‘Body/Space/Frame’ project dealt with increasingly complex geometries and technologies, and the nature of the structure required a Rapid Prototyping process able to construct extremely slender, unsupported members.
Our Selective Laser Sintering was the method chosen by Sean and Antony to be the most capable at coping with both the fragility and complexity of the model.
The prototype model we produced gave them a detailed visualisation at a crucial point in the design process and the subsequent refinement of more than half of the 1,500 structural members.
| Sean Hanna, University College of London says: "For a structure this complex, the physical model aided both evaluation and discussion far more effectively than any two- or three-dimensional virtual representation." |
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