SUBTERRAIN (YELLOW COLUMN FIELD), 2006Subterrain (Yellow Column Field) is one in a series of works examining how hexagonal units might be used in the design of an architectural space. For this project I constructed what appears to be a field of columns by attaching lightweight ballistic nylon forms to aircraft cable. In each column six convex curves connect to create an overhead canopy. Considered another way, the columns might be seen as downward extrusions from an irregular hexagonal grid. What appear as supporting elements are in fact empty fluted vessels with joined lips. Experienced from below, in the subterranean region (the gallery), these hollow forms appear as columns merged into a seamless roof. This seamlessness is only possible through the kind of tight packing unique to hexagonal cells. The most common association evoked from any structure where a hexagonal pattern is employed is perhaps the honeycomb, bees construct with cells that are cylindrical but compress in a crowded colony to become hexagonal. It’s the most efficient design and allows each chamber entry to connect seamlessly to its neighbors with no wasted space. Isolated soap bubbles also configure in this way when stuck together. The sensitive part of out own retina, the fovea, is made of elongated cones packed in hexagonal formation. The examples go on and on. Evidence of the particular properties of the hexagonal formation is found in the seemingly ‘self-ordering’ dynamics of nature and in human design solutions. A molecule of benzene is represented with a hexagonal ring and hexagonal patterns are used in the design of bundled 50 micron superconducting cables and 50 foot geodesic domes. Whether visible in spontaneous ordering in nature or employed in human design, the hexagonal pattern directs very particular design solutions. The title Subterrain (Yellow Column Field) also refers to the sense of being below ground. Though the hexagonal grid informs and indeed is necessary to the shape and configuration of the columns and seamless ceiling, it remains invisible from below. Moving through the yellow columns one is in the subterranean region of an imagined architecture. As with most of my field sculptures I see this Yellow Column Field as a single stage in a potentially open system, a fragment of what could be an infinitely larger whole.
Subterrain (Yellow Column Field), 2006 Subterrain (Yellow Column Field), 2006 |
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