Form Found Design

Nine years ago today, we unveiled our MARS Pavilion in front of @jeffbezos and other industry leaders at Amazon’s annual MARS Conference. This project marked the launch of our architecture and design studio, Form Found Design.
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Our thesis was simple: automate the concrete casting process to digitally fabricate complex geometry inspired by nature. To ensure every wishbone was in compression, we used form-finding to optimize a catenary shell. Using two industrial robots, we reconfigured a sleeve of fabric into various geometries, each bolted to a repetitive steel coupler, forming the catenary dome structure.
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The MARS Pavilion would then move the the @aplusd_la Museum then @cts.rapidset HQ.
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This is insane. And “Insane” is the best compliment I give.
-Jeff Bezos
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This project was a colossal undertaking with many partners, collaborators and volunteers who all shared in this vision. While our portfolio may take on various forms, our thesis remains the same: We use Form Finding to achieve forms in nature through advanced technology.

Project Team
Joseph Sarafian, AIA
Ron Culver, AIA
Steve Fuchs
Andrew Lindauer
David Spiva

Walter P. Moore Engineering
Trevor Stephen Lewis, PhD SE
Kais Al Rawi
Cheryl Luo
Greg Otto

Photography
Dario Viola
Ben Rose Photography
Eric Minh Swenson
#architecture #parametricarchitecture #concrete