The KGM (Kunstgewerbe Museum/arts and crafts museum) Berlin invited us for a two-months solo exhibition. We used the space and time to organize a design lab situation open to visitors, where we spent one to two days a week working on experimental projects.

KGM Gyroid revolves around the mathematical minimal surface pattern discovered by Alan Schoen. Its geometry gives with minimal material usage maximum stability. We focused on mixing modern digital technologies with more traditional manufacturing techniques, in this case parametric modelling, additive manufacturing and plaster casting. This combination gives the resulting objects a familiar aesthetic that still bears marks of its digital origin.

The Gyroid structure was split into the smallest possible module, so we were able to cast it and built it up again into bigger structures. The molds were 3d printed in a soft material to make it easier to extract the molded parts. The topography of the prints is nicely visible on the molds. We worked on different scales and settled on a 10cm X 10cm X 10cm module size, due to the printing capabilities of our 3d printer.

One idea for utilisation of the structure is as a room partition wall, in the spirit of Erwin Hauer. In our time at the museum we produced a one-to-one scale model of the partition wall, comprised of 3X3 modules.

Images of the exhibition at the museum. The selection of the exhibited pieces was constantly shifting based on the most recent results of our work there.

Images and video of the casting process.

Project assistant: Anna Röder