cluster 1

Cluster 1: Regular Tetrahedral Cells vs. Cluster Modules

| Daniela Kröhnert

After aggregating regular tetrahedra following different set of rules these tetra-units are replaced by by various bike-frame cluster modules.
Each of these cluster modules is made up of 2-3 bike frames from the scanned set and fitted into a regular tetrahedral container. For this study only copies of one single cluster type are populated throughout the aggregated frameworks replacing the regular tetra-units. This is done assuming that other bike-frames within a certain tolerance range can be used to form the same combinations (possibly with a slightly different clipping at the joint-plate areas). The bigger the inventory of bike frames, the more likely it is to find very similar bike-frames.

Fig.1: Bike Cluster TYPE 12 is used for the first study. Dependening on the bike-frames orientation within one tetrahedral cell informed by the respective connection logic (from left to right: face to face, edge to edge, vertex to vertex) the amount of “empty space” locally within one unit varies immensely.

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Cluster 1: Regular Tetrahedral Cells – Packing and Stacking

| Daniela Kröhnert

In parallel to the bike-frame 3d-scanning and finding of bike-frame cluster modules we are trying to find global systems of how to aggregate these regular tetrahedral cells into large frameworks that form closed loops at different scale levels.
Dependent on the aggregation system, such tetra-units containing the bike-frame clusters are connected at either at their 4 vertices, 4 faces, or 6 edges. Depending on the packing or stacking logic as well as on the bike-frame orientation within the cell, these large aggregations vary immensely in density due to different amounts of “negative space”: empty space globally not filled by tetrahedral cells, and locally – within one cell – not filled by bike frames.
This post covers the global aspects. An overview of – or rather zoom in on – these formations, with various types of bike-frame cluster modules replacing the tetra-units, can be found here.

a face to face aggregation is a classical L-system resulting exclusively in open ended growth, leaving gaps. Although these gaps could technically be bridged by specific bike-frame clusters, out of which bike frames would cantilever
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Cluster 1 : BIKE-FRAMES | warm-up analysis

| Daniela Kröhnert

While working with our idealized proto-bike-frame we soon realized that the reality differs quite a bit and most bike-frames out there do not have parallel head and seat tubes. Even though their angles do not match by only a couple of degrees, it renders a large percentage of the cells we intuitively found so far obsolete. When we picture a classical Gaussian bell curve, our (educated) guess* is, that the number of bike frames whose head and seat tubes are colinear falls at least in the area of two standard deviations, if not three…

left image from: https://opencycle.com/updates/more-u-p–info—geometry
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Cluster 1 : BIKE-FRAMES | warm-up studies

| Daniela Kröhnert

Even though Vienna’s waste management agency, the MA 48, according to their own information, is collecting around 2500 abandoned bicycles within the city borders per year, it has turned out to be unbelievably difficult to get hold of any. Once an object has been officially qualified as “trash” (meaning: ended up in a dumpster – which is quite self-evidently always owned by someone – or simply being touched by official “waste management” personnel it seems) it is near to impossible to declassify it as such, and save it from being burnt, shredded, or melted back into undefined formless matter.

“In fact, it has been shown that over 70 percent of the total waste generated in Germany is held as fractions in technological processes (Statistisches Bundesamt, 2015b). However, the ambitious, technological goals of the circular economy have led to a strong separation between the individual and the institutional level.
The established waste system with its regulations can therefore also be perceived as a closed “waste regime” (Gille, 2007, 9; Reno, 2009, 21).“*

Ritzmann, S. and Birkhäuser Verlag (2018) Wegwerfen, Entwerfen : Müll im Designprozess – Nachhaltigkeit in der Designdidaktik, p. 32. Basel.



But we might have finally found a loop-hole and also possible other sources; so Lukas and I won’t have to go “Bonnie & Clyde” to get us a sample set. And this is our first legally aquired specimen:

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