ChessMVD consisted in the development of a chess model, whose pieces are inspired by the Montevideo skyline, using digital fabrication. The project had the support of teachers from the Institute of History in the choice of examples and technical sheets.

The first model was made in 3D printing, however, in later stages it was experimented with other digital fabrication technologies and materials, such as acrylic and MDF.

The Salvo Palace, the Antel Communications Tower, the Radisson Victoria Plaza hotel, the National Customs Administration are some of the emblematic buildings that were chosen to make up the pieces of the board. 

The idea of ​​holding a exhibition of unrealized architecture models for November 2014, within the framework of the XVIII Congress of the Ibero-American Society of Digital Graphics (sigradi).

The condition of not having been carried out was the main reason to try to materialize those works that were impulses, innovations, ruptures, paradigms, prefigurations of the future, and that still continue in the imaginary of several generations of architects.

The instrument chosen to represent these examples, some very distant in time, had to be the most advanced materialization techniques: digital fabrication. In this way, they wanted to build an extensive bridge spanning several centuries, between the formulation of those ideas and their interpretation made matter, linking traditional techniques of representation and cutting-edge technologies.

Digital fabrication consist of an integrated and computer-asisted system composed by simulation tools, 3D visualization, analysis and collaboration to create product and fabrication process definitions simultaneously.

This type of manufacturing allows the processes to be repeatable as many times as necessary. In turn, the complexity of the object does not have a significant impact on the cost of production. The possibilities within digital fabrication are not linked to the human scale.

Digital fabrication technologies can be divided into two large groups. On the one hand the additive fabrication and on the other the subtractive, each one of them presents certain limitations, advantages and disadvantages to the other.

 

CAD

Computer Aided Design

The file containing the design to be manufactured. It is important that the design does not contain double lines, curves without closing or elements that do not touch each other.

Software: Autocad, Illustrator, Corel, etc.

CAM

Computer Aided Manufacturing

Translates the CAD file into a set of instructions that the machine can interpret: CAM= translator. This file must contain the specific elements/parameters that the machine will need for manufacturing: speeds, intensity, times, etc. For this reason, the plans must express not only what is necessary for the machine but also what is necessary for the operator who will configure the machine.

Software: Cura, Fusion 360, etc.

This research refers to two events that greatly impacted the history of design 50 years ago: the film “2001: A Space Odyssey” directed by Stanley Kubrick1 (April 2, 1968); and the first Moon landing during the Apollo XI Mission (July 20, 1969), mainly based on the ideas of John Houbolt2 .

The common goals of high visual and technological impact with relatively brief deadlines, led in both cases to a colossal multidisciplinary effort that reached extremes of quality and innovation in design, that are still remarkable half a century later.

Kubrick moves

The film “2001, A Space Odyssey” reflects the concerns and hopes underlying at the end of the 60s, in the context of the Cold War, the Space Race, and the promises and mistrusts of the incipient incorporation of computer-aided decision making.

Kubrick carefully chose the team that would help him to carry out one of his first high-budget films. He reached for Arthur C. Clarke and convinced him to make “the proverbial ‘really good’ science-fiction movie“4, based on the story “The Sentinel” that Clarke had written in 1951.

As for the technical matters, he put up a team with the best possible master artists and craftsmen out there -headed by production designer Harry Lange- to take on the shooting of the spatial scenes, reaching levels of technical perfection which even today would be difficult to achieve. Most of the look and appearance of 2001 originated as small pencil sketches done by Lange.

The filming was conducted with some secrecy within the MGM studios in Borehamwood (England), working to tight deadlines so that its release could be in early 1968. Advances in Space Race, the arrival of Man on the Moon -NASA or soviets- and even the possibility of finding evidence of extraterrestrial intelligent life, could spoil the expectation that the movie was beginning to generate.

Houbolt replies

During a speech delivered by President John F. Kennedy, he promised: “We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard”5. The challenge was created: the US would put a Man on the Moon within a time frame of seven years. This seemed ambitious at that time and still appears to be almost impossible half a century later, even arising conspiracy theories about the reality of the matter and speculating with the intervention of Stanley Kubrick himself in the realization of “fake” video shots and pictures6 .

Technical problems were countless, most of them to be solved for the first time -including the guidance system and the navigator computer-, with the aggravating circumstance that any minimal failure could compromise the lives of the astronauts.

One of the main problems was the amount of cargo that was needed to reach to the Moon and how to push it there. This issue was studied tenaciously by John Houbolt, who finally convinced NASA headquarters -bypassing the chain of command- that the “only” solution was to split the journey in different stages, with various modules -command, service, descent lunar stage and ascent lunar stage- that would be alternately used along the way, needing several rendezvous in terrestrial (EOR9) and lunar orbit (LOR10), this one the most difficult.

Our research will cover all the geometric design of Saturn V, the giant vehicle that drove the required load to the Moon, analyzing all its components but mainly focusing on the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM), the stage that actually landed there.

This fundamental component for the successful completion of the mission was assigned to Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation, one of the numerous subcontracts that made possible the success of the colossal endeavor. It was a two-stage vehicle -descent and ascent stages- that was only used from the lunar orbit to the surface of the Moon, and back.

The conditioning factors of its design were very particular and demanding, since it had to be extremely light, minimal in size, very resistant, folding, dockable, maneuverable in vacuum and with lunar gravity (1/6 of terrestrial) and partially pressurized to 5psi (1/3 of the atmospheric pressure)11.

This paper will analyze all the steps by which its design evolved in its geometric aspects and practical use. With Thomas Kelly in charge during this process that lasted for years12, various proposals were evaluated and discarded until reaching to the definitive model, which represents one of the most efficient and remarkable products in the history of aerospace design.

This prodigious spaceship allowed six Moon landings, and in its finest hour -due to a severe damage in the service module-, served as “lifeboat” in the remaining mission (Apollo XIII), enabling Lovell, Swigert and Haise to return safely to Earth.