Lecture @Akron Art Museum

This Thursday, November 17th,  I will be giving a lecture at the Akron Art Museum as part of the Synapse Lecture Series. Stop by if you are in the area.

The Synapse series explores enlightened collaborations between art and science. This initiative at The University of Akron probes the ideas, images, and mutual interests connecting art and science professionals and disciplines. The Synapse series is funded through the generous support of the Knight Foundation.

For more information visit: https://akronartmuseum.org/calendar/synapse-lecture-simon-schleicher/10869

picture credit: Akron Art Museum

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Presentation @ACADIA2016

On Thursday, October 27th I will present my joint research with Riccardo La Magna on “Bending-acitve Plates: Form-finding and Form-conversion” during this year’s ACADIA conference at the Taubman College at the University of Michigan. The full paper can be found here:

http://papers.cumincad.org/data/works/att/acadia16_260.pdf 

Lecture at SEMM Seminar

This Monday, I will present my work on “Bio-inspired Flexible Structures” at UC Berkeley’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE). Stop by if you are in the area. 

Monday, September 26, 12-1pm, 502 Davis Hall

For more information:

http://events.berkeley.edu/index.php/calendar/sn/cee.html?view=summary&timeframe=day&date=2016-09-26&filter=Secondary%20Event%20Type&filtersel=

Paper at AAG2016

Riccardo La Magna, Simon Schleicher, and Jan Knippers just presented their recent research on “Bending-active Plates: Form and Structure” during the AAG2016 conference at ETH Zurich. Link: goo.gl/SxOQny

Berkeley Weave

Doctoral Thesis Online

Friends,

My doctoral thesis on Bio-inspired Compliant Mechanisms for Architectural Design is finally online. I want to particularly thank all those who have made my adventurous path possible and continue to support me!

Schleicher, S. (2015). Bio-inspired compliant mechanisms for architectural design: transferring bending and folding principles of plant leaves to flexible kinetic structures.

Order Bound Edition: http://goo.gl/NXo7Wo

Open Access URL: http://goo.gl/Pt9q3O

Bio-inspired Compliant Mechanisms for Architectural Design

 

Plywood Installations at Berkeley Circus 2016

Riccardo La Magna and I show our latest plywood installations at the Berkeley Circus 2016.

With our research on bending-active structures, we investigate curved beams and surfaces shaped not by plastically deforming initially planar elements, as is done in traditional manufacturing, but by elastic deformation. In the resulting lightweight structures, bending is not avoided but instrumentalized to create complex curved geometries on the basis of standard, semi-finished building products.

More information about these projects is coming up…

Photo: Simon Schleicher

Photo: Simon Schleicher

Photo: Simon Schleicher

 

 

Plywood Installations at Berkeley Circus 2016

My students and I are getting ready for the Berkeley Circus 2016 with great plywood installations by Riccardo La Magna and me.

image: Simon Schleicher

image: Simon Schleicher

image: Simon Schleicher

image: Kyle Steinfeld

 

STUDIO ONE – Bio-inspired Design and Fabrication

Coming up this Fall

STUDIO ONE 2016/17 – Bio-inspired Design and Fabrication

STUDIO ONE is a one-year post-professional program for students with a professional (accredited Bachelor of Architecture) degree. A two-semester studio course makes up the core of the program intended for those interested in exploring innovative and experimental design issues through a research-oriented and multidisciplinary approach. It is supplemented by seminars, lectures, and workshops in architectural design, engineering, and natural sciences with the opportunity to take electives at the College of Environmental Design. Students who complete the program will receive a non-professional Master of Architecture degree.

For 2016-17, STUDIO ONE has the theme “Bio-inspired Design and Fabrication” and will be directed by Assistant Professor Simon Schleicher. The goal of the studio is to venture out into the unchartered territories and common frontier between architecture, engineering, and biology. It seeks to forge interdisciplinary and cross-professional alliances to provoke a novel design paradigm based on the integration of multifaceted methodologies and informed processes. The main focus in this respect will be on re-examining and merging the areas of biomimetics, computational design, structural analysis, material-based fabrication and construction.

The studio will follow an inquiry-oriented, experiment-based, and project-driven research agenda. Based on an intensive, critical, and analytical approach to cutting-edge design and construction methods, the studio aims to go one step further by taking inspiration from flexible and resilient structures found in nature. By closely investigating biological structures for their efficiency and adaptability and by abstracting their underlying construction principles into suitable architectural systems, the studio will challenge our present understanding with new bio-inspired fabrication and construction concepts. STUDIO ONE students will design and fabricate models and large-scale demonstrations that showcase the potential of biologically informed design concepts that anticipate a new foundation for lightweight, multifunctional, and sustainable architecture.

Form-finding and Design Potentials of Bending-active Plate Structures

Find here a link to my recent publication on “Form-finding and Design Potentials of Bending-active Plate Structures”. This work was featured at the Design Modelling Symposium 2015 in Copenhagen

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/289707025_Form-finding_and_Design_Potentials_of_Bending-active_Plate_Structures 

Project Videos: Out of Plane Exhibition

Compilation of videos featured at the “Out of Plane: Designing Flexible Structures” Exhibition at UC Berkeley, College of Environmental Design, Department of Architecture.

Out of Plane: Designing Flexible Structures from Simon Schleicher on Vimeo.