The Seat Slug is featured in December issue of l’Arca. The issue is guest edited by Richard Meyer with a focus on texture.
Blog
Moderators of Change
Moderators of Change
The essay, “Designing Local” is featured in the new book Moderators of Change, edited by Andres Lepik. The book focuses on the socially responsible role of architecture as more and more people around the world live under unacceptable conditions, for instance in slums and shantytowns. Based on twenty projects that have been implemented as well as stances taken by artists from throughout the world, this publication demonstrates how innovative design solutions can transform society.
Publication Information: Moderators of Change Architecture That Helps, Edited by Andres Lepik, essays by Regina Bittner, Carson Chan, Rainer Hehl, Andres Lepik, Ronald Rael, Anne Schmedding, Christian Welzbacher, graphic design by Verena Gerlach. Series: Jahresring No. 58. German/English. 2011. 256 pp., 170 color ills. 17.20 x 24.00 cm. Hardcover. ISBN 978-3-7757-3186-7
Digital Wood: The Bevel Bowl
Bevel Bowl from above
The Bevel Bowl represents a new innovation by Rael San Fratello Architects—3D printed wood! Made from reclaimed and recycled wood and cellulose material, the 3D printed wood has the look and feel of medium density fiberboard wood products, but can take any shape imaginable.
The Bevel Bowl side
The 3D printed wood is water resistant, durable and strong and is part of our continuing line of additive manufacturing experimentation with a focus on materiality, economy and form.
Detail
Project Date: 2011
Project Location: Berkeley, CA
Design Team: Ronald Rael, Virginia San Fratello, Kent Wilson.
Project Information: Technical assistance: Dr. Mark Ganter (Solheim Additive Manufacturing Laboratory in the Mechanical Engineering Department on the University of Washington)
Architecture and Activism at the Contemporary Jewish Museum
Student design activists
Ronald Rael of Rael San Fratello Architects lectured and collaborated with Bay Area high school students on the topic of Architecture and Activism at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco. As part of a design charette, students were asked to think of ways that the common bus stop could be transformed to engage an important societal issue.
Bus stops with an agenda
The design solutions were ingenious and dealt with issues of community activism, global warming, homelessness and pollution. Bus stops with community bulletin boards, gardens, recycling centers, were just some of the unique ideas put forward by the teen activist designers.
Straw Gallery
The Straw Gallery. Photo: Matthew Millman
The Straw Gallery was designed for HEDGE Gallery for the 4th annual sf20/21 San Francisco Art and Design Show held at the Festival Pavillion, Fort Mason Center. The temporary gallery was on display from September 15th through 18th opening with a benefit for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s educational programs.
Entrance to the Straw Gallery. Photo: Matthew Millman
The gallery is an aromatic, enveloping, and raw space in contrast to the refined and modern elements that are displayed within. The gallery consists of three unfinished, blackened steel display niches interwoven within the walls of straw bales. Each niche is an excavation that is filled with HEDGE’s highly edited visions of 20th and 21st century design, art and craft, presented at different levels relative to the eye and the hand of the visitor.
Stacking diagrams
Interior. Photo: Matthew Millman
Folded metal shelves
The juxtaposition of the two materials, steel and straw—one industrial and the other representing a storied agrarian history—heightens the tactile sensibilities as one navigates between the richness of the hay and the clean surfaces of the steel compartments. Straw is an incredibly effective acoustic buffer and the walls are in most places two bales thick and placed strategically to block views to the exterior as you enter the space. The experience within Straw Gallery is one of quiet, calm and focused observation in contrast to a busy exterior.
Elevation in context of SF20/21. Photo: Matthew Millman
The several hundred wheat straw bales, an agricultural by-product used for bedding, roughage and fuel, used to construct the gallery were returned to the feed store. The steel shelves were recycled and will be used to construct furniture and shelving in San Francisco.
Detail. Photography: Matthew Millman
Project Date: 2011
Project Location: San Francisco, CA
Design Team: Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello.
Project Information: Photography: Matthew Millman Photography, Straw: Concord Feed, Metal Fabrication: Hicks Metal. Client: HEDGE Gallery, Press: “The star of the night was undoubtably Hedge Gallery, who enlisted Rael San Fratello Architects from Oakland to design and fabricate a booth out of hay bales and blackened steel“, ”a jaw-dropping, don’t-miss hay and steel space“, “the elevated environment was Hedge Gallery’s hit of a hay-bale box smack dab in the center of the hall“, “Party Central, once again, was Hedge Gallery, where owners Roth Martin and designer Steven Volpe created a one-of-a-kind straw bale salon“ ]
Monterey Design Conference
Praised as the most prestigious and best attended architectural design conference in the United States, the Monterey Design Conference was founded in 1979. Held in Pacific Grove at the historic Asilomar Conference Grounds, past attendees of this prestigious design conference include such starchitect names as Rem Koolhaas.
This year’s speakers include Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello of Rael San Fratello Architects, MacArthur Fellow Jeanne Gang, Tom Kundig, Michael Maltzan, David Salmela, Brigitte Shim, Borja Ferrater, Andrew Kudless, Johnston MarkLee and Peter Walker.
MYOO.com on Earth Architecture
MYOO.com, the online home for fresh and compelling content that’s geared towards kickstarting a smarter 2.0 way of living, features a discussion with Earth Architecture author, Ronald Rael.
Seat Slug
The Seat Slug
Unique, one-of-a-kind building components, generated quickly and economically from advanced 3-dimensional modeling software – until now this promise of 3D printing was unfulfilled. Conventional 3D printing served as an expensive prototyping process, important as a design tool but falling short in production. However, this year the San Francisco Bay Area firm Rael San Fratello Architects has initiated a fundamental shift.
3D printed concrete components
Through research Assistant Professor Ronald Rael conducts at the University of California Berkeley, the firm has developed a cement-based polymer and a new process that,for the first time, employs conventional rapid prototyping hardware to produce strong and durable building components that cost far less than conventional rapid prototyping materials—up to 90% less than comparable powder printing materials. The material can also reach strengths of up to 4,700psi in compression. This advancement in material output from digital modeling software ushers in a new era in building materials, and a new synthesis of design and production.
Project rendering
The SeatSlug, a biomorphic interpretation of a bench, demonstrates how this new digital output process generates end-product structural building components directly from 3D software models. The design is inspired by flabellina goddardi, the newest species of sea slugs discovered in California in 2010, and by the infinite tessellations of Japanese karakusa patterns. It is constructed of 230 unique rapid-manufactured components.
"Skinned" slug showing the unfolded components
The sinuous form, subtle translucency and glossy finish engage viewers with a memorable aesthetic experience—a tactile personal encounter with a technological breakthrough.
Composite drawing
Project Date: 2011
Project Location: San Francisco, CA
Design Team: Ronald Rael, Virginia San Fratello, Emily Licht, Nick Buccelli, Kent Wilson.
Project Information: Rael San Fratello Architects thanks the following individuals and organizations for their knowledge, support and assistance: Dr. Mark Ganter (Solheim Additive Manufacturing Laboratory in the Mechanical Engineering Department on the University of Washington), Artist Ehren Tool, Professor Richard Shaw (Berkeley), The Department of Art Practice at The University of California Berkeley, The Hellman Family Fund, Professor Claudia Ostertag (Berkeley), Luxology.
Ten to Watch
Rael San Fratello Architects was selected by a distinguished panel of jurors that included Neil Denari, Hsinming Fung, John Peterson, Tom Buresh, Luke Ogrydziak, Barbara Beslor, Steven Ehrlich, Margaret Griffin, Carrie Byles and David Meckel, as one of ten architects on the rise in California by CA Home+Design Magazine.
We join Jennifer Bonner, IwamotoScott, David Freeland, (fer) Studio, Andrew Kudless, Patrick Tighe Architecture, Patterns, Envelope A+D and John Freidman Alice Kimm Architects in the honor.