New Harmony in Houston

We are contributing the final chapter to a book about New Harmony, Frederick Kiesler and the Grotto for Meditation.  Our essay will be called “New Harmony in Houston” and will discuss the work of our studio at UHCOA with Ben Nicholson that has become a project called the New Harmony Grotto and Garden.  The book will be edited by Ben and Michelangelo Sabatino with contributions from Stephen Fox, Monika Pessler of the Kiesler Foundation among others.

NHG Construction Documents

We have completed our set of Construction Documents for the fabrication and installation of the Grotto, Gate and Bridge in the New Harmony Garden proposed for the UH Campus next to the Architecture Building. We have tried to rethink what CD’s mean in terms of Digital Fabrication where we are describing a series of instructions to machines and assembly diagrams to the fabricators. No dimension strings in the drawings, no tape measures on the site…

UH students try to build the unbuildable

“What would you build if it were possible to build anything at all?

That wild question bedevils architecture professors trying to give their students an appropriate challenge. 3-D design software and digital-fabrication equipment mean that the old rules no longer constrain their students. Walls need not be straight. Corners don’t need to meet at right angles.”

read the entire article by Lisa Gray in the Houston Chronicle

New Harmony Grotto @ ACADIA Conference

We’ve been invited to present the Grotto at the upcoming ACADIA Conference in Minneapolis this week.  We co-authored the paper with Ben Nicholson our visiting critic for the studio that initiated the project.  It will be in the conference juried exhibition as well.

Grotto structure

We are working with Buro Happold to analyze the Grotto’s structure to determine where we need to be concerned about deformation and torsion in the frame.  Some preliminary feedback shows the tendancy to deflect toward the curled side.

New Harmony Grotto in Texas Architect

“Inspired by nature, University of Houston Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture fifth-year students re-imagined Frederick Kiesler’s Grotto for Meditation, originally commissioned in 1963 by Jane Blaffer Owen as a quiet and relaxing environment in the arts community of New Harmony, Ind.”

Read the article

Exhibition of the New Harmony Grotto on view at the UHcoA Gallery

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The Grotto meets its site…

The model (25% of actual size) was placed on the slab that had been cut and diamond polished in time for our review.

Final Review at UHcoA

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Fabrication Day 2 (Shell Completed)

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