voltaDom Fabrication Time-Lapse

VoltaDom, by Skylar Tibbits - for MIT's 150th Anniversary Celebration & FAST Arts Festival (Festival of Arts, Science and Technology) - an installation that populates the corridor spanning building 56 & 66 on MIT’s campus. This installation lines the concrete and glass hallway with hundreds of vaults, reminiscent of the great vaulted ceilings of historic cathedrals. The vaults provide a thickened surface articulation and a spectrum of oculi that penetrate the hallway and surrounding area with views and light. VoltaDom attempts to expand the notion of the architectural “surface panel,” by intensifying the depth of a doubly-curved vaulted surface, while maintaining relative ease in assembly and fabrication. This is made possible by transforming complex curved vaults to developable strips, one that likens the assembly to that of simply rolling a strip of material.

Many thanks to our wonderful sponsors:

Quadrant EPP - Kress Schwartz

Philips, Color Kinetics - Fernando Matho & John Warwick

This installation would not have been possible without the amazing support from: Tod Machover, Meejin Yoon, Paul Kassabian, Meg Rotzel, Melissa Murphy, Leila Kinney and the rest of the 150 FAST committee, Adele Santos, Nader Tehrani, Paul Murphy, Jim Harrington, Daniela Stoudenkova, Susanne Seitinger, Nick Gelpi, Joel Lamere, Cristina Parreno, Filip Tejchman, John Difrancesco, Tom Lutz, Veronica Emig, Jared Laucks, Dina and Jim McFalls.

A special thanks to all of the students for their amazing dedication and hardwork on design, prototyping and assembly: Andrew Manto, Toshiro Ihara, May Hwang, Jaeyual Lee, Richard Ong, Nick Polansky, Erioseto Hendranata, Daniela Covarrubias, Karina Silvester, James Coleman, Moe Amaya, Daniel Rosenberg, Duks Koschitz, Song-Ching Tai, Jeff Lin, Ari Kardasis...