Fabrication of the iconic Burning Man sculpture.
In solid wood as the concept was conceived several years ago. Required to be made easy to assemble, disassemble and as light as possible for the event in the desert.
Original Design by LMD.
The original piece was fabricated in fiberglass. To respect the original design, the sculpture was 3D scanned and remodeled as surfaces to make it more manageable for digital fabrication.
Remodeled polysurface, corrected from the scanned model. Now symmetrical, continuous curvatures and smooth transitions.
Once we had defined the complete piece it was time to separate it into smaller, segments since it was required that two persons could move each piece, unions and supports were designed and modeled.
For the making of each piece, they were contoured using parametric design tools such as grasshopper to improve the workflow and so each segment could be milled from birch plywood and stacked and glue.
Robot Milling
To accelerate the fabrication process we introduce robotic milling using grasshopper and k
A custom working area for the robotic milling was designed. Table supporting with adjustable heights and custom made router support to extend milling length.
Assembling
Once each piece had been detailed and milled with the robotic arm, they were once again detailed by human hand and assemble in the order we had defined since each one would support the weight of other pieces.
Special thanks to the carpentry team, Ernesto and his brothers, who showed special dedication and made it more bearable all the long days and nights with their cheerful spirit.
