EXHIBITIONS
To coincide with the launch of a new line of architectural mesh products, Cambridge Architectural Mesh presented selected teams with one of their new product categories, asking each team to design a project illustrating the capabilities of their material. Design parameters were limited in size and weight, and final objects were presented as part of 'Restructure: New Forms in Architectural Mesh,' shown at the American Federation of Arts (New York) in February 2005. LOHA's assigned category was Veil.
Typical uses of metal mesh often references the concept of 'veil' in the most literal sense, derived from its visual properties. However, regarded in this manner, some of the more interesting physical properties remain largely untapped. The composition of the mesh gives the material potential to expand, contract, compress, slip, shift, bend and the ability to efficiently absorb and distribute forces. By simply applying and releasing varying pressures, the mesh alternately becomes rigid or slack, fragile yet stable, and fractured, yet whole. It is a paradox in three dimensions. Our desire was to have the mesh occupy the conditions of rigid and slack in the same instance, where the resulting forms express of the material at the edge of failure. Through the structural resolution and mitigation of opposing forces, the resulting pieces call attention to both the strength and fragility of the material.
Typical uses of metal mesh often references the concept of 'veil' in the most literal sense, derived from its visual properties. However, regarded in this manner, some of the more interesting physical properties remain largely untapped. The composition of the mesh gives the material potential to expand, contract, compress, slip, shift, bend and the ability to efficiently absorb and distribute forces. By simply applying and releasing varying pressures, the mesh alternately becomes rigid or slack, fragile yet stable, and fractured, yet whole. It is a paradox in three dimensions. Our desire was to have the mesh occupy the conditions of rigid and slack in the same instance, where the resulting forms express of the material at the edge of failure. Through the structural resolution and mitigation of opposing forces, the resulting pieces call attention to both the strength and fragility of the material.
