8sewing

The two projects here push sewing in architecture to larger and larger dimensions. The first, a millennial project for the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia in the Summer of 2000, was an 1800 cubic metre temporary installation, fabricated out of small diameter trees and netting. The trees were debarked and rip-sawn into long thin layers. With green wood one can make very tight curves; because glue cannot be used on wet wood, we stitched the layers together with thousands of nails, literally sewing the laminae into their final curvature. Like the threads in a machine-sewn textile, the nails pierced the wood from above and below, stitching the layers together tightly. By staggering and overlapping layers, the curved piece that results can continue indefinitely. The result is a light, strong and flexible framework.

Within this framework, the net surfaces also called on ideas of sewing. The overall geometry was found by dipping a wire model into a soap solution. After each plunge, the complex forms of the minimal surfaces would stay suspended for a few seconds within and in between the loops of wire. To capture these fleeting forms so we could determine the patterns of the membrane, we made a larger model, crocheting the net. Toshiko Horiuchi, a Japanese fibre artist, made the full scale nets, designing and hand-dying each piece to create an ever-changing field of color. The nets were sewn onto the wooden framework, with a cable acting as an intermediary between the tensile surface of the netting and the compressive bent wood structure.

trempant un modèle réduit en fil de fer dans une solution savon - née. Ces formes évanescentes qui déterminent la forme de chaque membrane ont été, par la suite, reproduites en filets à pleine échelle par Toshiko Horiuchi, un artiste de la fibre d’origine jap - onaise, qui a conçu et teint à la main chacun des filets. Les filets

ont ensuite été cousus à la struc- ture de bois, puis un câble, agissant comme intermédiaire entre la sur- face de traction du filet et la structure de bois plié comprimé. Le deuxième projet est celui d’une tour pour le compte du Museum of Industry de Stellerton, en Nou- velle-Écosse. D’une hauteur de près de 30 mètres, cette tour

servira de point d’orientation et de plate-forme de visualisation le long de l’autoroute Transcana- dienne dans l’une des plus vieilles régions industrielles du pays. Fab- riquée d’acier, de câbles d’acier, de filet et de bois laminé, elle vient rendre hommage à l’artisanat de la province. 

S ewing

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