The “Porcupine”
tutors: Marta Male
The PORCUPINE is a personal “cocoon” where one can seat comfortably protected by a spiky shield extending to his own reach. It’s creation and customization is depending on the size of the person and the limits of his flexibility. It is fabricated by laser-cut cardboard pyramids and can be assembled by the person itself simply by gluing the pieces together.
It was designed during the class “Parametric Design” in the second term of the MAA at IaaC (tutor: Marta Male). The class had as an aim the creation of an object that would be customized to the user, starting from taking measurements of a specific part of the body of everyone in the class. Those measurements where in sequence used as an inspiration about the use and design of the object as well as a source for the different variations.
We started by measuring the length of the parts of the human legs, the length from the heaps to the shoulders, and the distance one can reach by stretching out right and left hand, or by leaning in front. The object we wanted to make out of all that was something like a space where on from one fixed point can reach all around.
The space somebody can move in is defined by our individual capabilities. Our size sets the initial outline but mostly our flexibility-our reach- can change the outcome very much. This primordial spatial unit, something like a cocoon one can move in up to his stretching capability, was what we wanted to create. An addition to this idea that came along on the course was the figure of the porcupine’s personal space-a space one can hide in and can protect him from the outside. This gave the form of our outer surface and at the same time the structural system. Of course it’s only one of the different evolutions the main model could have.
The applications a customized space like that can have are quite various. Starting from the quite abstract idea of an isolation space, or a reading cell, we can imagine further a comfortable recliner from which one can reach whatever exists around without moving at all; because everything will be situated within his reach.
Changing scale and industry, we can create all sorts of vehicle toys, that will be customized to young users, to give infinite hours of comfortable game! Lastly, it might be interesting to see the “reach” space hanging as a swing, and its overall surface following the persons stretching capacity.
Thinking of materiality and fabrication processes, we thought that an easy and cheap way to create the PORCUPINE would be by laser cutting cardboard pieces, and that is something everyone could do by himself, creating his personal isolation space.
The modelling was done in TopSolid, from the very first idea until the last. What this program offers is that every different variation of the same model is directly connected to an associated file of laid out pieces, ready to be sent to the laser cutter. So in terms of fabrication and customization, things become very easy for adding the object in an open source library where everyone could give his own measurements and get the specific files for his personal cocoon.
