generative bronze:
a bridge study
using Autodesk Fusion 360 Generative Design
Most bridges are built to be functional -- simple structures made by civil engineers that enable people to defy gravity and cross valleys and waterways. What will bridges look like on planets with low gravity?
Generative Bronze instigates this question. Fashioned after pedestrian moon bridges, the moon may be one of the only places that one could actually walk across Generative Bronze, with its impractically high-rising arch.
this is the design before going through the generative design algorithm
a small test print.
full-scale print, 86 hours in the making using IDEX printer with PVA support.
wax-tree, combined with other pieces I was pouring. must be kept in refrigerator to avoid melting in the summer heat.
smelting furnace is heating up to over 700C
Serge's father adding metal in to be smelted
molten bronze bars of excess material poured
after some work to cut out the piece from the tree
final product after significant polishing and work
final piece weighing in at around 5 kilos of solid bronze
About Generative Bronze
Moon bridges originated as a way of enabling people to cross rivers and canals while simultaneously allowing ships to pass beneath. Generative Bronze flouts this use case with generatively-designed asymmetric tendrils that almost seem to drip, fluid-like, from the bridge’s deck.
In creating Generative Bronze using generative topological optimization techniques, I sought to investigate answers to the question that compelled me to explore parametric design more broadly: what if art and architecture were the product of natural evolutionary processes? Generative Bronze is one possible outcome, and paradoxically, the final result looks more extraterrestrial than earthly. Indeed, knowing that humans would never use such a bridge to walk from point A to point B, Generative Bronze challenges viewers to imagine otherworldly scenarios in which they would.
I was drawn to copper alloys above other metals because it ages so visibly as a natural consequence of oxidation. The appearance of Generative Bronze, conceived using a technology that mimics evolution, will thus continue to evolve in response to natural stimuli.
Generative Copper was designed in Fusion 360 using the Generative Design module and rendered in Fusion 360 Cloud. Generative Bronze was poured in August 2020.