Mel Ristau / Kinetic Sculptor

With an installation date of mid-March 2010, i am about to begin fabrication of an aerial kinetic sculpture for the new Colorado State University Rockwell Business building atrium.

The concept for this work began as i learned of the school’s unique education of students for outreach to communities and individuals in third world countries — Paul Polak’s Out of Poverty being a significant influence. The character of such a mission suggested a welcoming, interconnected life form, a spirit of growth, and visual emphasis on connecting points (the college’s social mission). An organic model of business interactions both within a vibrant student community and within global business communities and blooming with color and transparency at points of contact, the concept seemed to offer an appropriate visual narrative.

Investigating the concept’s feasibility, i designed a triangular branching motif of a somewhat irregular geometry (all branch lengths subtly different and radiating at angles other than 120º) and experimented with configurations through paper modeling.

Satisfied that the structures had more an affinity with plants than cold geometry, i built a digital model to visualize —primarily for myself— how colored glass might impact the overall aesthetic.

Taking another step toward physicality, a maquette was built to demonstrate an approximation of the general materials/structural aesthetic (for committee approval):

With a general plan for the sculpture’s structure, materials and assembly, i developed drawings of the atrium space — exploring alternatives for overall complexity and scaling and arrived at an integration of six generally spherical configurations to hang in pairs from three drop points.

Additional drawings identified the sizes of  four branch sets and estimates of material dimensions and weights for each.

Drawing of machined parts per branch set: four aluminum sheet parts, 9 aluminum rod-to-sheet standoff connectors, three bent stainless steel rods with threaded ends:

Acrylic models built to further explore degree and type of branching needed to realize generally spherical structures of 4, 5.5 and 7 foot diameters.

What will each section weigh and how to predict structural integrity of each of the 6 sections? The maximum load of the skylight’s cross beam is 2000 lb.s . . .

With my preliminary, proposed measurements in hand, an engineer is now calculating stresses and loads and will specify final measurements for sheet materials, stainless rod diameters, connectors as well as guidelines for branching patterns.

Drawings of cantilevered branching patterns used within the plastic models:

Once i have the engineer’s calculations, i can refine each of the six sections, finalizing an inventory of parts and begin fabrication.

The mobiles six sections are of three sizes (two of each size: small medium large). Movies of the structural models hint at the change that will occur with rotation . . . In the finished sculpture, colored glass + reflective aluminum + sections rotating in front of and behind other sections (group rotation), will add even greater visual interest.

Additional posts on fabrication, assembly and installation:

Part 2