snowprinter

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some renders we did for entwerfen3/koge

engineering architecture? | architectureing engineer!?

despite we're working on the institute of construction&design we chose a quite parametric approach to design our project which i already intruduced to you. in the past few weeks we've done several material tests, including models built from 'bended stripes' of wood oder paper, plaster casts and several synthetic materials.

right now we're working with the tsplines plugin for rhino5, to design the chassis frame of the mobile device. our aim is to combine the needs of quality architecture & design with a good working technical construction. we chose to build the main chassis  in a X-shape of carbon fiber reinforced plastic, which will also be the water tank of the device. This benefits in a low balance point and gives the construction stability against wind action.
the chassis is coustumly designed and inspired by organic structures like trees or bones and merges into a helpig construction which connects the chassis with the outer shell which will be designed in the upcoming weeks..

eine wolke für neuschnee | a cloud of fresh snow

Together with the institute of construction an design | koge and some other partners we're working right now on the topic of the production of artificial snow. A partner of the TU Vienna has developed a now technology to produce artificial snow from real snowfalkes (socalled dendrites) and our task in the entwerfen3 is right now to develop new fields of application for this certain technology and to think about how this technique could be used in winter sports.

Our approuch was to create a solution of how the artifilially produced snow can be distributed on skiing slopes.
Therefor we designed a mobile, computer controlled device, which is able to produce the snow right on the slopes and works like a giant snowproducing drone.
The whole construction consists of three major parts: A chassis frame, which allows the drone to move and works as the basis of the construction. As a second part there are several snow producing dendrite-generators placed in the center of the drone, which are more or less the centerpieces of the device. And as a third there is a cloud like shaped shell which works as the outer layer of the device. The shell is perforated with customized holes, which transfer the rejected heat form the generators to the surrounding air.

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idea, design & rendering: f.spindler | l.schulz