The Blank State is a design collective that I co-founded with an international group of artists and designers. For our first project, I led the team to build a minimally intrusive structure made of roof tiles reclaimed from the site. Located in a floodplain, we needed to design a structure that would not disrupt the flow of water or wildlife and would not leech any chemicals into the aquifer.
The form was generated by choosing important views to bend a single surface towards within the maximum and minimum distance that the 3-segment tiles could bend.
The Structure surrounds three sound elements that are tuned to resonate with the frequency of the recovered roof tiles. When rung, the entire structure softly resonates.
The tile installation was done on-site. The closer together the structural rods at a given point, the curvier the row of tiles would be. This allowed the structure to take an organic form without the need for specialized pieces.
The foundation disassembled so that it could be carried by hand into the flood plain without damaging the landscape.
Each support rod was sized to use the factory-standard length of cold-rolled steel rod which was then collared and welded end-to-end to minimize waste.