Alexis Rochas of Stereo.bot and Andreas Froech of Machineous have joined forces in a meeting of “structure” and “skin.” They have just built Lightweaver at Coachella; read this interview with DnA for their views on “mirage architecture” and their ambitions for highly efficient and experimental buildings of the future.
Alexis Rochas and Andreas Froech Join Forces to Create Dynamic Partnership
This year’s Coachella features some gigantic art installations including a 45-feet high, twisting, colorful structure called Lightweaver (above).
Lightweaver was designed by Alexis Rochas, of Stereo.bot; it was fabricated with Andreas Froech, founder of the company Machineous.
Now the two have teamed up in a new partnership that promises to marry “structure” and “skin” in efficient, elegant and surprising new ways.
Alexis Rochas is a teacher of architecture at SCI-Arc (right in photo),who anticipated a career designing permanent buildings but has forged a new path designing temporary structures that he describes as an integration of “design, technology and advanced fabrication techniques.”
He and his firm Stereo.bot have created contortionist structures for Coachella 2012, last year’s Electric Daisy Carnival, the America’s Cup and an undulating audio-video screen for MOCA’s New Sculpturalism show.
Andreas Froech (left in photo) also trained in architecture but moved into the realm of fabrication, using robotic cutting techniques to give form to highly complex forms conceived on computers.
It was Machineous that made, for example, the metal screens on Patrick Tighe’s affordable housing projects in West Hollywood, and the looping desk in the office for The Barbarian Group designed by Clive Wilkinson Architects.
DnA recently visited Stereo.bot at their design and construction space in downtown just before they headed off to Coachella to build Lightweaver.
At that point the project was still in pieces: neatly stacked were over 2,000 metal tubes, each a different length but precisely measured, cut and numbered; and hundreds of heavy metal balls, or “nodes,” each with a different arrangement of holes drilled by a robot programmed by Andreas. By connecting the tubes to the “nodes” (photo, right) according to precise design specs, they create the complex space frame which is then covered in custom-designed fabric.
Alexis and Andreas referred to their partnership as a meeting of “structure” (Alexis) and “skin” (Andreas) and shared with DnA their delight in creating “mirage architecture” and their ambitions for highly efficient, experimental buildings of the future.
Read the interview below and listen to them talk about Lightweaver on this DnA segment, also featuring Jason Bentley.