 About IMd Raadgevende Ingenieurs
IMd Raadgevende Ingenieurs is an organisation situated in the Netherlands with a great core of highly qualified employees, who have been applying their experience, know-how and expertise for many years with regard to advising about, designing and working out main structures for buildings.
Introduction
A few years ago, the Rotterdam exposition follyDOCK was opened. This international folly competition was intended for artists, designers and architects, who created a wide variety of ‘useless’ folly constructions. IMd designed two of these constructions, and acted as the project’s sponsor as well. FollyDOCK was part of ‘Rotterdam 2007 - City of Architecture’. Participants were to design a folly, which was to surmount the restrictions of actual practice, and which stretches the boundaries between fantasy and reality.
About the project
IMd Raadgevende Ingenieurs have created a model for “Container Origami”. The idea behind the folly is a simple one: take a steel sea container, cut it open, and ‘fold’ it like a piece of paper, according to the Japanese technique of origami. This leads to a completely different shape of the object.
From the cardboard model, and in a later stage, the steel one, it was concluded that the planned object, measuring eight-and-a-half metres in height, proved to be rather frail when exposed to (wind) pressure. IMd suggested an extra connection on two places, which led to a much more solid object. This meant that the amount of steel could be reduced.
After the initial manual calculations, a 3D-drawing was made of the final shape. This was then used to compute a Scia Engineer model of the eccentric object. The model was first drawn up as a wire-frame model, after which the steel slabs were added as discs. After that, the model was used to optimise the steel edge moulding, which was welded alongside the sea container’s slabs.
Ultimately, “Container Origami” was manually constructed, using a carefully cut-open sea container. The entire work of art was then moved, by special transport, to its final position. The folly, which initially was to be a temporary construction, was adopted by the city of Rotterdam, and thereby gained its permanent status as a work of art.
Since October 2008 it can be admired in the Rotterdam Heijplaat harbour area.
► More folding images of IMd's "Container Origami" can be found here... |
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