DS+R | Alice Tully Hall Geometric Definition

This project was completed by Dave in early 2005, prior to the formation of CASE, but it represents one of the services that CASE will offer firms that are dealing with complex geometric rationalization for design and fabrication.

Diller Scofidio + Renfro brought us in to construct the first digital model of the Alice Tully Hall re-design at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Beginning with 2d drawings and a physical model as reference, the goal was to create a digital model in order to understand and explore the hall geometry more iteratively and quickly.

The initial model was intended to be used to create a CNC milled acyrlic model that demonstrated light transmittance through the wood-veneered translucent panels lining the interior of the hall. Once the modeling process had begun, numerous geometric conditions that were difficult to resolve in 2d were identified.

These initial geometric investigations started with subdivision and patch surfaces in 3ds Max. This facilitated quick and loose explorations of difficult folding areas in the panel geometry, in particular where the balcony blended into the wall panels.

After modeling the complete hall in 3ds Max we switched over to Rhino in order to work with NURBS surfaces and additional geometric precision. Reference geometry was imported from 3ds Max in the form of polylines extracted from the meshes. The digital model was re-built at full scale then sized appropriately for the production of the physical model.

Once the entire hall model was complete, we were able to work with the fabricator to construct the digital prototype of the panel mock-up. A section of the model was identified and extracted and used as the basis of the fabricator's work on the mock-up.

All images courtesy of Diller Scofidio + Renfro.