hypercell concept responds to changes through self-awareness and reconfigurability

hypercell concept responds to changes through self-awareness and reconfigurability
all images courtesy of hypercell

a team of four students: cosku cinkiliç, ahmed shokir, pavlina vardoulaki, houzhe xu in studio theodore spyropoulos assisted by mustafa el sayed developed an architectural system which is dynamic and can respond to changes through self-awareness, mobility, softness and reconfigurability. ‘hypercell‘ is a system based on local decision-making between each cell. the system creates continuous forming structures, never in finite form always in formation, changing consistently according to its population. every individual cell can take its own decisions and has the ability to climb, roll and change its shape according to the system’s needs. their system will exhibit methods of self-assembly where a number of cells are able to come together without predefined instructions to create meaningful structures. computational and physical strategies of self-assembly were developed which demonstrate the ability of the single cell and the collective. the system is able to show mobility in two scales, local and global and as an outcome the structure will constantly reconfigure.

the first fabricated prototype

video courtesy of ahmed shokair

the second prototype was more flexible but less durable

they eventually had to 3D print it out of flexible material for better durability

the final version of the cell

a breakdown of the cell parts

the inside mechanism

the inside mechanism rendered

the ‘hypercell’ climbing prototype

these prototypes were used to show different strategies for communication

‘hypercell’ large population assembled