Acetone Degradation Platform

This project was one of the first I ever converted from a physical form into a digital manifestation. Occurring during my first year of undergraduate school at the University of Tennessee, our goal was to transform a Styrofoam cube by applying acetone to it. The resulting form was natural and out of the designers' control, forcing students to craft a structure on an irregular and foreign object.

 

After the degraded cube had been scanned and imported as a digital model, ideas about keeping the overall form of the structure natural and organic began to arise. The cube itself formed a downward slope after the acetone was applied to it, doubling down on the idea of negative motion. A 'wooden waterfall', a three story observatory, came as a result. The building itself is not functional, but the process and the concept in general proved to be influential in the overarching scope of my undergraduate education.