Last progress images this year before a break.  Canopy fully assembled and tested at Campo Sheet Metal on Telephone Rd.  More to come in 2013.

We have been retained by Greater East End to design a prototypical market kiosk for the Navigation Blvd. espanade in the east side of Houston.  These will be installed along with our Discus system with LED pedestrian lightings and solar generators.  They are designed with a perforated sheet metal shell roof that provides dappled light shading while retaining transparency to reduce wind loads.  The perforated pattern references the tradition of "papel picado" in the Hispanic culture of the surrounding neighborhood.

The monuments to the first men in space were dedicated today.  Mayor Annise Parker officiated with members of the Russian community present as well as visitors from the RF.  Notable attendees were Charles Bolden, the current Administor of NASA as well as Yuri Gagarin, the grandson of the cosmonaut.  

Two pioneers in human space flight, Yuri A. Gagarin and John Glenn are memorialized in contrasting media, a perforated stainless steel halftone image of John Glenn rendered as a contrast to a bronze of Yuri Gagarin donated by the Russian consulate.  Metalab, working with Architect Ron Witte and Artist Randy Twaddle developed a custom algorithm to render John Glenn’s iconic image aboard the Mercury Capsule by perforating the shape of the capsule in a staggered pattern with varying sizes to render light and dark tones. The image panels are delicately suspended on thin standoff rods connected to a powder coated steel frame.  Each figure stands on a shallow plinth edged in cor-ten steel, in an historic dialogue on the site of NASA’s first manned space flight headquarters, now occupied as the Houston Parks and Recreation headquarters.

Photographer from the Houston Chronicle snaps a photo at the dedication ceremony on October 15, 2012 in which Mayor Annise Parker, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, and Russian Ambassador Sergey I. Kislyak were participants.

We've been asked by Houston Arts Alliance to provide architectural and fabrication consultation services as well as construction management on a project that lies at the crossroads of the history of the space program in Houston and beyond.  A bronze statue of Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, has been gifted to the City of Houston by a Russian donor.  A matching monument to the first US astronaut in space, John Glenn, has been produced through a collaboration between Ron Whitte, Randy Twaddle and Metalab.  Based upon an image of Glenn in his capsule during his historic journey, an algorithm produced a gradient perforation pattern made up of tiny Mercury capsules.  The 8' x16' panel accompanies the bronze statue and is sited at the COH Parks Department headquarters which used to be the US space agencies main offices in Houston before the JSC was built and NASA was formed.

Didn't get to see Metalab's FORECAST: AIA Houston's 2011 Artist of the Year Exhbition? Check out a video of it here.

Architecture Center Houston and AIA Houston present
AIA Houston 2011 Artist of the Year Exhibition
June 14 -- July 13, 2012
Architecture Center Houston

A parametric tree that emits a cloud of fog, a photobooth that captures a vortex of Activity at parties and a shipping container that soaks up the sun to produce its own power. These are a series of projects that will be exhibited and creating their own micro-climates in FORECAST by Metalab.

While we can't control the weather or a turbulent economy that has thwarted many startups, we can make the best of it by reflecting on how an alternate path within architectural practice has generated a body of work in the genres of civic art and product design. Through collaborations with artists, product curators and solar entrepreneurs, Metalab applies an understanding of the leading edge of design and fabrication technology while working within Houston's can-do landscape of manufacturing and industry.

Metalab was founded 5 years ago by partners Joe Meppelink and Andrew Vrana over a conversation that left off in a metal fabrication shop on Old Spanish Trail and restarted with students at the University of Houston in a new Digital Fabrication seminar in 2005. They have since built a multidisciplinary design firm that specializes in architecture, civic art and product design and applies invention and innovation in the use of advanced 3D modeling and digital fabrication, interactive technologies, and a practicing commitment to sustainability through product design and entrepreneurship.

The exhibit is presented in partnership with artist Matthew Geller, Smilebooth LLC, Adaptive Container LLC and the University of Houston Green Building Components program (UHGBC).
 

Mike Emery writes on Metalab's receipt of ARCHITECT Magazine's Research and Design Award for PV-POD, a solar panel mounting system designd for flat roof space, as well as several other accolades accrued by principals Vrana and Meppelink in affiliation with UH Green Building Components (UHGBC). 

Andrew Vrana and Kevin McClellan will host a special workshop entitled "Parametric Facade Tectonics" at the upcoming Collaboration: the Art and Science of Building Facades conference put on by Architect's Newspaper. 

The PV-Pod makes the cover of ARCHITECT Magazine as the winner of the magazine's Research + Development Award 2012. Jurors Gordon Gill, Jinhee Park, and Martina Decker were impressed by the PV-Pod's practicality and simplicity.