The torus: A gridshell structure

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BACKGROUND: Sound Art is fast gaining international prominence as evidenced by recent international shows and major awards for sound artists amongst a broader art community. For Sound Bites City, the inaugural exhibition of RMIT's sound art collection, a concept and space was commisioned for a temporary spatial structure which could provide an audience setting for both large performances and smaller group and individual listening. In response, Williams and Cherrey designed a timber gridshell in a toroidal arrangement. The Torus drew on, and extended, techniques for post-formed gridshell structures. RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION: The design process for the Sound Bites City shell structure sought to explore tradeoffs between architectural form-making and digital 'form-finding' for structurally efficient structures. Designed as a grid of interconnected timber laths, connected with doubly-curved edge beams, the structure provided a series of spaces for audience listeing, as well as physical mounting for audio speakers used for performance. Through an integrated design platform, the design team were able to customise both the shape of the shell and edge beam profiles to generate a reliable model for fabrication. This was successfully fabricated and installed for the duration of the exhibition. RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE: The Sound Bites City shell contributed a unqiue space and visually compelling design for the exhibition that launched RMIT's sound art collection. Such a sophistocated and appropriate architectural response was critical to the exhibition's success. Over five weeks, 3815 people visited, including an opening night crowd of close to 300. The significance was further demonstrated by media coverage includiong demonstrated by media coverage including 'The Age' (Penny Webb, 5 October 2013); 'Melbourne Review' (Evelyn Tsitas, 'The Fine Art of Listening', Sept 2013).