Renowned designers Draisci Studio recently chose Zone Creations to fabricate their STEM installation, inspiring students at a Northamptonshire school. STEM is a sculptural feature created for the Science and Technology Building in the long-established Oundle School, who commissioned Draisci Studio, to imagine a piece that could emphasize the role of Science and Mathematics in everyday life.
STEM brings together complex geometry and a juxtaposition of materials with the sculpture base a mixture of concrete and cork, leading to a coloured Perspex® acrylic form reaching up to the natural light emanating from the ceiling.
The sculpture is interactive for the student with the base providing space for students to sit and meet, while transparent Perspex® acrylic in four colours allows views, overlapping colours and distortions to change as visitors climb the spiral staircase surrounding it.
As Caroline Dent, Art Teacher at Oundle, says: ‘The sculpture seems a living and involving form, which tells a story through its play and interaction with light, space and human presence. Placing an abstract sculptural form within the hub of the school community stimulates intellectual curiosity, raises debate and offers new perspectives to the place.’
The installation is made of eighty modules in the shape of a Truncated Octahedron – a geometric form that tessellates allowing one module to fit with other equal modules. The foyer becomes animated by the vibrant reflections of light through the Perspex® acrylic flooding from the large oculus in the ceiling.
The name STEM is a reference to the space in which it is created and represents the first letters of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. It is also a tribute to the way mathematical patterns manifest themselves in plants, organic growth and natural development.
Draisci Studio is a London based practice that designs and develops unique projects whose work has been exhibited at the V&A, the London Design Museum and the Venice Architectural Biennale.
Design by Draisci Studio - www.draisci.com
Photography by Will Scott – www.willscottphotography.com
Fabrication by Zone Creations – www.zone-creations.co.uk
Engineer: Foster Structures