I T H A C A

We wanted to mix fantasy with reality, so our goal was to envision a flying intergalactic starship, that hosts a longterm human colony. For this design, a flexible, modular shape would be required, for adjustability and capability of growing.

We were inspired by the mechanism and the gears of Antikythera mechanism. In addition, we discovered some common design principles in sci-fi concepts, such as Space Odyssey, with a starship that can generate artificial gravitational field, which is the only way to make a long space trip viable.

In theory, a centripetal force is required to create an artificial gravitational field. This is why, an inhabited ring element, around a central core that is quickly turning, is the way to go. Using magnetism, the whole structure could be more independent.

In order to achieve flexibility and modularity, we envisioned a tower composition of modular turning gears and a helix turning around it.

With contraction and dilation of a flexible “dna” shape, asteroids could be avoided effectively.

For the central core, we studied some modular gears.

We created classes of toruses, hexagons and octagons, applying different variations of mesh subdivisions using Python and COMPAS Libraries.

We combined pyramid subdivisions with tapered subdivisions on different heights, and finally applied catmullclark subdivision in the simpler forms.