Algarden Zome in Make Magazine

Day of the Dead Festival, San Francisco

On November 2nd of 2009 we set up our Zome for the third time, in Garfield Park, San Francisco.

This installation was our first totally free to the public display. And while it was only up for about 10 hours it seemed as if it was appreciated by more people than the previous two events combined.

In terms of assembly and disassembly this time was very good.

Assembly took 1 hour 45 minutes. Disassembly took half that time. Pretty manageable. Tools used: soap, ladder and a mallet.

Thank you to our many friends, old and new, who came to help with the assembly and participate in the event.

For hours it was standing room only inside and out.

The Zome sheltered our Altar - The Altar of Zomatitlan. A colorful, smaller four frequency zome built with papel picado style faces and illuminated from within with candles.

For many the Zome and the Altar provided the ideal environment to remember and acknowledge the wisdom, memory and love of their ancestors, family and friends who have passed away.

The event, provided with a full moon and clear, warm weather, created a very beautiful and powerful evening.

Zome Mani Padme Zome

Decompression SF 2009

Thanks to the many beautiful friends who helped us set up and break down the Bootiesattva Zome at Decompression SF yesterday. During the 10 hours or so that the zome was set up it was probably experienced by more people than during the entire week at Burningman. It was an awesome day and wonderful to see so many people react with wonder and joy to the structure.

I think the coolest thing about the zome is that it's not only Art but it's a space for sitting, a space for resting, for observing and connecting with people...

...and for many people during the day it was a space for eating lunch.

It's a real joy to have been able to realize such a form that provokes so many smiles. Here are some of the quotes about the zome overheard during the day..

"...this is game changing.."

"...what the...?"

"..genius.."

"..it's so simple.."

"..it's math, architecture and love.."

Thanks to everyone who enjoyed the zome and took the time to talk with me about it.

Ok it may be all math, architecture and love but the zome is also alive in many respects, not the least of which is the ability to defend itself.

Here we see a future Zomonaut testing the torpedo system.

Future Zomonaut

The data is still being analysed but preliminary results are very positive.

Please look for the Zome again in San Francisco on November 2nd for Dia de los Muertos. We will be building a Community Altar for the Day of the Dead Festival.

The Altar of Zomatitlan is what it's called.

..more to come.

Welcome to my Spaceship! Beautiful Forever.

A giant Zome shaped thanks to everyone who helped to fund our Burningman 2009 Art piece: Evolving to Bootiesattva: Zome Mani Padme Zome.

The name is a mouthful and quite franky is simply what ended up on the application form. Like the structure of the Zome itself the names represent different facets of the same thing - the overlapping inside jokes and plays on words of the day; an amalgam of the irreverent and the profound. So, yes, but what is it really?



It's a Zome, a zonohedral dome, made entirely of wood. It's also a spaceship. It's a giant puzzle, the Bootiesattva, zome mani padme zome, an Artilect seed, an instance of a generative geometric cnc cut architectural pattern class, a Temple of Love, Sacred Geometry, a playa portal and gazebo.


Production began noon Monday, one week before the event.

First joint

Part of the Art of the project was to be able to bang out a sizable structure with a very reasonable amount of time and labor. The production of the zome was completed on noon Friday. After approximately 30 hours of cnc cutting and shop labor the zome was ready.

Cutting the clips

Assembly on the playa was hampered by dust storms and wind. It took a total of 8 hours to assemble the project - about half of which was spent sitting in the back of the truck waiting for a break in the weather.

And another quarter of which was spent dealing with a handful of problem parts. With good weather and refined tolerances assembly should easily be under 2 hours. At least we were 100% done working early Tuesday which left plenty of quality Playa time.

A Temple

It's a Temple for grounding, for meditation and healing; a space for reflection and introspection. It brings the outside in and lets the inside out. It's a manifest declaration of a living system - dividing Universe into two parts; the inside and the outside, yet maintaining the connection and allowing information to effortlessly pass thru it's boundary membrane. It provides an organic and harmonious context from which to view Universe and complementarily Self.

Each of the benches provides a different perspective of the Playa and Sky through elliptically framed portals the multiplicity of which give scale and context to the outer vista. The feelings of being safely ensconced, wellness and omni-perception coexist withing the Zome.

The Zome by Sunrise

The joy and wonder with which everyone received the Zome was a pleasure to witness. It was an additional pleasant surprise that most people noticed and appreciated the usage of all wooden cnc cut fasteners. From far and near the Zome was designed to intrigue and draw the viewer every closer as new details and structural patterns come into view.

A Spaceship:

Emerging from the Playa

There is actually much, much more but it's still underground. Perhaps after a year of nurturing more will come forth and mature, gaining form and cohesion. And again each year until our spaceship casts off from the Earth.

Zome Mani Padme Zome

-Rob Bell and Patricia Algara, 2009

Prepare for the Playa

In August we'll be joining our friends at Prepare for the Playa

Connecting you to everything you need for the BURN!

What :
Fashion shows
Playa 'U' how to clinics
Live entertainment & Performance
...and all the playa specific and playa friendly products & fashions from local Burner-Prenuers!

When :
12pm-8pm 8/1 , 8/22 & 8/23

Where :
The Artist Grotto and North Parking Lot of
The Sports Basement
1590 Bryant Street, SF

The Bodhisattva Zome

The spiral is the most ancient symbol found on every civilized continent

The spiral of nature, art, mathematics - a constant form at all scales which revolves around itself ever evolving upward towards syntropy, synergy, life, concousness and enlightenment. The duality of the spiral embodies the cyclical nature of birth and rebirth and the escape therefrom.


On the Playa enter the Zome Mani Padme Zome and begin the evolutionary journey; the cycle or birth and rebirth thru a spiral labyrinth of luminarias ever evolving inwards, ever evolving upwards, sometimes setback but ultimately finding the sacred lotus zome at the center - the Bodhisattva. A sacred space where experiences happen.

Conception

From Duality a union is formed
a Unity thus begotten.
A future child of hope and love
and a past not forgotten.

zome mani padme zome

Naming 'The Bot'

I don't know why people feel the need to anthropomorphize important objects in their lives by assigning proper names.

Yet I too feel the urge.

Yes I say. Let us give the Shopbot a name and we can coyly refer to him/her daily with a wink and nod as we talk about what 'Botty' or 'Betty' or 'BigDog' is up to.

It'll be fun and other people will join in and soon we'll all be saying, 'Conad can cut that acrylic up, lickety split!'

But then again, that's all pretty pointless and silly. Maybe we should grow up a little and get back to work. Harrumph!

..ok, I can walk this line.

Let us say that on a daily basis the Shopbot shall be referred to by the ubiquitous and efficacious appellation 'The Bot'. However, formally, for signing checks and stuff like that The Bot shall also have a proper name.

In homage to Scott Adams I present...


Shopbert !

Can you tell? He's smiling :-)

Das Bot

Since last April, Ian and I have been working on starting up a cnc millshop.

In July we secured a great space in San Francisco. Then, last week, the centerpiece of our enterprise arrived in an enormous wooden crate just tipping the scales at about 1/2 ton.

The past week has been spent assembling the beast. The archetypical christmas morning toy assembly extrapolated to its absurd extreme.

We took our time and savored the process and did it right. Overall everything was very straightforward. Not always easy but for every problem which arose a solution was at hand.

Today it is ready to be hooked up by an electrician. When that happens we'll be in business.

Best Memory Number 18

When I was 18 I performed a sight gag which made John Cleese laugh so hard he bent over and slapped his knee.

Bucky

Richard Buckminster Fuller 1895 - 1983

I tend to be a binge reader. During 2005 my focus of this excess was Fuller. I'm still not done but at least I'm reading other things these days.

Thanks of course to the internet my interest in geodesic structures and polyhedral forms quickly led me straight to Fuller. Before that I might have been able to say, 'wasn't he the dome guy?' which is about all I get from people most of the time.

Turns out there is much, much more to the contribution that this man made. I'd go so far as to maintain that he's as yet a still somewhat undiscovered messiah. When the dust has settled people will look back and realize he said it first but nobody was listening.

Spectacular successes, more spectacular failures, audacious propositions, anti-government essays and an alien geometry which overrides Decartes like Einstein did Newton renders Bucky as a tireless and enigmatic prophet.

Fuller was a philosopher and a poet. 'Specialization is slavery', he said. Yet in our modern world who doesn't want to specialize. How else are you going to make a lot of money?

I don't think there's anything wrong with being very, very good at something. But when the price paid for that skill is to the extreme detriment of other skills and virtues then there's an unhealthy imbalance. Society inculcates us with the opinion that academic specialization is the highest virtue. But the successful, professional academic is also trapped. Perhaps he must relocate in order to get a job in his field. Perhaps he's become so focused on his particular field that he find himself ignorant of much else.

To Fuller being a comprehensivist was a higher virtue. And he doesn't mean knowing just a little about a lot - he means knowing a lot about a lot. It's not that hard if one applies oneself.

In the '70s Fuller was outspoken regarding the myth of scarcity. Even now, in 2006 with over 6 billion people we can say that the Earth could easily support us all if only we were'nt so stupid with our efforts. Read 'Grunch of Giants' for the original conspiracy theory.

And then there's his math, Synergetics. I'm still working on this one. Fuller's fundamental tetrahedral coordinate system which provides an alternate geometry for describing natural phenomena. Suffice it to say that within it is contained a wondrous world of truths to which most everyone is blind. Simplistic or sublime - with Fuller the two are often synonymous.

Fuller, Anthology for a New Millennium - Thomas T.K. Zung
Critical Path - Buckminster Fuller
Grunch of Giants - Buckminster Fuller
Bucky Works - J. Baldwin
Buckminster Fuller's Universe - Lloyd Steven Sieden
Earth, Inc. - Buckminster Fuller
Your Private Sky, The Art of Design Science - Buckminster Fuller
Synergetics - Buckminster Fuller

Zomad says think outside the tetrahedron.

A Pattern Language

A Pattern Language
Towns - Buildings - Construction
by Christopher Alexander - Sara Ishikawa - Murray Silverstein
1977

This text weighs in at 253 sections spread over 1171 pages. No light read but well worth the time and effort. It's illuminating and insightful in regards to how design science techniques can vastly improve the quality of life within an environment, how underappreciated this point of view is and how poorly modern society performs in fostering the values espoused.

Having worked as a professional software engineer for many years I was already familiar with design patterns in software architecture and I knew they'd somehow originated from a similar organizational hierarchy in structural architecture. I bought this book not realizing that this was very much the Book that started it all.

The word Language in the title is very relevant. A Language provides one with a vocabulary with which to label objects and events within a system. The grammer of the language establishes a framework from which to organize and create an internal model of the system. Without such a language it is almost impossible to even think about a system in a meaningful way. Without a symbolic language the objects and events perceived in a system are a nebulous aggregate of impressions, visualizations and feelings. A difficult set of tools to work with. Alexander has created an example of a language which describes a specific architectural value system. One which he proposes we'd all be much better off to follow that not.

The vocabulary of the language is in the title of each of the 253 chapters:

1. Independent Regions
25. Access to Water
36. Degrees of Publicness
41. Work Community
60. Accessible Green
80. Self-Governing Workshops and Offices
96. Number of Stories
107. Wings of Light
116. Cascade of Roofs
135. Tapestry of Light and Dark
154. Open Stairs
167. Six-Foot Balcony
210. Floor and Ceiling Layout
239. Small Panes
242. Front Door Bench
253. Things from your Life

...a small sampling. To each is devoted a summary, an illustration and an argument as to why the pattern is important and good. By and large I agree with Alexander's reasoning and his conclusions. Living in an urban environment in which I'm surrounded with many examples of good and bad, pleasant and unpleasant, well designed and well built juxtaposed with utter crap - this book gave me a way to understand why I like what I do and don't what I don't.

I've stopped trying to get my friends to read this book. But if you want to understand why a well designed community, home, threshold and porch are actually better for you than their counter examples then this book pretty much says it all. You will then be more empowered to actually do something about it.

Zomad says read it!

To blog...

..or not to blog?

For is it better to gobble goblets of globular cobbler or to cobble global kibble baubles?