"OCCA" INSTALLATION BEYOND BORDERS!

The installation project “Occa,” prepared within the Architecture program at Kadir Has University, can be visited at the Rezan Has Museum during June and July. Combining parametric design and digital fabrication tools, Occa is worth seeing.

Contrasting with the historic texture inside the Kadir Has University Rezan Has Museum, the minimal and futuristic Occa takes its form from Ferrea Occa, a type of glass sponge with four-branched surfaces. These sponges, considered by some experts as the longest-living organisms in the world, were studied and documented in 1904 by German biologist Ernst Haeckel as part of Artistic Forms of Nature (Kunstformen der Natur).

In the design of the installation, polyhedral geometries resembling the sponge’s form were combined and differentiated through branches facing different directions. The surface geometry, divided into strips, was created by connecting black strips inside with white strips outside. It is fixed by being suspended from two different points with steel cables.

The installation project, prepared under the title “Parametric Design: Minimal Tectonics,” was produced as a result of a three-stage research. In the first stage, students conducted “form-finding” experiments using the soap film technique developed by Frei Otto in the 1960s and produced various curved surfaces. In the second stage, the produced surfaces were transferred to codes and derived using parametric modeling tools. In the final stage, the selected form was defined through flat parts using digital fabrication algorithms and laser-cut from forex sheets, then assembled with rivets.

Occa is definitely worth seeing!

Project Coordinator: Dr. Sabri Gökmen,

Fabrication / Manufacturing: Muvaffak Ali Akyüz, Louis Folkens, Fatma Yeşim Kızılbulut, Özce Özköse, Melike Ayyüce Güneş, Mustafa Ilgaz Aluç, Şevval Büşra Özmen.

Graphics / Images: Abbas Khan, Mohammed Jarrar, Ahmed Barzan, Ali Ozan Güvenç.