Cloud Forest
Cultural · Aviary
2022 · sP+a
With Sudarshan Venkatraman and Kunal Sharma
Cloud Forest is an aviary, a forest planted under one continuous mesh canopy. The idea was a forest inside a cloud, with the whole structure a mesh shaped like a cloud. At its 12 m height the structural limit was a 22.5 m span, so the L-shaped footprint was laid out on a 22.5 m grid. Columns were placed, thinned out and repositioned on that grid, and the network that remained gave three kinds of canopy module, each shaped by mesh relaxation in Grasshopper.
The grid is derived from the corner square of the L, and 22.5 x 22.5 m becomes the module for the whole aviary. A column was first placed at every intersection. Columns that were not needed were then removed, which also broke the layout away from a regular diagrid. The lower plan shows the network that remained.
The resulting pattern was then optimised by an algorithm in two ways. Column positions were adjusted to keep every span in plan within 22.5 m, and the arches were equalised to one length. The upper study measures the plan spans as the columns move. The lower one keeps all the arches at one shared length in every step, brought down from 30.46 m to 21.44 m.
The optimised network gave three kinds of canopy module. A is the largest, repeated along both arms of the L. B is the smaller piece that fills the gaps along the edges, and C closes the end of each arm and the corner. The canopy is built from these three, repeated and joined.
Each module starts from its plan shape, shaded, with an arch along each of its edges. A mesh spanned between those arches was relaxed using Kangaroo in Grasshopper into the curved surface shown above each plan. The dashed lines link each surface back to its plan.
Under the canopy, paths run between planting and water. Each column rises from the ground and branches into the arches, with the mesh stretched over them.
Drawings and views
- Aerial view of the canopy's arches and columns over paths, planting, and water
- Plan of the 22.5 m grid with a column at every intersection, then the reduced network
- Ground-level view of the paths, planting, water, columns, and mesh canopy
- Plan spans as the columns move, and arch lengths from 30.46 m to 21.44 m
- Plan spans as the columns move, and arch lengths from 30.46 m to 21.44 m
- The canopy, with module types A, B, and C in red
- Modules A, B, and C, with plan shape, boundary arches, and relaxed mesh