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Strung between buildings at Oxford Circus, the enormous net sculpture "1.8 London" was named after one of the astonishing impacts of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan. Such was the strength of the vibrations, the earthquake momentarily sped up the earth's rotation and shortened that day by 1.8 microseconds - hence the sculpture’s title.

Using data from NASA, Studio Echelman turned this phenomenon into a 3D image, the basis of which was used to create the shape of the London sculpture. The soft surfaces of the sculpture undulate, making every breath of wind visible to the human eye. It appears lighter than air, yet was designed to withstand storms.

What makes dynamic installations like this possible is the use of lightweight polymer fibre 'rope' as the key structural element rather than rigid steel. The pre-stressed rope network supports, and forms an integral part of the sculpture. It also makes the installation visually light, in line with the artistic intention.

With such structures the form 'finds itself' as the elements and loads interact. It is new ground, and a US-based Arup team built a new Rhino plugin for adaptive form finding, using Oasys GSA for the analysis of the pre-stressed net. There was inevitably a lot of back and forth between the two during the project, but the ease of interfacing the programs and the speed with which Oasys GSA can test ideas simplified the process.

"Good design is always an iterative process," comments Peter Debney, Application Specialist at GSA developer Oasys, part of the Arup Group. "Models might be amended and run countless times. The best software is designed to enable that constant querying and improvement, pushing the boundaries to bring ideas to life."

Janet Echelman's sculptures are inspired by the fishing nets she encountered as an artist-in-residence in India. She has since gone on to exhibit her unique works across the world, and Arup engineers have been involved with most of these projects. These include the half-acre "As if it were already here" installed above the Greenway at the Rose Kennedy Centre in Boston, "Unnumbered Sparks" for the TED 2014 convention in Vancouver, and "The Impatient Optimist" at the Seattle campus of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
www.arup.com
www.echelman.com
www.oasys-software.com