Infinite Triple Helix
A looping braid of big ideas for the main hallways and atria of the STEM building.
Short description
Form study for University of Nebraska STEM building commission. Infinite Triple Helix - A looping braid of big ideas for the main hallways and atria of the STEM building. Celebration of STEM education and professions as an iterative and richly varied braid of three interdependent strands: Discovery, Understanding, Invention- across a wildly diverse spectrum of disciplines and specialties.
Full Story
Infinite Triple Helix
A looping braid of big ideas for the main hallways and atria of the STEM building.
Celebration of STEM education and professions as an iterative and richly varied braid of three interdependent strands: Discovery, Understanding, Invention- across a wildly diverse spectrum of disciplines and specialties.
Our purpose is to celebrate the cycle of discovery, understanding, and invention as a complex ecology of critical and creative processes.
Our vision for the STEM building is to build a three-sided helical structure running along the ceiling of the ground floor hallway, up the two-story atrium, along the hallway on the second floor, and back down the two-story atrium at the other end to form a continuous/infinite loop through the building's connected open spaces.
Our concept is a variant of the well-recognized DNA double helix, for which we imagine a third strand wound around the first two, producing a dynamic looping "super-sequence" of three sets of linked keywords related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics at the various levels of education, research, development, and implementation.
Our Strategy is to install the piece as a set of hanging pre-built painted twisted-prism segments made of lightweight birch plywood pre-finished with large graphic text overlays. Thanks to the durability, strength, and light weight of the material, the piece can be installed concurrently (and with the same crew/equipment) as the ceiling panel and lighting systems. We will work with the building's designers and builders to ensure an efficient, safe, and durable installation.The set of three free-associating "chains" of STEM-related words coiled around each other to make up the Infinite Triple Helix will call out the rich variety and complexity of STEM subjects, and the even more intricate set of actual and possible relationships between those fields and the worlds and technologies they address... from certain angles, the piece may also act as a playful reminder to subject area experts not to string too many "terms of art" together in a steady tone of voice when addressing novices.