Chris Galea - BENV2423: September 2008

In Experiment One, I studied the effect of extremely large explosions such as nuclear bombs on the built environment. The experimental results showed that large buildings within a large radius of the epicenter of the bomb blast would be destroyed by the forces originating from the blast. A building which was made up of large support structures, with several levels was blown to the group. As the shockwave hit the building, the structural components were lifted upwards causing the structure to loose integrity. As the shockwave moved through the building, these structural elements were propelled away from the blast before suffering the effects of gravity and falling to the ground.

In this experiment I have used this result and developed it to remove a certain amount of mass from the original building. To mirror the upward and then horizontal force of the explosion in Experiment One I used lofts originating from geometric shapes such as squares and long rectangles which symbolize structural components of a building. These were then lofted throughout the building as if the structure was pushed through the interior ripping a void as the surrounding attached building components were pulled with it. Some of these lofts went entirely through the building showing that the structural components were completely blown out of the architecture, and others stopped within the building, as the explosion would be dampened by the interior objects.

The voids in the building affect a large majority of the exterior, as I wanted to mirror the impact of an external explosion rather than an internal one. By curving the lofts through the building, I was able to represent the movement of the shockwave throughout different aspects of the architecture, such as main hallways or large rooms. There are many large voids left within the still standing structure, showing the final effect of the impact and movement throughout the building.