Client: Albany International Airport Art & Culture Program

Overview

Corollaria Gyroid is a sculpture for Albany Airport which explores the connections between mathematics and the natural world, highlighting the presence of mathematical principles in biological structures. Measuring almost 7 feet in diameter, it is made up of 121 flat aluminum panels connected by 1789 rivets into an undulating surface perforated by morphing cellular patterns. The surface represented is a gyroid, a minimal surface discovered in 1968 by Alan Schoen at NASA as a purely mathematical invention but which was later found in natural structures such as the scales of butterfly wings. The cellular filigree is inspired by the patterns seen in plant cross sections, bryozoans and the undersides of some mushrooms. The design is generated via a computational system created by the artists which breaks a surface into flat puzzle piece panels that can be assembled without any forming, jigs or instructions into a complex shape.

Goals

The sculpture will be on display at the airport for the next 3 years in the B terminal where it hangs within a circular skylight. We are so excited to have our work on display at our local airport and also to have been able to realize ideas we’ve been working on for the last several years in metal.