I participated in this project of Nikolas Weinstein as a manufacturing engineer and installation overseer.
Billed as one of the largest glass sculptures in the world, the piece included over 17,000 unique tubes and twice as many connecting members, along with a suite of custom hardware used to join the piece to itself and the structure of the building.
My work involved building the kiln, designing the workflow and production methods, creating the various families of hardware, developing a method to ship over 5 shipping containers worth of glass overseas, and managing the onsite installation in Manila over 4 months.
Here are some various aspects that I worked on.
These 3d printed and machined tools were developed to put a perfect bend in the wire passing through each tube, registering off the end of the tube and customizable with modular offsets to produce the correct spacing.
An Injection molded plug system was designed in Fusion 360 and injection molded by Xometry. Part silicone, part acrylic, the assembly forms a cushioned mechanical joint at the end of each tube. Total order was around 80,000 parts.
This custom cable hardware was designed in Fusion 360 and manufactured by Xometry after many 3d printed prototypes. Over 1500 parts were created for this family.
A unique form of frapping was used to bind adjacent stainless tubes together to form a structural connection. Bespoke to the location, 17 unique spacer blocks were machined for these connections. The aluminum spacer was shaped to allow the tubes being secured to mate at a variety of angles and orientations.
Designed a set of cable anchor hardware to connect the sculpture to the building. Each cable would withstand 7,000 pounds force, and each steel “bugle” could carry up to 3 cables, fastened to a threaded tensioning system in the rear. Over 150 of varying lengths were used in various orientations.
A family of molds was developed to produce gentle transitions from straight to radius glass tubing by kiln slumping.
A system of bespoke CNC’d assembly frames which tripled as a shipping rack and installation jig.
Oversaw the onsite installation in Solaire Metro North casino.
A documentary was produced on the making of and installation of the sculpture