Endless House
Research Project: Through DARC (digital Architecture research Center)
at UKC. A digital interpretation with Dr Tim Ireland
Kiesler’s Endless House is regarded as one of the most visionary projects in the history of C20th architecture. It was a project that spanned almost 40yrs, developed through sketches, drawings, plans and models between mid-1920’s through into the 60’s – but it was never built. Walter Gropius (founder of the Bauhaus) considered it important to translate Kiesler’s architecture into reality. Due to its unusual form, and the theory underpinning it, the Endless House is a pre-cursor to many of today’s leading contemporary architects; such as Greg Lynn, Asymptote and Zaha Hadid Architects.
Reverse Engineering
Much of what we know of the Endless House is from texts, drawings and photographs of the model, but these records do not compare accurately, and the Endless House is geometrically and spatially complicated. Production of the 3D digital model was aimed to therefore facilitate a clearer understanding of the Endless House geometry and form. Digital models of the Endless house have been produced previously but the focus of these studies has been the shell, to speculate how the structure might have worked. The inside spatial qualities have been overlooked. Yet, the quality of the space was essential to Kieslers design. The production of such a model was aimed to aid in the better understanding of the Endless House geometry and form, and improve knowledge of Kiesler’s design thinking. I used Autodesk Fusion 360 to create a three dimensional model, through the reverse engineering of the original drawings created in C20th.
