Digital Design & Fabrication
Earl’s Gourmet Grub is an eatery located in Los Angeles. FreelandBuck designed the interior space, including a large low relief mural along one wall of the space. As the second image illustrates, FreelandBuck digitally translated a photo of an alpine landscape into a grid-like pattern using progressively smaller squares to provide more detail. The finished piece uses white maple veneer laminated onto standard sheets of medium-density fiberboard (MDF), which is then precisely cut by a computer numerical control (CNC) milling machine.
After seeing this project, it reminded me of the de Young museum in San Francisco, which I visited a couple of years ago.The facade of the de Young Museum, designed by Swiss architects Herzog & deMeuron, was created using a similar digitally-informed process. The architects digitally translated images of tree canopies into patterns of circular perforations and indentions, which were then pressed and/or cut into large copper panels. The intent was to replicate the impression of light filtering through a tree canopy, which resonates with the tree-filled park in which the de Young is located.
Here is a recent article from Architectural Record that provides more examples of the use of digital fabrication in architecture and design.