Voltadom by Skylar Tibbits | Skylar Tibbits

For the celebration of the 150th anniversary of MIT and the FAST Arts Festival (Festival of Arts, Science and Technology), the studio SJET founded by Skylar Tibbits has created an installation that fills the space in the hallway between buildings 56 and 66 of the MIT campus called VOLTADOM .

This installation fills the space of the MIT concrete and glass hallway with hundreds of vaults reminiscent of more characteristic constructive way of historic cathedrals, the vault. With Gothic reminiscences, the surface composed of different types of vaults articulated in the hallway creates an effect of boundary where the “oculi” become the release of such limit filling the hallway with light and views of the outside.

The VOLTADOM installation plans to expand the architectural notion we have of panel surface, increasing the depth of a doubly curved vaulted surface, while maintaining the relative ease of manufacture and assembly.

The ease of assembly of this complex surface has to do with the processing of single strips of material bent and assembled to achieve the effect of the vault. The set demonstrates the relative ease that an installation has to change, modify and shape space.

This installation by Skylar Tibits also resembles a cell group that will multiply and grow in a relationship of interdependence between cells, to build a solid border. As a self-replicating system, adaptable to a given space.

Does the future of architecture is a material that self replicate and adapt to fill voids and create boundaries? SJET is a multifaceted studio, founded by Skylar Tibbits in 2007 as a research platform for computing and experimental design.