ComponenteDevoto_towards the mockup

In the end my idea for the Devoto's furniture will be fabricated. At present, i've a good -?- idea (the passive acoustic chair) and a very poor design, whose production is neither easy nor cheap. I will work on this path from now on: linking together design, production and acoustics better.

I will meet mr. Devoto on Friday, since we need to produce a mockup.It shall test both acoustic and fabrication: it can therefore be part of my design. In order to test acoustics, it shall be twice as long as the smallest wavelenght which rpg diffuse. My lowest frequency is 630hz, therefore the surface of the component is not "small" when it's 110cm wide minimum. 

What happens if we build up a smaller mockup is that we cannot see wheter rpg is working or not.

1_Where we were

At present my design is made of ribs like this one. In picture we see a mockup's rib.

Since we need to understand which angle works best, the mocku shall be rotating-able: but this is a problem since i've not solved the conjuntion between the two halves. Another problem is: in the aggregate, the diffusing surface is twice-the-wavelenght wide, but what if the opening should be that wide too? It could be a problem.

Producing two un-connncected halves does not seem so clever...but on the other way it could be possible to test acoustics like this (if it is big enough), for rotation and summetry issues. Indeed, nothing seems sure.

Mr. DEvoto was not enthusiastic about this way of producing ribs: it could be too expensive since the work to do is a lot (machineries would have to work extremely slow and precise); moreover this is the most efficient nesting solution, while it waste a lot of wood.

The mock up should cost one entire panel.

2_Another Way

I've therefore tought about another way of producing the component.

It's about the production of three separate kind of elements: i.wooden sheets, 5mm thick-i need to ask mr. devoto for! ii.wooden dividers, 40mm thick iii.a base. and a top. This sistem creates the RPG profile departing from vertical slices intead of horizontal ones (producing a schroeder profile couold be a good move if we were working with extruded materials, neither nested nor milled).

This sistem seems to be more efficient by far -rpg is made of vertical elements!-. In this simple mockup pieces are cutten and linke -glued?- together. Same considerations of above concering dimensions, angle, ecc.

What seems to be exteremely interesting from my point of view is that using sheets and dividers allow to create a new language -more "parametric" by far- which can help designing the component. On the other end, it will be more difficolut to work on "stand alone" acoustic: the target for this new production style is, according to me, the acoustic of the whole -small- ambient, such as that famous jazz club.

Let's see what mr. DEvoto do think.