Pleated Shell Structures, a Zaha Hadid Architects site specific installation, will be on view from October 12 through December 2, 2012 at the SCI-Arc Gallery.

Pleated Shell Structures is a short term research prototype designed by Pritzker Architecture Prize-winning architect Zaha Hadid and her firm. The prototype posits itself within the argument of parametric design research to focus its efforts on design methods that encompass an operative pathway from design intent to manifestation.

Physical form-finding - hanging chains and cloth, soap films etc. - and associated architectural design methods as pioneered by Antonio Gaudi, Heinz Isler, Frei Otto, Felix Candela and others is common knowledge among architects. The proposed research-prototype aims to extend this work to adequately represent the ambitions and complexities of scale, digital design systems and delivery mechanisms of contemporary architectural practices.

The installation will explore as a design-build exercise, synergies between architectural articulation, engineering logics and fabrication constraints. It will continue Zaha Hadid Architects' on-going research on architectural articulation of self-supporting, curved surface geometries.