FORM FINDING LAB - Key Persons
Amber Lin '19 is a Civil Engineering and Architecture major from Edison, NJ currently doing research in erosion protection for rammed earth construction in temperate climates. She will be part of a team designing, building, and monitoring a rammed earth gazebo and test walls to be built in the Forbes Garden this summer. As an inaugural PACE Center Bogle Fellow, she will also work on integrating service and sustainability education components to the research project by organizing service days for volunteers and creating signs in the garden for visitors to learn more about the garden, rammed earth, and sustainable practices in general. Today, Amber is currently working on a tool that quantifies and incentives users to reduce their carbon footprint as part of her senior thesis.
My name is Ameen Moshirfar and I am a senior in the Civil Engineering Department pursuing certificates in Architecture and Computer Science. I am from Salt Lake City, Utah, and I love rock climbing, pottery, and playing guitar. During the 2019-2020 school year, I will be working with Professor Sigrid Adriaenssens to study design and fabrication techniques of origami structures. The ultimate goal will be to arrive at a design that can function as an emergency shelter or off-grid home. Using origami simulators and finite element modeling, I will create a design that optimizes flat foldability, ease of deployment, and stability. I am excited to be a part of the Form Finding Laboratory, and work at what I see to be an intriguing intersection of Civil Engineering, Architecture, and Computer Science.
My name is Ange Ndayishimiye and I am a senior in the class of 2022, pursuing a B.S.E. in Civil and Environmental Engineering with certificates in Architecture and Engineering, Urban Studies, and East Asian Studies. Originally from the Greater Toronto Area, I spend a large portion of my time at the rugby fields as the Co-Captain of the Princeton Women's Rugby Club which is transitioning to varsity status next year. Additionally, I serve on the board of the Princeton University ASCE Student Chapter, and am the House Manager of the Cap & Gown Club.
This year I am working with Professor Adriaenssens and the Form Finding Lab to explore the affordances and limitations presented by the use of robotics and digital fabrication tools in the construction of traditional Japanese timber joints, using both physical testing as well as finite element analysis. I hope to extend the research to small scale assemblage applications, and look forward to taking an interdisciplinary approach to an exploration of traditional Japanese construction methods.
Ashley P. Thrall completed her Ph.D. in the "Design and Optimization of Linkage-Based Movable Bridges" in May 2011 under the direction of Sigrid Adriaenssens, Maria Garlock, and David Billington. This research focused on developing new forms for movable bridges utilizing linkages as the main structural and kinematic elements. The research methodology has included using physical shape-finding techniques to develop new conceptual designs that utilize mechanical advantage to minimize power demands. The geometry and the section profiles of each conceptual design are optimized for minimum self-weight and minimum force for operation. She is currently the Cardinal John O'Hara, C.S.C. Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering and Geological Sciences at the University of Notre Dame where she directs the Kinetic Structures Laboratory (www.nd.edu/ athrall).
My name is Chase Lovgren and I am a rising Junior in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department. Last summer I worked as an intern at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization in Germany. I began working in the Form-Finding Lab in May 2019 with support from the Princeton Environmental Institute on a project concerning storm surge barriers and resiliency in urban coastal areas. I find that challenges are best tackled by studying what came before them, which is why this project is of particular interest to me. I am personally invested in working on this project because I come from a coastal community that was heavily affected by Superstorm Sandy in 2012. I have seen firsthand the effects of natural catastrophes and why it is imperative that we think proactively about solutions. I will be working with Katherine, Joe, and Olek. I hope to specifically focus on learning how to propose solutions, and studying what types of proposals have been effective in the past.
My name is Nicole Martin, and I am a rising junior in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, pursuing certificates in African-American Studies, Portuguese, and Latin American Studies. I am from Alexandria, Virginia, and I am passionate about environmental and social justice. At Princeton, I am the co-president of Princeton University Mixed Association (PUMA; formerly known as Blended) and the co-director of publicity and graphic design for Princeton University Energy Association. During the summer of 2021, I will be a researcher with Professor Sigrid Adriaenssens and Professor Maria Garlock on representation of women and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, or People of Color) within bridge design. The bridge designers we research will be considered for display at the Triennial International Bridge Design Exhibition, and their work will potentially be documented in a research paper. I am excited to work with the Form Finding Laboratory and to delve into the intersection of diversity and civil engineering.
My name is Dan Reynolds and I am a PhD student in the Mechanics, Materials and Structures branch of the Civil and Environmental Engineering department at Princeton University. Following undergraduate degrees in Civil Engineering and Sculpture at Penn State, I came to Princeton to study form-finding and optimization techniques. In Greek mythology, Pygmalion is a sculptor who creates a statue so exquisite that he falls in love with it. For him, this form represented a previously unimaginable perfection, and it came to life (if only in a twisted fantasy). It is easy to see how those who create objects can be driven by the ultimate goal of bringing an idea to life. I like to view structural engineering as a four-dimensional process of formulating and evaluating systems that give objects shape. Structural engineers are not limited to supporting a prescribed form, but through familiarity with materials and manufacturing techniques can create forms that ‘optimize' a client's desire for economy, safety, and quality.
My name is Danny Weiss, and I am a senior undergraduate student studying Civil Engineering and Architecture at Princeton University. I am greatly looking forward to working with Professor Sigrid Adriaenssens this year on my senior independent thesis, exploring the renovation of churches and cathedrals in increasingly secularized Europe. We will be using existing form finding techniques to most efficiently create a program that reorganizes unused church spaces into service oriented projects, whether that be homeless shelters, shelters for abused women, etc. I spent the summer interning for the organization Bridges to Prosperity, and hope to continue pursuing work in a similarly humanitarian vein once I finish my undergraduate degree.
My name is Emily Colborne and I am a member of the class of 2022 from North Carolina. In addition to my concentration in Civil and Environmental Engineering, I am pursuing a certificate in Architecture and Engineering. On campus I am heavily involved in Princeton Christian Fellowship and the Society of Women Engineers. For my senior thesis I am working with Prof. Sigrid Adriaenssens and a team to explore options for the restoration of Anton Tedesko's thin shell concrete roof covering the Philadelphia Skating Club and Humane Society (PSCHS) ice rink. My project on the PSCHS structure will entail scientific, social, and symbolic analyses. For the scientific analysis, I plan to evaluate the importance of the tension cables under the rink and to discuss their pertinence to the structure (given that the shell also employs the use of buttresses). I hope to discover whether having both these components is redundant and plan to discuss the importance of restoring structures, specifically the PSCHS shell.
My name is Emre Robe, and I'm a rising senior at the Washington International School in Washington, D.C. At Princeton, I've been working with Victor Charpentier on a planned exhibit at the Botanical Gardens which will demonstrate how a material can increase in strength without changing the amount used. Before working on the project, I learned the fundamentals of bending and stress mechanics which were key for the work I did. Using what I had learned, I calculated the force required to bend four different shapes of structural fiberglass - all having the same mass - and used a CAD program to design support structures which would allow to demonstrate the strength of each one.
My name is George Dickinson and I am a senior in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department. I am from London, UK, and I some of my hobbies include playing the guitar, cycling, and sailing. I am also captain of the lightweight rowing team at Princeton for the 2022-2023 season which consumes most of my time outside of class. In civil engineering, my areas of interest include improving efficiency of construction and anything related to timber. For my thesis I will explore the stability of timber lamella structures during phases of construction to determine if this technique is viable at large scales. I will be applying this to a squinch structure which is inspired by traditional masonry vaulting techniques. I am excited to work with the Form Finding Lab to develop my skills in parametric modeling and finite element analysis and to see where this project takes me.
My name is Hao Liu. I am a PhD candidate at the Center for Intelligent and Networked Systems (CFINS) in the Department of Automation, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, since 2008, and will be a visiting student to Prof. Sigrid Adriaenssens' form-finding lab during the spring semester, 2012.
Jacob Essig is a high school student from Princeton, New Jersey, who is currently attending The Pennington School in Pennington, New Jersey, and will graduate in 2018. During the summer of 2016 he will be part of a team with undergraduate student Amber Lin and graduate student Tim Michiels, designing, building, and monitoring a rammed earth gazebo and test walls to be built in the Forbes College Garden.
Hi, my name is James Gales Jr. and I am a senior in CEE department. On campus I am a part of the Varsity Football team as well as a member of Cannon Dial Elm Club. I am excited to once again have Prof. Adriaenssens as an advisor. For my senior thesis I will be looking at the feasibility of different designs of retractable roof structures to cover Powers Field at Princeton Stadium. I hope to potentially find a design that is feasible enough that it could possibly put to use in the future.