lawson spencer - monarchs

research topic(s): bending-active timber, robotic fabrication, elastic kinematics, 3DPC, prefab 3DPC

material: plywood, 3DPC, structural steel, and hardware

location: Indio, CA

size: 30,000 sqft. and 72' tall

principal investigator(s): Leslie Lok and Sasa Zivkovic of HANNAH Design Office

project lead: Lawson Spencer

art direction and construction: Goldenvoice with Paul Clemente, Eduardo Manilla, and so many other amazing people

art curation: Raffi Lehrer of Public Art Company

engineering: mōr engineers with Kyle Morris

3DPC solutions: PERI3DConstruction

plywood fabrication team: Neal Lucas Hitch, Kseniya Yerakhavets, Julia Vasilyev, Riley Wines, Varun Gandhi, Xie Peng, Jacob Gibbens, Helen Bennett, and Chris Rouhi

additional support: Kurt Brosnan, Matthew Glaysher, Tyler Williams, and the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning (AAP) at Cornell University & the Cornell AAP shop team

cover image: © Lance Gerber

perspective of Monarchs: A House in Six Parts at Coachella 2024 | © Lance Gerber

Monarchs: A House in Six Parts is an experimental art project that leverages new tools of digital fabrication and parametric modeling for Coachella 2024. The art piece was curated by Raffi Lehrer, the founder of the Public Art Company, and constructed by the art team at Goldenvoice under the direction of Paul Clemente. The art piece features 6 beautifully colored follies that range in height from 24' to 72'. Each folly has a 3D printed concrete (3DPC) base that is rebar-reinforced and supports a bending-active plywood structure on top. Each folly sits on the interior of a 95' circle with 35 3DPC chairs that are scattered on the lawn between and around the follies. Though seemingly whimsical, the follies provided shade to the festival's participants during the desert's day hours.

The 6 follies are composed of bending active plywood boards that are stretched along horizontal plywood boards to create truss-like panels that are joined together as modules. Between the six follies, 56 modules were constructed; only one of the follies relies on a steel structure to support the modules. The art piece exhibits about 6,000 uniquely cut plywood pieces. The plywood pieces were cut from about 830 sheets of plywood with either one of two robotic arms or an 8' x 4' computer numerically controlled (CNC) machine at Cornell University.