en Pointe

A new type of prosthetic for ballerinas. en Pointe looks at the evolution of prosthetics through new ways of touching the ground, and particularly design aims to enhance the traditional ballet movement en-pointe. Also we try to inverse the way we read structure and surface in the traditional sense, with out thin transparent plastic lacing pattern which was traditionally ornamental starting to morph into a hybrid of structure and aesthic qualities , and the traditional structure (usually metal), now becoming just providing rigidity at important junction such as the attaching to the amputee of the touching the ground but is essentially held together by our semi structural semi aesthetic lattice structure. The design also deals with this idea of visibility , where we imagine our thinner more transparent strands while proving more structure seem to sort of disapear as we move further and further away and we start to only see the metal/form parts so creating a kind of duality in the micro and macro view of the designed prosthetic. This design is also dealing with the fact of being able to create something beautiful along with being effortlessly functional such that he person wearing it would be proud to show it off instead of trying to hide it.

Course:
Advanced Robotic Fabrication 2017: Super Prosthetics
The Southern California Institute of Architecture

Instructors:
Garrett Sutherlin Santo
& Herwig Baumgartner

Students:
Burcin Nalcini, Anvitha Boloor, Mitch Bennett, Soham Doshi, Shabnam Moraviji