By day, I'm a designer, fabricator, and so on. But by night, I'm a DJ, and I work with some of San Francisco's most notorious entertainers to make sure our shows go off as planned.  Working directly for, and observing guests who are interacting with props and environments I've built, is the part of this work that I enjoy the most. As a DJ, I've learned to read a room, and I do the same whenever I turn on a new prop. Watching how an audience reacts to what I've built is incredibly educational!

The most difficult part of this project was the electronics. Each column is actually a small video screen, and the wiring was not only complicated, but also had to be made to be robust enough to withstand repeated transport, setup, and strike at a venue.

A few years ago, I created some pieces of software for a popular graphics program that allow me to realize very quick and efficient CAD/CAM workflows. I used those tools to create this installation, and they allowed me to complete the work within a very short build timeline.

The most difficult part of the project was...actually keeping up with myself. Because the software I wrote allows extremely rapid part production, it's very tempting to skip ahead. I use iterative design techniques, and part of that is...I can't skip ahead too far, otherwise I can't make my process learn from itself.

The best part of the project was watching people taking selfies with the letters, or climbing on them to take selfies. Group shots were fun to watch. And there were even a few full-blown parties in front of the letters. The guests loved them!

Generative skills:

• CNC plasma cutting 

• MIG and TIG welding 

• Architectural design

• Structural engineering

• Electronics design and fabrication

Artifacts created:

• Five letter-shaped steel sculptures 8ft high, 28in deep, and 6ft wide which assebled into a high-impact to serve as a backdrop for show events and participant interaction

• Plinths for the high-impact to allow it to be electrified, increase structural strength, and allow rapid installation and strike of the exhibit

The work for this installation had begun as part of a performing-arts project, but got repurposed when a client was made aware that it was available.

The most difficult thing about creating these truss beams is finishing them. It takes rather a lot of elbow grease to clean one of them after assembly.

The best part of creating this exhibit was actually seeing it work the very first time out of the shop. Everything for this show was built so quickly that there wasn't time to do much test assembly. Seeing this installation assembled and standing on its own was a powerful vindication of the design theory that enabled its creation...and is part of a "story arc" in design that goes back to 2005.

Generative skills:

• CNC plasma cutting 

• MIG welding 

• Architectural design

• Structural engineering

Artifacts created:

• Five lightweight, ten-foot-long decorative truss beams with bolt fastening plates on each end

• Three hub joints for connecting the upright truss beams to the horizontal truss beams

• Three foot plates for the vertical truss beams to provide support and prevent tip-over

• Five cover caps to occupy the empty faces in the hub joints

• Custom-cut carpet to provide good floor texture for walking and eliminate tripping hazards

The COVID-19 pandemic was a huge interruption in many peoples' lives. Performers the world over were among the most directly affected, because their venues were shuttered and their shows canceled.

My part-time job was closed for over a year, with all our equipment standing idle and all the employees furloughed. I decided that I couldn't let that stand, that I *wouldn't* let it stand, because as long as I had skills and resources, there was something I could do. So...I drove to work one day, and assembled our truss beams into a green-screen sound stage.

Performers from all over the San Francisco Bay Area used this stage to stream live shows, during the pandemic.

This work is part of a "story arc" in design that goes back to 2005. This is Aeria, version three ("A3") and was the first environment I designed completely with software. The intent was to make the finished environment look like the renderings. This meant that I would have to write software that would export the digital model geometry in a way that would allow us to fabricate real-world replicas of the digital models. Once completed, the software spat out the numbers we needed in just a few seconds, and we had parts ready to assemble back in the shop the next day. Main fabrication was completed in less than four weeks.

The most difficult part of this project was getting the geometry-export software written and functional. I'm a good programmer, but the system I was writing code for is notoriously difficult to interface to.

My favorite part of the project, was standing in the space created by the three pylons, after we'd assembled the structure. The curved walls reflect sound inside the structure, giving it a sense of space, and this amplifies the presence of the structure itself.

Generative skills:

• CNC plasma cutting 

• MIG and TIG welding 

• Architectural design

• Structural engineering

• Python programming

• Specialized steel fabrication techniques

• Rigging

• Epoxy gel coating and plastics casting

• Structural and finish carpentry

Artifacts created:

• Modular main performance structure, 50 feet tall, 60 ton capacity

• Support base for main performance structure

• DJ booth

• Two arched supports, 33 feet tall, 3 ton capacity, for JBL line array

• Support bases for 33 foot arches

• Two arched supports, 22 feet tall, 1.5 ton capacity, for JBL line array 

• Support bases for 22 foot arches

• Eight fire effects/lighting towers, 10ft wide x 15ft tall

• LED dancefloor lighting system, 24 units @ 45,000 lumens each

• Software package for replicating digital models with CAM hardware

This was the first project I ever used a Kickstarter for. Although I wanted to use the configuration shown in A3 above, it would not have worked so well for us in this setting. This structure would show me how dependent I would become on CAD/CAM software for doing work, and was the very first time I attempted to render a 3D model in real space.

The most difficult part of the project was doing the initial renderings so that I could cut out the pieces on a CNC plasma cutter. Getting the projection of a 3D model onto a 2D surface by hand was quite daunting, given the tools of the day.

The part I enjoyed the most was going up to perform my own aerial act. The tower was very elastic, and I really enjoyed how the spring action of the entire structure ate up the impacts from drops!

Generative skills:

• CNC plasma cutting 

• MIG and TIG welding 

• Structural engineering

Artifacts created:

• Modular single-pylon aerial performance support structure, 2 ton capacity

• Rigging for aerial support structure

• Lighting for aerial support structure

• Additional structures for performance support

EDC. It's definitely a thing unto itself. Pasquale's brainchild was really hitting its stride, and so my employer at the time was asked to produce a series of fire effect towers for one of the midways at the festival. He passed the job along to me, and I created the design, cut out the parts, and put everything together.

The most difficult part of the production was that there were very many small obstacles to overcome, and a very short deadline for what turned out to be a very large project.