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Reconstituting Geology on a Damaged Earth
ROCKING CRADLE
1 Tree nursery installation view of the Planter Rocking Cradle with carnivorous
swamp plant at Hazelwood Green (©Massery Photography, 2022)
PRODUCTION NOTES
Design Team: Epiphyte Lab, SoA CMU, Arts Excursion Unlimited
Client: Center of Life
Status: Built
Site Area: 40,000 sq. ft.
Location: Hazelwood Green, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Date: 2021
The Rocking Cradle is an interactive installation comprised
of multiple binder-jet-printed vessels integrated into a
public tree nursery. Informed by hydrological and geolog-
ical processes, the Rocking Cradle is conceived as a literal
and figurative device for fostering environmental steward-
ship. Situating the tree nursery as a community space, these
sand-printed vessels hybridize the typology of urban furni-
ture with the behaviors of water flow, water collection, bird
bathing, and growing native plants. Located in a polluted
post-industrial landscape, the installation is conceived as
a new form of ecological infrastructure that fosters stew-
ardship through the instigation of urban play (Cupkova and
Huber 2021). Co-authored through a series of environmental
justice workshops, the semi-porous, stone-like surfaces
carry embedded messages from local youth, thus becoming
vehicles for local environmental consciousness intertwined
with communal discourse.
The project engages the former steel mill site and its pollu-
tion patterns by drawing new awareness to its conflicted
histories. Each vessel serves as a symbolic substrate
that is formed from anthropogenic and earthen waste to
create both a protective barrier and remediated ground for
nurturing new plant life. Carrying forward technologies of
water flow simulation (Cupkova, Azel, and Mondor 2015),
the articulated surfaces build up a visual intuition for the
ways in which landscapes behave entangled with cryptic
text/plant graffiti to inspire new forms of empathy. The
objects, through their geometric figuration, begin to care
for the landscape they sit in. They cultivate new ecological
Dana Cupkova, Matthew Huber, Edith Abeyta
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ACADIA
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Rocking Cradle Cupkova, Huber, Abeyta
4 Calcification and new habitat
growth due to surface rugosity
(©Epiphyte Lab 2022)
5 Rock, mud and rainwater play
(©Epiphyte Lab 2022)
2 Sand-printed surface texture
(©Epiphyte Lab 2020)
3 Nature drawing workshop (©Arts
Excursions Unlimited 2020)
6 Environmental stewardship concept diagram: Rocking Cradle variations exploring Human-Land-Seedling-Hydrology-Community engagement
(©Epiphyte Lab 2020)
habitats and human interactions, thus opening up new
modes of play and ecological intimacy.
The Rocking Cradle is also a prototype rooted in ongoing
material-technology research that proposes a novel cradle-
to-cradle design process for architectural components to
be manufactured directly from local construction waste and
earthen materials. The body of the cradle combines shaping
strategies for volume (Craveiro et al. 2017) and surface
figuration with complex patterning (Dunn and Halpin 2009)
derived from balancing behaviors (Clifford et al. 2019) to
enable the rocker to become a structural component, as
well as a substrate for ecological processes.
Such shaping strategies consider the life-cycle of construc-
tion from a cradle-to-cradle perspective (Faludi et al.
2019). Cementitious materials such as concrete, because
of the volume used, are some of the greatest contributors
to the global increase of CO2 levels. Two interconnected
strategies are employed here to subvert this status quo:
reducing construction waste by using the material in bind-
er-jet manufacturing, and reducing the overall volume of
the material used through material-specific shape-sensitive
component design (ExOne 2022). By advancing the additive
manufacturing of earthen and non-cementitious materials,
CO2 production can be significantly reduced. This approach
shifts issues of advanced manufacturing into a framework
of ecological design. Shape-factor plays a central role in the
formation of the cradle, tuning volume distribution within
the mass, and combining structural and ecological factors
with a composite of granular waste materials.
Rocking Cradle aligns structural and ecological poten-
tial (Cupkova and Clifford 2018) with a desire to integrate
landscape awareness, its history, and presence directly
into the architectural form, behavior, and experience.
Surface articulation enabled by binder-jet-ting technology
provides an opportunity for traces of text—a voice that
typically would only be transient—to be embedded into
and carried forward more permanently within the object
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ACADIA
8 Joy of water play on a hot day at the Bird Bath Rocking Cradle
(©Massery Photography 2022)
10 Diagram of mass balancing strategy using cycloid movement
(©Epiphyte Lab 2022)
9 Design workflow diagram of computational shaping integrates water
pathways, text graffiti, and balancing, while using minimal material mass
(©Epiphyte Lab 2022)
7 Text graffiti workshop at the Center of Life
(©Arts Excursions Unlimited 2021)
itself. The layered operation of shaping the vessels also
allows for a collective adaptation of the form and carving
of messages to communicate growth. The Rocking Cradles
care for and support human-land-seedling-hydrology-
community engagement while connecting the past with
the future. As extreme climate actions intensify, questions
of public space will increasingly elide with those of plane-
tary ecology, and the boundary-challenging expansiveness
of ecological flow. Arising from entanglements of landscape
abuse and the impact on humans and non-humans alike,
the Rocking Cradle actively considers revitalization and
emergence of new forms of urban gardening. As we grow
food and oxygenating plants in this contaminated soil, we
precipitate the landscape to body-contamination pathways.
Rocking Cradle intends to offset the current cycle while
using its body as a device for future land stewardship.
Urban play also offers an immense opportunity as a vector of
curiosity and provocation of intimacy and empathy between
humans, objects, and landscapes. Arising anew from an
ossified post-industrial landscape, the Rocking Cradle inter-
twines human interaction and the ecological imagination.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Rocking Cradle project has been conceived as a part of the funded
research “CRuMBLE: Construction Rubble Manufacturing for Building
Life-cycle and Environment,” a research-manufacturing framework
that proposes a novel cradle-to-cradle design process for ecological
architecture manufactured directly out of construction waste and
earthen materials by integrating recycled construction waste as a
powder aggregate mixture to create new pathways for direct non-toxic
chemical activation with water-based binders in binder-jet printing.
PIs: Dana Cupkova, Josh Bard, CoPI: Robert Heard; Industry Partners:
ExOne, Michael Brothers Hauling.
This project has been supported by The Manufacturing Futures
Institute at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), The Manufacturing PA
Innovation Program, ExOne Company, CMU School of Architecture, The
Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy, Center of Life Hazelwood, The Fund for
Research and Creativity College of Fine Arts CMU, U3 Advisors, Rivers
of Steel’s Mini-Grant Program, Arts Excursion Unlimited, and EPIHYTE
Lab.
SoA CMU Team: Design and Research Lead: Dana Cupkova; Design
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Rocking Cradle Cupkova, Huber, Abeyta
11 Arts Excursions Unlimited team with Planting Rocking Cradle: Edith Abeyta with two high school students,Tayshaun Watkins and Samuara Green, enrolled in the
Start on Success Pittsburgh program (Photo ©Lake Lewis)
Development Lead: Matter Huber, Environmental and Community
based Art Direction: Edith Abeyta; Design Development and Production
Team: Marantha Dawkins, Kirman Hanson, Gil Jang, Ryu Kondrup,
Longney Luk, Louis Suarez, Alex Wang; Post-production and Drawing
Contribution: Shenyuan Li, Kit Tang.
REFERENCES
Clifford, B., J. Lobdell, T. Swingle, and D. Zampini. 2019. “Walking
Assembly: Craneless Tilt-Up Construction.” In ACADIA '19: Ubiquity
and Autonomy, Projects Catalog of the 39th Annual Conference of the
Association for Computer Aided Design in Architecture (ACADIA), edited
by K. Bieg, D. Briscoe, and C. Odom. Austin, Texas: ACADIA. 50–55.
Cupkova, D., N. Azel, and C. Mondor. 2015. “EPIFLOW: Adaptive
Analytical Design Framework for Resilient Urban Water Systems.” In
Modelling Behaviour, edited by M. Thomsen, M. Tamke, C. Gengnagel,
B. Faircloth, and F. Scheurer. Cham: Springer. 419–431. https://doi.
org/10.1007/978-3-319-24208-8_35.
Cupkova, D., and C. Clifford. 2018. “Moss Regimes: Embedded Biomass
in Porous Ceramics.” In ACADIA '18: Recalibration: On Imprecision and
Infidelity; Proceedings of the 38th Annual Conference of the Association
of Computer Aided Design in Architecture, Projects Volume, edited by
P. Anzalone, M. del Signore, and A.J. Wit. Mexico City: ACADIA. 96–101.
Cupkova, D., and M. Huber. 2021. “Rocking Cradle: Interactive urban
furniture in pursuit of environmental attunement.” In Public Play Space
Symposium. Barcelona, Spain: Institute for Advanced Architecture of
Catalonia. 132–139.
Craveiro, F., H. Almeida, H. Bártolo, P.J. Bártolo, and J.P. Duarte.
2017. “Topology and material optimization of architectural compo-
nents.” In Challenges for Technology Innovation: An Agenda for the
Future. Lisbon, Portugal: CRC Press/Balkema. 71–76. https://doi.
org/10.1201/9781315198101-14.
Dunn, Halpin. 2009. “Rugosity-based regional modeling of hard-bottom
habitat.” In Marine Ecology Progress Series 377: 1–11. https://doi.
org/10.3354/meps07839.
ExOne. n.d. “Design Research Team Reinvents Eco-Friendly
Architecture and Upcycled Materials.” Accessed February
10, 2022. https://www.exone.com/en-US/Resources/News/
CMU-Cradle-Case-Study.
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Matthew Huber holds the position of Special Faculty within the School
of Architecture at Carnegie Mellon University, where he teaches issues
of digital production, environmental ethics, building performance,
and the influence of scientific practices and culture on architectural
discourse. His previous experience in architectural practice involved
developing projects simultaneously between large-scale planning with
material and tectonic expression.
Edith Abeyta is a visual artist living in North Braddock, Pennsylvania.
Focused on issues of equity and environmental justice, her works
combine post-consumer goods, particularly clothing, and participa-
tory gestures to form temporary installations and sculptures that
explore collectivity, labor, and exchange. She frequently collaborates
with other visual artists, poets, scholars, and the public. Edith leads
the Arts Excursions Unlimited, a community-owned project dedicated
to increasing the cultural connectivity of the citizens of the greater
Hazelwood community.
Jeremy Faludi. J., C.M. Van Sice, Y. Shi, J. Bower, O.M.K. Brooks. 2019.
“Novel materials can radically improve whole-system environmental
impacts of additive manufacturing.” In Journal of Cleaner Production
212: 1580–1590. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.12.017.
IMAGE CREDITS
Figure 1, 8 & 14: ©Massery Photography, Inc., 2022
Figure 11: ©Lake Lewis, 2021
Figures 3, 7: ©Arts Excursions Unlimited, 2020-21
Figures 2, 4-6, 8-10,12,13: ©Epiphyte Lab, 2020-22
All other drawings and images by the authors.
Dana Cupkova holds an Associate Professorship at Carnegie Mellon
School of Architecture and directs Epiphyte Lab, Architectural Design +
Research Collaborative. Engaging issues of environmental stewardship
in design, Dana’s work is situated at the intersection of built environment
and ecology, focused on computational methods, materiality, embodied
energy, and advanced manufacturing frameworks, with a particular
interest in thermodynamics, and construction waste streams.
14 View at the Water Collection Rocking Cradle (©Massery Photography 2022)
13 Drawing and computational analysis of a fabrication mesh model for
Planting Rocking Cradle (©Epiphyte Lab 2022)
12 Shaping strategy diagram (©Epiphyte Lab 2021)
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