to get a first “feeling” for the geometrical possibilities and complexity of building spatial structures out of tree branches we did the first physical test with bent brass-wires and connected them with shrinking tubes, which allows for an extraordinary flexibility of the whole system. Branches with varying angles can be constantly interchanged to try different geometrical configurations and all rotational degrees of freedom stay open.

After our field trip to Thernberg we came back with our first set of real-world tree branches. After chopping down a whole hornbeam tree crown into varying groups of branches (categorized according to average diameters), we started with the ones best comparable to the “wire-branches”. Although they only range from about 5-12 cm in length the branch angles are a good representation of the bigger mature branches…well, after all a tree is one of the prime L-Systems… 😉

As the primary goal of the project is to use the least amount of additional material for joining, this first physical study model is build with wood-dowels (tooth picks and skewers) along the longitudinal axes of the corresponding branches.

physical model evolution