Rock Stack Tower

Created for the 2016 Outsider Art Fair, which invited design for towers to be 3D printed and displayed together.

This design is the "Rockstack Tower". I found inspiration for this design from photos of "rock balancing." There are many photos showing quite amazing structures created by stacking loose rocks in just the right way so that they form a tower without any binding or adhesive. I thought this would produce a unique building that would really stand out in a skyline. It was also a fun challenge to try and evoke the source material while staying within the design challenge's parameters.
To add some character to it - and more importantly, to make it a bit more like a tower instead of just a stack of rocks - I created angular features. This would also make it a more feasible design to build than trying to create odd surfaces. To further distinguish it as a man-made tower and give it some texture, i created some vertical and horizontal lines on some of the "rocks".