Portfolio / CNC Routing Thick Acrylic Parts

For their entry in the competition to design the museum and exhibition complex for the new National Centre for Contemporary Arts (NCCA) in Moscow, Steven Holl Architects sought to emphasize natural light and a feeling of “levitating” volumes. The large levitating elements are meant to have an iconic presence, while the studios, residences and exhibition are able to maintain a human scale and proportions allowing for natural light.

In order to achieve these goals in their model, we were asked to fabricate the levitating beam elements out of solid blocks of clear acrylic. While fairly simple in form, such tall and thick shapes can present a lot of challenges when CNC routing (especially in such an unforgiving material). Steep sidewalls create a lot of problems for router tooling, and finding plastic-specific bits at longer lengths can be challenging. In addition, the sharp angles and flat surfaces in a brittle material like acrylic mean both speeds and feeds and solid work-holding methods are critical to maintain stability and a smooth finish.

Images of the finished model provided by Steven Holl Architects.