Mercer

Design for a minimal staircase with a single offset stringer, CNC plasma-cut steel tread and platform supports for a residential installation in Manhattan. Mid-landing platform is engineered to be supported by the converging stair stringers and tension rods attached to the building structure.
Conceived by Jerry Nance with Serett Metalworks.

Bangkok Hotel

A proposal for a modular 65-room hotel and a restaurant for a site in Bangkok Thailand. Guests can be as connected to the city environment as they wish with passively cooled spaces that encompass interior personal and exterior social realms. This environmentally oriented building creates easy connections to the street, neighboring Khlong and the Chao Phraya River with views towards downtown Bangkok.
Jerry Nance

25th

Blackened steel railing with dyed saddle leather handrail designed and built with Serett Metalworks for a residential loft in Manhattan. This design was conceived to have a minimal profile and to project a weightless feeling with floating corners and clean transitions.
Jerry Nance

Crow's Nest

Observation deck incorporated above a playground office and public bathroom installed at David Rockwell's Imagination Playground at the South Street Seaport in New York City. Jerry Nance and Michael O'Toole completed the comprehensive construction documentation and fabrication drawings for this structure of tubular steel and seamless TIG welded stainless steel. This structure was constructed in Brooklyn, NY and transported across the East River to Manhattan for installation and finishing. Work performed for Serett Metalworks.

West End Helix

Full helix staircase in black patina with leather handrail and Corian treads designed and built with Serett Metalworks for a boutique retail store in Manhattan.
Jerry Nance

Waterfall Swing

Towering steel swing set holding an array of mechanical solenoids that creates a water plane falling in the path of its riders. Formed from a tangent of ideas raised from the study of interactions of water as space, the swing is the first in a series that play with interaction in rides and installations. Riders pass through openings in a waterfall created by precisely monitoring their path via axel-housed encoders, creating the thrill of narrowly escaping obstacles. Andrew Ratcliff, Michael O'Toole, Andrew Witte, Ian Charnas

Swimming Cities | India Project

Handmade stainless steel boats with power-trains adapting motorcycles to paddlewheels and props. A continuation of Swimming Cities projects, the journey in Fall 2011 took these boats with a group of Brooklyn, NY based artists to the Ganges River in India for a two month, 400 mile journey from Haridwar to Varanasi where they engaged with the life on this holy river. See theoceanofblood.com to follow this journey.

Leo Villareal | Cosmos Light Sculpture

Fabrication and installation at Cornell University’s Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art in Ithaca, NY. Project Architect - Walter Smith.

Photos by Simon Wheeler, Ithaca Journal

Waterfall Swing | Specifications, Photos and Videos

 

Installation Specification Sheet

Waterfall_Swing_Spec_Sheet.pdf

 

Technical Specifications

Solenoids 384 independently controlled one way direct acting, normally closed, 24v .25 amp with a 15ms delay. 1/8" ID outlet. They are Spartan Scientific model 3825-07-A203

Controller The controller circuit boards were custom made by Ian Charnas, each one operating 16 solenoids using a simple BJT transistor, connected via RS-485 running 1 Megabaud.

Encoders for Position Sensing 10-bit absolute position Kubler T8.5850.ZP15.B102

Software one section of software is created to convert a gif into the appropriate command for solenoids the second multi threaded program monitors the swing position and controls the solenoids, written in Ruby by Andrew Witte.

Water Flow Water Pump circulates water through a 4" sch 40 plenums holding three 5' sections of solenoid.

US Pump Flotec Pump: 1 HP, 60hz, 1HP, 1SP, 115V, 15A, 1.5"

European Pump Hayward Spa Pump: 50hz European, 1.5HP, 1SP, 220V, 5A, 1.5"

Frame The swing is an 18' steel framed swing, 3/4" ipe seats suspended by 3/ 16" aircraft cables.

 

Still Images

The sequence of three still images below shows riders swinging through the plane of water without getting wet. 

WaterSwing-swingsequence1.jpg

WaterSwing-swingsequence2.jpgWaterSwing-swingsequence3.jpg

These images show the Waterfall Swing writing letters and shapes.


WaterSwing-writer-letter-G.jpg

WaterSwing-writer-hearts.jpgWaterSwing-writer-letter-S.jpgWaterSwing-writer-checkerboard.jpg

 

Animated GIF

An animated GIF of Waterfall Swing riders. 

WaterfallSwing_animation.gif

Videos

Riders enjoying the Waterfall Swing at World Maker Faire, New York, September 2011

 

The swing operating as a water writer at World Maker Faire.

 

 

No Captions Version of Waterfall Swing at World Maker Faire.