MIT alumna Jessica Rosenkrantz '05 and Jesse Louis-Rosenberg are the co-founders of Nervous System, a generative design studio that works at the intersection of science, art, and technology. “Founded in 2007, it has pioneered the application of new technologies in design, including generative systems, 3D printing, and webGL.”

Over MIT's annual Independent Activities Period (IAP), the pair will join MIT MAD to offer a week-long workshop allowing students to make a large aluminum sculpture. By joining Building Complex Curvature from Flat Sheets, participants will learn what curvature is and how it applies to materials, while laser cutting metal and using a rivet gun.

Rosenkrantz and Louis-Rosenberg describe the workshop as follows:
“In this workshop, you’ll learn how to construct surfaces with complex curvature from flat materials like paper, wood, or metal. Normally, flat sheets can only bend in one direction making so called 'developable' surfaces with zero Gaussian curvature. We will use custom computational design tools to contort these materials into highly curved surfaces without any forming or creasing. Over the course of the week we will learn how these tools work, design some demo parts, and then as a group construct a large sculpture using these techniques. The sculpture will be constructed from dozens of laser cut panels connected by rivets which we will be cutting, finishing, assembling, and then installing on campus.”