Double Arch Pop-Up Photographic Folio

Pop Up photograph folio showing Double Arch in the Arches National Park in a series of images.
Handmade Pop Up Book Folio Featuring Double Arch in Arches National Park

A folio of a pop-up constructed from handmade paper, bookboard, brass, cloth, and printed photographs. When the folio is closed all the elements fold inside. When opened, the photographs rise up into position. When viewed from the proper angle, the multiple photographs align to be seen as a continuous panoramic view.

Industrial Design for AI Assisted Countertop Check Out

This industrial design is a 2’x3’x2′ steel countertop device developed to securely hold cameras and hardware for an AI assisted check out system. The design required an attractive, durable, and secure framework for a high-traffic retail setting. The device’s specifications were driven by the placement and optical limitations of the cameras, as well as anticipated customer behavior. The cameras need to be securely locked in place, yet the customer needs to be able to move freely in close proximity to the device without impairing the system’s function.

Design solutions were developed in collaboration with the Data Science team and were rendered in 3-D (SketchUp) for with management review prior to prototype fabrication.

Final design elements include the framework, a custom camera enclosure, and elements (metal and 3-D printed) within the camera enclosure both to hold the lens securely in place and to allow for heat dissipation. I fabricated prototypes and multiple devices during demonstration and the early phase of production.

Brick Drivers™ Toy Design – Where Creativity Meets Speed!

Some of Tom’s favorite product designs are toy designs. Brick Drivers™ are a line of toy vehicles with a metal base and a brick plate top. These creative toys allow for open-ended, physical play, with lots of opportunity for creative destruction and storytelling. It’s all about building and then racing!

Brick Drivers Thomas Strich. A yellow car made of toy bricks on a metal base rolls down an orange toy race car track.

Brick Drivers™ are a cross between a construction toy and a diecast car. The toys are designed to work on many existing diecast car play sets.

Brick Drivers™ can also be used as educational STEM toys to explore basic physics and engineering.

Tom is the primary inventor on 2 US design patents for these vehicles. He worked collaboratively with a partner to develop a wide variety of designs for more than 20 different brick bodies. All of the brick designs use bricks that are available in the public domain. If you are interested in learning more, please reach out to Tom at thomas-strich dot com. (These vehicles were formerly called Brick Racers – we changed the name to Brick Drivers™ in 2024.)

Blast Off Blocks – A Wooden Toy Set for Toddlers

Blast Off Blocks is a space-themed building set of wood toy blocks. This toy design brings together the love of building with the joy of exploration. Kids can build their own space vehicle and rocket into space with this imaginative construction toy!

Blast Off Blocks, wooden toy blocks for toddlers. This information sheet shows wooden toy block space rocket and planets.
Blast Off Blocks, a proposed wooden toy block set for toddlers – Explore the exciting adventure of Space!

Kids can use their imaginations and storytelling skills to explore the planets. At the same time, the planet models can be used as STEM educational toys.

Product Designs and Hummingbirds

In 2016, I was part of a small team that published the multi-media educational ebook, Hover: Hummingbirds in the United States. I later used the assets from the ebook to develop consumer products.

Chapter 1 Hummingbirds shows a close up of a female hummingbird hovering to feed from a pink and white flower. Thumbnail images of the following pages are visible at the bottom of the image.
Chapter 1 Table of Contents for the ebook Hover: Hummingbirds in the United States

The first product design was the adult coloring book, Coloring Hummingbirds. Each page of this book featured a species of hummingbird typically seen in the United States and Canada. Detailed drawings and brief natural history information were included. The illustrations were based on photos from the ebook and associated website.

Coloring Hummingbirds: A Coloring Book Exploration into the Lives of Hummingbirds of the United States and Canada
Coloring Hummingbirds: A Coloring Book Exploration into the Lives of Hummingbirds in the U.S. and Canada

I also developed a more whimsical coloring product, Coloring Hummingbirds folios. These folios have been sold in independent gift shops.

Coloring Hummingbird coloring sheet folios on display with a hummingbird mandala colored in as part of the display
Coloring Hummingbirds, a whimsical series of coloring sheets, for sale in a gift shop

We have also made a series of hummingbird designs available on consumer products on Redbubble, a print-on-demand website.

Clark Park Public Art, Tempe AZ

Growing Community Shade Structure, and Seeds of Community Bike Racks

The Growing Community shade structure for Clark Park (detail), Tempe AZ. 2015
The Growing Community shade structure for Clark Park, Tempe AZ. 2015
The Growing Community shade structure for Clark Park, Tempe AZ. 2015
The Growing Community shade structure for Clark Park, Tempe AZ. 2015
The Seeds of Community bicycle racks for Clark Park, Tempe AZ. 2015

Growing Community Shade Structure, and Seeds of Community Bike Racks

The Clark Park Community Garden is built on the grounds of a decommissioned swimming pool in a city park. Funded by 2 combined neighborhood grants, I designed and produced a shade structure and bike racks that emphasize growth and renewal. Key visual elements were fashioned from recycled street signs. After their installation, the project has become a gathering point for the Clark Park Farmer’s Market.

Model for Launch Pad into the Space of Dreams

Public Art Proposal to recreate launch site of Hugo Kinstler Volans

This model depicts Thomas Strich’s proposal to construct a re-interpretation of Hugo Kinstler Volans’ speculated launch site.  This model was presented as a proposed public art project for the City of Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was presented as one of five finalist designs for the International Symposium for Electronic Arts (ISEA) 2012 Sculpture Design Competition in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The scale of the model is 1″ to 1 ft. The completed project would be 22 feet tall and 50 feet wide.


The Launch Pad into the Space of Dreams

 

Display Boards and Model for Public Art Proposal by Thomas Strich

This display depicts Thomas Strich’s proposal to construct a re-interpretation of Hugo Kinstler Volans’ speculated launch site.  This full display was presented as a proposed public art project for the City of Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was presented as one of five finalist designs for the International Symposium for Electronic Arts (ISEA) 2012 Sculpture Design Competition in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Hugo Kinstler Volans Signature Rocket Design

Photograph of Thomas Strich's Rocket sculpture inspired by Volans' rocket design

Thomas Strich has embarked on a series of new works based upon the speculative history of Hugo Kinstler Volans. Hugo Kinstler Volans was an enigmatic rocket scientist from the early 20th Century, who was fascinated with space exploration and philosophical questions. Shown here is Tom’s model of Volans’ rocket design. The rocket was intended to send payloads to probe sub-orbital space. The payloads would have been held in the glass payload sphere at the top of the rocket.

Hugo Kinstler Volans’ Influences

A photo collage displaying the early history of rocket science and scientists.

This display board was created by Thomas Strich for the presentation of the public art proposal Launch Pad into the Space of Dreams. The public art proposal centers upon the creative reconstruction of the launch site of the enigmatic rocket scientist Hugo Kinstler Volans. This display board shows Hugo Kinstler Volans’ Influences. It is a photo collage of early rocket scientists and their developments in rocketry. It shows: Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Hermann Oberth, Robert Goddard, Werner von Braun, and Sergei Korolev. Featured developments are: early rocket clubs of the 1930’s, the V2, the rocket from the movie “Woman in the Moon,” Sputnik, Explorer 1, rockets in science fiction, rocket launches of the early U.S. space program, and Jantar Mantar – the observatory in Jaipur India.

Launch Pad into the Space of Dreams, Project Drawings

Project Drawings showing plans to recreate the speculative launch site of Hugo Kinstler Volans

This display board was created by Thomas Strich for the presentation of the public art proposal Launch Pad into the Space of Dreams. The public art proposal centers upon the creative reconstruction of the launch site of the enigmatic rocket scientist Hugo Kinstler Volans. This display board shows Thomas Strich’s plans to recreate the speculative launch site of Hugo Kinstler Volans. This display was presented as part of a proposed public art project for the City of Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was one of five finalist designs for the International Symposium for Electronic Arts (ISEA) 2012 Sculpture Design Competition in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Project elements shown in the drawings were explained in text by Thomas Strich that was printed on the Project Description Board. That text is reprinted here below.

 

Launch Pad into the Space of Dreams

– The Project

Using Hugo KinstlerVolans’ notebooks as inspiration, I am proposing a public art project based upon a Volans’ design for a rocket launch site. Volans had always hoped to develop a viable launch vehicle and platform. His larger launch site designs were never built, but they display an intriguing mix of functions, reflecting his interest in rocket science and cosmology.

I have chosen to transform his designs into a play structure for children and imaginative adults. It was Volans’ belief that the sensibilities of play, curiosity, imagination, and wonder inherent in children drove the most profound scientific investigations.

– Project Elements

1. Rocket – The design is based upon Volans’ notes. Originally to be liquid –fueled, it has two stages with a payload sphere on top.

2. Payload Sphere – Derived from WWII airplane cockpit canopies, the sphere is transparent to allow instrumentation to take outside readings while the rocket still in flight. In the public art version, the sphere contains a model of one of Volans’s space probes enhanced with colored lights.

3. Hemi-cylindrical Service Tower – The large, attached gear allows the tower to be tilted for loading of rocket onto launch pad

4. Service Steps and Tower Decking – These allow access to the upper stage of rocket.

5. Astronomical Armillary Sphere/Astrolabe – Angled at 35 degrees for Albuquerque, the Service Steps also function as the gnomon of a sundial within the Astrolabe. Viewers on the Service Steps can use the Astrolabe for naked eye astronomical observations.

6. Emergency Escape Ramp – In the playground version presented here, the ramp becomes a large play slide.

7. Launch Base with Exhaust Tubes – In the playground version, these become crawl tubes under the rocket and the launch base will be coated with a rubberized playground safety surface. Misters in the tubes provide the illusion of rocket exhaust.

 

 

Launch Pad into the Space of Dreams, Project Descriptions

Project Images and Descriptions explaining plans to recreate the speculative launch site of Hugo Kinstler Volans

“When a child feels wonder at learning about the stars and beyond, the Cosmos learns about itself.”
Hugo Kinstler Volans

This display board was created by Thomas Strich for the presentation of the public art proposal Launch Pad into the Space of Dreams. The public art proposal centers upon the creative reconstruction of the launch site of the enigmatic rocket scientist Hugo Kinstler Volans. This display board describes Thomas Strich’s plans to recreate the speculative launch site of Hugo Kinstler Volans. This display was presented as part of a proposed public art project for the City of Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was one of five finalist designs for the International Symposium for Electronic Arts (ISEA) 2012 Sculpture Design Competition in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Along with the texts, the board includes a drawing of  Volans’ Complete Launch Facility and a photograph of Volans’ Notebooks. That text elements presented on the board are reprinted here below.

Launch Pad into the Space of Dreams
– The Project

Using Hugo KinstlerVolans’ notebooks as inspiration, I am proposing a public art project based upon a Volans’ design for a rocket launch site. Volans had always hoped to develop a viable launch vehicle and platform. His larger launch site designs were never built, but they display an intriguing mix of functions, reflecting his interest in rocket science and cosmology.

I have chosen to transform his designs into a play structure for children and imaginative adults. It was Volans’ belief that the sensibilities of play, curiosity, imagination, and wonder inherent in children drove the most profound scientific investigations.

– Project Elements

1. Rocket – The design is based upon Volans’ notes. Originally to be liquid –fueled, it has two stages with a payload sphere on top.

2. Payload Sphere – Derived from WWII airplane cockpit canopies, the sphere is transparent to allow instrumentation to take outside readings while the rocket still in flight. In the public art version, the sphere contains a model of one of Volans’s space probes enhanced with colored lights.

3. Hemi-cylindrical Service Tower – The large, attached gear allows the tower to be tilted for loading of rocket onto launch pad

4. Service Steps and Tower Decking – These allow access to the upper stage of rocket.

5. Astronomical Armillary Sphere/Astrolabe – Angled at 35 degrees for Albuquerque, the Service Steps also function as the gnomon of a sundial within the Astrolabe. Viewers on the Service Steps can use the Astrolabe for naked eye astronomical observations.

6. Emergency Escape Ramp – In the playground version presented here, the ramp becomes a large play slide.

7. Launch Base with Exhaust Tubes – In the playground version, these become crawl tubes under the rocket and the launch base will be coated with a rubberized playground safety surface. Misters in the tubes provide the illusion of rocket exhaust.

 

– Project Add-Ons for Extended Scope Version

The public art proposal presented here is limited to the building of the central launch structure of Volans’s launch facility. However, a larger project of extended scope could reconstruct an interpretation of Volan’s full facility. A larger project would include these additional elements:

Sand Pits – These would be surrounding the central Launch Base, and at the end of the slide.

Lightening Rods – These would be built to keep lightening away from the rocket and launch platform.

Launch Control Bunker – A semi-submerged bunker, this would allow for control and view of rocket launches.

Radar Dish – On a tower, this element would allow communications with spacecraft. Also this would include a ground-based device to allow children to talk into and send a message into space.

Rocket Carrier – A converted train car, this would transfer the rocket from an (off site) assembly building to the launch platform.

Conic Sections – A 3D model of conic sections, this shows the geometrical basis for all orbits and trajectories.

Planetary Scale Model – A 1: 2,000,000,000 scale model of the solar system, this would extend beyond the site into the city to give a sense of the immense scale of the cosmos.

 

Hugo Kinstler Volans – Enigma and Inspiration

How did I learn of Volans and his work?
Growing up in the 1960’s and 70’s in Southern California, I was surrounded by families with connections to the aerospace industry. Many of my friends’ parents worked directly, or indirectly, for the space program or on military projects.

I kept in touch with one friend over the years whose father had worked at White Sands in the early 1960’s. As a young space buffs, we spent hours discussing the space program, speculating about his father’s work, and dreaming up aerospace ideas of our own.

Several years ago, this friend contacted me to tell me of his father’s passing and to offer me a stack of old science and aerospace books, including some notebooks with drawings. These notebooks were of no interest to the surviving family, but they thought I might enjoy the diagrams within them.

The notebooks were a record of Hugo Kinstler Volan’s design work and thinking. After talking to the family, I learned that Volans had been a friend during their time at White Sands. A difficult colleague but a loyal friend, Volans had stayed in touch with the family until his death in 1974. Volans had left the notebooks to my friend’s father.

The notebooks contain design concepts, diagrams, and some writings.
The writings make it clear that Volans was disenchanted with the Cold War and with the narrow focus of space exploration as it was being implemented.

Why is Volans’ work important?
After looking through the materials, I was intrigued by their historical significance and aesthetic appeal. Volans deserves to be celebrated for his visionary nature. His viewpoint captures the enraptured sentiment toward space exploration that characterized the early era when rockets were being developed as tools of space flight.

 

Hugo Kinstler Volans – The Man and His Ideas

Facts about Hugo Kinstler Volans’ life are scarce. Volans was born around 1905 as a German citizen of Jewish descent. As a young man during the 1930’s, he participated in the rocket clubs active in the Berlin area. He is presumed to have been highly educated, with an engineering background. It is thought that he studied under Hermann Oberth, the pioneering German rocket theorist.

Volans immigrated to the United States around 1938. It is thought that during World War II he was in the Southwest, designing industrial and scientific instrumentation. It was said that he met and briefly worked with Robert Goddard in New Mexico during this time period.

After World War II, Volans worked as a contract engineer at White Sands Missile Proving Ground. After becoming disenchanted, he left government rocket and missile research in the mid 1960’s to pursue his own space exploration designs and endeavors until his death in 1974.

Volans was an idealist and pacifist. He was driven by timeless philosophical questions about man’s place within the Cosmos. His saw space exploration as a means to extend our thinking to pursue larger questions of existence.

Volans was highly inspired by Einstein’s Theories of Relativity and the emerging theories of Quantum Mechanics of the early 20th Century. He was particularly drawn to the quest for a Unified Theory and the question of whether the human mind could fully comprehend the Cosmos.

The relationship between human consciousness and physical reality was compelling to Volans. He wondered in his writings whether spirit, emotion, and meaning in some form extended out into space, and if so, how these intangibles might manifest themselves. How would one identify, measure, or communicate these intangibles?

He sought to make space technology that could explore these questions.

 

Thomas Strich – Public Artist

I am a mixed media artist who has been working on public and studio art projects professionally since 1993. Over the years, I have learned that public art has the power to enhance, accentuate, and distinguish the character of the human environment.

The connections between art and science are important within my work. This focus stems from my earlier academic studies of art, physics, and astronomy. I maintain an ongoing interest in science and continue to read many books on neuroscience, cosmology, and natural history.

My particular focus is on the processes of perception and the tools we use to understand the world around us. Early on, I developed a love of the aesthetic qualities of scientific instrumentation. References to these instruments have been an ongoing theme throughout my work. I use these forms to explore the human relationship to the land and to consider physical landscape as a metaphor for terrains of the mind.

– Past Projects

1. 2005. Layers of Time, cast concrete, Phoenix, AZ

2. 2005. Passing Images, cut and fabricated steel, Queen Creek, AZ

3. 2009. Entrance Landmark, old signs, steel, and concrete, Tempe, AZ

4. 2009. Sky Windows and Window of Dialectic Views, steel, Tempe, AZ

5. 2006. Sources of Play, cast concrete, Tempe, AZ

6. 2009. Homage to Discarded Things, cast concrete, Chandler, AZ

7. 2009. Homage to Discarded Things detail, cast concrete, Chandler, AZ

8. 2005. Arborescent Dome, fabricated steel and masonry, Tempe, AZ

Bladed Ground

Bladed Ground is a  a photo construction by Thomas Strich. Tom often uses photography in his landscape related artwork. He merges his photography with his sculptor’s orientation to create 3-dimensional photo constructions. His first photo constructions were completed in the early 1990’s.

Gila Cliff Dwellings, NM

Gila Cliff Dwelling, NM, a photo construction by Thomas Strich

Gila Cliff Dwellings, NM is a photo construction by Thomas Strich. Tom often uses photography in his landscape related artwork. He merges his photography with his sculptor’s orientation to create 3-dimensional photo constructions. His first photo constructions were completed in the early 1990’s.

Juggernaut

Juggernaut, a mixed media sculpture by Thomas Strich

Juggernaut is a sculpture by Thomas Strich constructed from altered books. The books are all non-fiction texts about real estate, investment strategies, or banking. The hydraulic elements and exhaust are made from cigars.

Dichotomy

Dichotomy, an installation by Thomas Strich

Dichotomy, an installation by Thomas Strich at eyelounge in Phoenix, Arizona.

Configuration of Four Elements, Site 1, 12:05 PM

Configuration of Four Elements, Site 1, a monoprint by Thomas Strich

 For a number of years, Thomas Strich has used monoprinting to generate images. This image employs a monoprint for the background. The tripod-based landscape instruments were added with a second printing of engravings. The whole image was then hand-embellished with drawing, added colors, and chine colle. It was completed in 2001. This image was produced in collaboration of the Armstrong-Prior print studio.

Sky Windows and Window of Dialectic Views

Photograph of Window of Dialectic Views and Sky Windows by Thomas Strich

Sky Windows lead to the Window of Dialectic Views on the Rio Salado South Bank Path in Tempe, Arizona. The South Bank Path is a multi-user public pathway that lines the Salt River near the Tempe Center for the Arts. For this project, the City of Tempe commissioned a design team to create site enhancements and public art for the formerly barren river bank. The enhancements the design team generated became known as The Creative Edge.

The design team for The Creative Edge consisted of: Ruben Valenzuela, landscape architect; Virginia Senior, architect; Thomas Strich, artist; and Jeff Oesterle, fabricator. Thomas Strich’s sculptures are enjoyed as strong features on a pathway now popular with pedestrians, runners, skaters, and cyclists.

Window of Dialectic Views

Photograph of the Window of Dialectic Views, a sculpture by Thomas Strich

The Window of Dialectic Views stands in the main pathway node on the Rio Salado South Bank Path in Tempe, Arizona. This sculpture reflects the dualism of the boundary between the built city environment and the renewed desert/riparian habitat of the Salt River. The South Bank Path is a multi-user public pathway that lines the Salt River near downtown Tempe. Just beyond this side view of the steel sculpture can be seen the Tempe Center for the Arts, a short distance away, and and the Tempe Town Lake, further to the northeast.  For this project, the City of Tempe commissioned a design team to create site enhancements and public art for the formerly barren river bank. The enhancements the design team generated became known as The Creative Edge.

The design team for The Creative Edge consisted of: Ruben Valenzuela, landscape architect; Virginia Senior, architect; Thomas Strich, artist; and Jeff Oesterle, fabricator. Thomas Strich’s sculptures are enjoyed as strong features on a pathway now popular with pedestrians, runners, skaters, and cyclists.