Experiment Three: The Bridge

Article Mashup

Perspectives

One Point

Two Point

Textures

Design Process

A term often encountered in Computational Design is the concept of biomimicry  ; following research into the application of Reynold's 'boids' enabled me to emulate the growth of mushrooms in its agent-based behaviours.

Plan

The plan I chose to utilise was Zaha Hadid's Riverside Museum; I felt that it was the most appropriate vessel to the parasitic tubing in my design.

Lumion Drafts

Final Renders

Link to Lumion + Rhino Model Download:

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/8r3glz65ary3q1t/AADqh9c4n-Ixm2ROytZ2nv97a?dl=0

Bernard Cache: Towards an Associative Architecture

• Cache addresses the future of digital architecture and the appeal of "fully associative design and manufacture". Similar to parametric design, associativity "establishes a seamless set of relations" within its components.
• Cache also notes the evolution in 'curvature', 'interlacing' and 'panelling' due to newer software; he stresses the future of digital design as "concentrating all the complexity in the software and the machining operations, in order to make the manual options fewer and more intuitive".
• The solution to creating larger scaled objects, using the Semper Pavillion as an example, is to understand the logic and system between components to assembly.

Domus 948: Open Source Architecture

• "The Architecture of Facebook" addresses the system of online networking, creating links between people with similar interests by addressing the impulses of the human condition.
• The article also addresses the data centre storing Facebook's information and the technology needed to process it. It also foresees that these centres will increase over time; "the bigger the Internet becomes, the more it is a part of the physical world".

Migaryou and Pasquarelli

• Migaryou vigourously deconstructs the concept of non-standard approaches to architecture. He notes the definition's origins in mathematics, revealing the "open, infinitesimal models" and the "dynamic structuralism"that follows.
• However, ultimately non-standard has become more of a 'style' than anything; the surges of technology enables a reapproach to architecture, now able to not only question, but experiment freely with the likes of geometries and self-organising form through "virtual architecture"
• This is furthered in Pasquarelli's "Versioning"; the term 'versioning' describes the shift in approach using technology; Pasquarelli labels it as an "attitude rather than ideology", similar to the notion of style, noting its expansion into other disciplines ie. film and media.
• It is also dependent on geometries and vectors which allows it to adapt to external stimulus.

Picon and Snooks: on Surfaces

The Surface as Architecture

• Picon mostly explores the term 'hypersurfaces', as dubbed by Perrella; "the convergence between cyberspace/hypermedia and architecture", whilst also noting the evolution of information through architecture (ie. through billboards)
• Picon emphasises the notion of sensation, relating to the visual and tactile responses of pain and pleasure; this is crucial to our perception and emotional responses to architecture.
• The concept of surfaces as the embodiment of "geometric flow", not bound by depth, unlike volumes. They are "receptive to operations of all kinds, from inscriptions to folding" ( surfaces are now often seen as layers).
• Modern surfaces have begun to distort the realms of the interior and exterior, "challenging the traditional mode of presence of architecture", creating a grey area in which the interaction between subject and architecture exists.

Self-Organised Bodies

• Snooks addresses the concept of material acting against the "contemporary, tectonic treatment" of components with surfaces by using "self-organising bodies", emulating the 'volatile' nature of swarm intelligence to explore the possibilities of form and ornament.
• "Swarm matter", in which hierarchies are established due to the nature of its components, its systems capable of adapting to environment; there is no default state.
• "Woven Composites"; surfaces as dependent on its surrounding shapes, creating an incredulous mixture of ornament to surface.

Picon: on Materiality

A Different Materiality

• Picon defines materiality as the result of the effects of nature, shaped by the environment which surrounds it.
• Material is a necessary medium in order to achieve "materiality proper"; dictated not simply by the cultural knowledge persisting in its context.
• We are now 'returning to a conception' closer to the pre-industrial one' due to the aid of technology and research towards material design', all heading to impact and benefit research into structure.
• Picon believes that our perception is more crucial to materiality rather than the details of the materials themselves, whilst emphasizing our human nature; technology enhances these perceptions to an inseparable amount, as accents, ornaments and surfaces as well as responsive architecture as the immediate response to technology.

Materials by Design

• Here, Picon addresses the potential of design in scale and proportions, noting the effect of digital technology as "evolution"

Hughes: Technology as Machine

• Discusses the rise of technology beginning from the Industrial Revolution (19th Century) to the present. Hughes notions towards the perception that "some Americans envisioned mechanization transforming uncultivated lands into a pastoral landscape" in some Edenic restoration.
• However, this is contrasted by the attitudes adopted by areas such as New York in the 20th Century, as technology, most notably the harnessing of electricity is used as " a means to transform industrial cities into handsome financial, commercial and cultural metropolis,  symbolic of the human built world reflecting our interests and needs.
• Interesting to note is his "Faustian Technology" section, in which Hughes details the disruptive effect technology has had on natural and cultural traditions and mentions the perception of technology as negative due to the dismissal of the restorative nature which was in the progress of being realised in the 19th century.
• "Nature is the infinitely diverse creator of organic focus ... an environment withdrawing from human impact".

KOKKUGIA | ROLAND SNOOKS: Fibrous House

What is the project about?

“a speculation on the tectonics and effects of designing an entire project from a single geometric type: the strand”

Fibrous House explores the use of one component, replicated in order to create intricate shapes and forms through overlaying and convergence in free space; with the removal of the standard “pre-defined surface… the form emerges with its structure and articulation as a dense mass of strands”. The resulting shapes, such as the ones depicted, are condensed when closer to the centre of the mass, while branching outwards and back into the landscape.

What were some significant achievements in the design approach + solution, spatial organization and material execution?

Snooks allows his work to unfold before him; the usage of the one geometric component allows for its self-expression – “the strands define form, structure, surface and articulation of the project”. The result is chaotic, yet seemingly contained due to the nature and curvature of the shape; however, this is a step in the notion that the architect may no longer be the designer due to the overpowering of the organic growth of the shape.

What was the attitude towards technology? What technology was implemented?

Technology is embraced in order to simulate and increase the amount of strands; experimenting with geometries as well as morphogenetic algorithms is incomplete without the aid of it. Furthermore, Snooks has researched “composite fiber techniques in the fabrication as a high performance".

What are the theories extracted?

-          Morphogenesis

-          Systems Thinking

-          Hypersurfaces + Form