ABPL30048

STUDIO AIRPART A: CONCEPTUALISING

Marta Elefterijadis

2015

University of Melbourne

Tutor: Brad Elias

C O N T E N T S INTRODUCTION 4

A.1. DESIGN FUTURING 7 A.2. DESIGN COMPUTATION 10

A.3. COMPOSITION/GENERATION 13

A.4. CONCLUSION 16

A.5.LEARNING OUTCOMES 16 APPENDIX A.6.ALGORITHMIC SKETCHBOOK 18

BIBLIOGRAPHY ??

INTRODUCTION

• Marta Elefterijadis• 3rd year Architecture student (B.Envs.)• University of Melbourne

As a child, I can remember being taken to many building sites of various architectural and structural projects under the watchful eye of my mother. Being a civil engineer, she was tasked with overseeing the building process of such projects, and in seeing this along with the wonders of the finished product, I was compelled even from a very young age to one day become the person who designs such buildings.

As time went on, it was clear that I was applying my growing interests in architecture and the built environment in many of my projects at school, effectively laying out the path towards a degree such as the one I am currently undertaking.

In this way, I have also in more recent years began to experiment and learn how to use a variety of computer aided design programs, namely AutoCAD and Rhino, though I have also dabbled in the likes of Revit and Maya.

My own design work, particularly that from Virtual Environmetns in the first year of this course, has largely relied on such programs in order to not only digitally represent and test out my design, but also to create a means of fabrication using mesh tools and the like.

Continuing onto the next page are some examples of the design my team member and I came up with in 2013, as a response to a brief requiring the design of a second skin, meant to ward off strangers and be a source of intimidation. The design also incorporated the theme of a bone-like system of joints, present notably in an umbrella.

A.1.

DESIGN FUTURING

Driftwood PavillionAA Summer PavilionLondon, UK2009http://www.dezeen.com/2009/07/03/driftwood-pavilion-by-aa-unit-2-opens/

This pavillion as part of the Architectural Association’s Summer Pavillion series greatly utilised the then still quite new concept of tools like grasshopper, creating a new shape, idea and way of fabrication. In this way, this pavillion allowed people to begin thinking about what is normal for the built environment, and is there a place for such a “blobby” structure?

While not quite a revolutionary structure, it did show how far we as designers have come, and how far technology has progressed in such a short amount of time. It now allowed the designer to work very closely closely in collaboration with the software at hand, in order to have greater control over their design and the efficiency of the project.

The pavilion itself was only a temporary built structure, but it was nevertheless realised and more importantly fabricated through the use of digital software as an aid in the design work. As well as this, its form specifically forced the architects to be more involved in the building process due to its complexity, thus giving them more control over the final structure.

In this way, the pavilion and the way in which it was out together gave much greater rise to the possibilities of digital design and fabrication using a much wider variety of materials. To use the term, ‘pre-fabrication’ was now seen as a completely viable way of creating even larger commercial buildings, and not merely for residential or public properties only.

“Falling Water”Kaufmann House

Frank Lloyd WrightPennsylvania, USA

1935http://www.fallingwater.org/

As many of Lloyd Wright’s buildings were indeed revolutionary and in fact precursors to the Modernist Movement, it can be safely said that they contributed to an all new and vastly different way of thinking about composition and structure. In this case, Falling Water was no exception; this was indeed a house that rejected all forms of historical precedent, resulting in a structure unlike ones seen before, together with construction techniques previously deemed impossible.

In saying this, the house was originally built with concrete reinforcing columns beneath its vast cantilevered elements, which upon completion were promprtly knocked out on orders given by the architect himself, proving that his experiments with cantilevering would work in a real life situation without the need for extra reinforcement, as advised by consulting engineers on the project.

Falling Water was extrememely important in advocating for the organic movement, whereby the structure is clad with matertials either local to the surrounding environment, or with materials like stone and wood, allowing the landscape to be emphasised with the structure.

At present, the house is only there as a place to be viewed rather than lived in, though it is nevertheless apreciated for its original purpose of being a family retreat.

A.2.

DESIGN COMPUTATION

The evolution of design process has in contemporary times seen a rapid shift from the purely hand drawn to the heavy use of computer generated design programs. In saying this, we have also seen a drastic change in the styles and aesthetics of structures.Two precedents used here to explain the ways in which algorithmic computation of structural forms has advanced the methods of design and building will be Gaudi’s hanging chains as a design method for his famous cathedral, La Sagrada Familia, as well as the ways in which Shigeru Ban has advanced the use of paper as a building material, primarily through his Cardboard Cathedral.

To begin with, when looking back to historical precedents such as that of Gaudi’s catehdral, we can see that while computing was not an available means of design assistance, there was nevertheless an early element of what was to develop into the CAD-type programs we know today. Gaudi used chains and weights as a method of figuring out the optimum curvature for an arch of a certain height.

Using this, Gaudi was able to calculate the structure of his famous cathedral, to be built uisng very heavy materials that are able to stand in an arched shape, as well as take the gravitational load thereafrter.

Hanging Chain ModelsAntoni Gaudi

Barcelona, Spainc. 1870

http://memetician.livejournal.com/201202.html

In contrast to this, Ban was quite recently able to create a cathedral made completely out of paper and cardboard, and while this was only meant as a temporary structure, it still showed the lengths one was able to go to when creating such a similar structure out of materials previously thought of as completely unworthy of use in a structural sense, through the use of computational aid in both the architectural design process, and the engineering of the structure itself.

This project presented a very unique oportunity to explore new materiality within the same brief, as well as new variations on the same structural matter at hand.

As put forward in the weekly readings, the technology used in order to achieve this had solved many conflicting and often seemingly illogical problems, in this case regarding the use of paper as a building material and its strength capabilities. Computing software was used to bring the design to its logical conclusion, as a self supporting and feasable structure1.

1 Kalay, Yehuda E. (2004). Architecture’s New Me-dia: Principles, Theories, and Methods of Computer-Aided Design (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press), pp. 6

Cardboard CathedralShigeru BanChristchurch, NZ2013http://www.cardboardcathedral.org.nz/

A.3.

COMPOSITION/GENERATION

In the era of deconstructivism, digital methods of design are paramount in the creation and representation of the types of structures common to this style. Deconstructivism as a style did not initially employ such methods of representation until more recent times, using physical model making (as can be seen through the process in which Frank Gehry designed the Walt Disney concert hall) as the preferred method of generative design.

In this case, the outcomes are in many ways underdeveloped and lack essential testing and simulation in real world scenarios, which would need to be done in a later stage of the design process thus adding to the workload.

Alternatively, by using computational software as with the Beijing Olympic Stadium, we can see that the process of generative design becomes not only quicker and more streamlined, but also reduces the amount of work one needs to do in order to achieve the same if not better results with every probable solution to the brief.

As such, architectural practice has greatly changed in regards to this development, and alongside this so too has architectural literature. In recent times, articles and publications have focused more on the mathematics of the various CAD progarams used in architecture, as well as how to use them to their full potential in order to aid with the design.

Walt Disney Concert HallFrank GehryLos Angeles, USA2003http://www.laphil.com/philpedia/about-walt-disney-concert-hall

This can be seen through the readings given to us on a weekly basis, in particular the two regarding the uses and evolution of computation software in the world of design, as well as the ways in which they work and are put together.

One reading suggests a possible definition to computation in the designing sense, that is that it is “the use of the computer to process information through an understood model which can be expressed as an algorithm”21. This definition, while implying that computational design is done so through a finite set of rules and, as mentioned, algorithms, nevertheless gives rise to the question of how useful the software is.

As mentioned before, it allows for quicker and easier output of ideas regarding the project, but it also extends the designers abilities32 by allowing them to then take such generated ideas and place them into complex real world situations, thus in a way pre-testing them to future possibilities in many aspects including use, climate and efficiency.

2 Peters, Brady. (2013) ‘Computation Works: The Building of Algorithmic Thought’, Architectural Design, 83, 2, pp. 103 Peters. (2013), p.p. 10

Beijing Olympic StadiumHerzog & de Meuron

Beijing, China2008

http://ieatthereforeiam.blogspot.com.au/2011_04_01_archive.html

A.4.

CONCLUSION

&

A.5.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

In looking at Part A this semester, my intended design approach is definitiely going to be focused on the best ways to use and utilise CAD based programs in order to achieve the best possible outcome and solution for the brief at hand.In this way, I will need to test each generated model in real life circumstances and situations, which will allow me to further gain a better final outcome within the giver environment and site.This is a necessary way of designing as it allows for future planning and guranteeing that the design will last for the forseeable future (though it is only temporary, this still should be the case).

Through the readings lectures and tutorial discussions within these past three weeks, i have learnt much more on how to better utilise Rhino in particular, through plug-ins such as Grasshopper and more. While I might not use the entire tool set at my disposal, it is still of importance to be at least acquainted witrh the vsarious techniques used in modern design practices.In saying this, I could have very much used this new knowledge to better some of my past designs, particularly my earlier project in Studio Earth which focused on a series of fence post elements arranged in an almost deconstructed fashion along a curved pathway. With this project I could have used computation software to further demonstrate how my design utilised natural light sources to give an alternate experience to the user.

APPENDIX

A.6.

ALGORITHMIC SKETCHBOOK

WEEK 1

Recreation of the Guggenheim Museum in New York, USA, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and completed in 1959.

Below are three generative design ideas of the same building, created using the OcTree command in Grasshopper.

Count = 15Group = 2

Thhe building here looks extremely “pixelated” and is almost unrecognisable to its original form.

Count = 100Group = 1

This was the most abstracted version of my rendering, and as mentioned the building looks in some ways more recognisable than the others, as the number of boxes allows for less “pixelation” in a way.

Count = 55Group = 4

Here the building looks quite similar to the next rendition, though with less detail.

WEEK 2

Manipulation of a fabric-like material in Rhino using Grasshopper alongside both the Kangaroo Physics and Weaverbird plug-ins.

In this case, the first of my trials has been rotated to show what the material would look like as a rigid, pavilion-like structure (as opposed to a flacid stretchy material structure with a downward load.

Force strength = 0.618Gravity = 20

Top view

Force strength = 0.618Gravity = 20

Front view

Force strength = 0.618Gravity = 20

Side view

Force strength = 0.211Gravity = 20

Removal of points from intital render resulted in an almost paper origami bird shape in the fabric simulation.

Force strength = 0.618Gravity = 20

Increase in the force of the downward load (bigger arrow size) as well as different point placement resulted in an almost dome shaped render.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cathedral, Christchurch, ‘Christchurch Cathedral : New Zealand’, Cardboardcathedral.org.nz, 2015 <http://www.cardboardcathedral.org.nz/> [accessed 18 March 2015]

Dezeen.com, 2015 <http://www.dezeen.com/2009/07/03/driftwood-pavilion-by-aa-unit-2-opens/> [accessed 18 March 2015]

Fallingwater.org, ‘Fallingwater | Home’, 2015 <http://www.fallingwater.org/> [accessed 18 March 2015]

Kalay, Yehuda E. Architecture’s New Media: Principles, Theories, and Methods of Computer-Aided Design (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004), pp. 5-25

Kolarevic, Branko, Architecture in the Digital Age: Design and Manufacturing (New York; London: Spon Press, 2003) pp. 3-62

Ieatthereforeiam.blogspot.com.au, ‘I Eat Therefore I Am: April 2011’, 2011 <http://ieatthereforeiam.blogspot.com.au/2011_04_01_archive.html> [accessed 18 March 2015]

Laphil.com, ‘About Walt Disney Concert Hall’, 2015 <http://www.laphil.com/philpedia/about-walt-disney-concert-hall> [accessed 18 March 2015]

Memetician.livejournal.com, ‘A Different Kind Of String Theory: Antoni Gaudi’, 2015 <http://memeti-cian.livejournal.com/201202.html> [accessed 18 March 2015]

Peters, Brady. ‘Computation Works: The Building of Algorithmic Thought’, Architectural Design, (2013) pp. 08-15