2015

JOURNALA I R

CLAIRE ROBERTSON

FINN

2Cover Image: <https://exocoetusarchitecture.wordpress.com/>

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 4

CONCEPTUALISATION 6 -DESIGN FUTURING 6-DESIGN COMPUTATION 10-COMPOSITION/GERNERATION 14

CONCLUSION 18

LEARNING OUTCOMES 19

APPENDIX 20

4 INTRODUCTION

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INTRODUCTION

For as long as I can remember, I have been passionate about design an art. I love working with my hands, so crafts and 3- Dimensional artworks were predominantly what I made.

It wasn’t until the later years of high school that I developed a real interest in the built environment, particularly interior spaces.

Coming into the Bachelor of Environments, I was apprehensive as I only had experience in creative arts and absolutely no experience with computer aided design, in fact computers in general had always been a weakness.

In 2013 I took the subject Virtual Environments, in which we were expected to use Rhino to design a wearable ‘second skin’ and then fabricate it. I found Rhino extremely challenging, but loved the

process of assembling the laser cut pieces I had designed in Rhino.

In 2014 I commenced Design Studio: Fire. The first few weeks of the semester involved making conceptual models, one of which is pictured to the left. I made this geometric model by repeating a single module to create a dome-like structure.

When it came to the final design project for this subject I had a lot of trouble trying to represent my idea in two dimensional drawing so I found Rhino an integral part of the design process in finalizing the design and then creating a model from this.

I am excited now to explore the role of computer modelling in formulating a design, rather than simply representing an already formed idea.

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DESIGN FUTURING

CONCEPTUALISATION

With a rapidly increasing population that has doubled in the last 45 years, it has become very apparent that we are placing too much pressure on the earths resources, so much so that there is no long term future on Earth if we continue along this path. 1

According to Tony Fry, “we only have a future by design”2, that is to say that if the Earth is to sustain us in the future, it must be a completely redesigned future to the one we are currently heading towards.

Current design practice has little focus on environmental impact, and is instead based on aesthetic. In the current climate, consumers are being handed design choices based on style and user functionality, giving design power to manufacturers and marketers3.

In order to make the changes that will allow for a sustainable future, a complete shift in values and ideals needs to be undertaken to redesign the future. To do this, the power of design needs to shift back to designers who can then create a redefined design intelligence based on materiality and operability4.

1 Dunne, Anthony & Raby, Fiona, Speculative Everything: Design Fiction, and Social Dreaming (USA: MIT Press, 2013) pp. 1-9, 33-452 Fry, Tony, Design Futuring: Sustainability, (Oxford: Berg, Ethics and New Practice, 2008), pp. 1–16 3 Fry, Tony, Design Futuring: Sustainability, (Oxford: Berg, Ethics and New Practice, 2008), pp. 1–16

4 Fry, Tony, Design Futuring: Sustainability, (Oxford: Berg, Ethics and New Practice, 2008), pp. 1–16

In the current social and political climate, such a radical shift in ideals is unfeasible. It seems impossible that anyone would be able to redefine the design values of the entire population. Instead, a more realistic option is to incorporate new ideas about sustainable design into the current design environment. In this way design needs to still have a focus on aesthetics and style, because that is the idealogy of the current population, but designers must find a way to do this in a way that is also focused on creating a new sustainable future.

In a 2010, Matsys Studio designed a wall made of timber using digital fabrication5. The focus of the design was to create no material waste. Instead of designing from the top down and beginning with aesthetics, they started with a standard sheet size of timber.6 From here they explored ways of efficiently cutting the wood, and then assembling it to create a wall that is also based on aesthetic and style.

In this way, Matsys have not removed the idea of aesthetics from the design process, but rather rearranged its significance to come after materiality and functionality of the wall.

5 Matsys, Zero/Fold Screen, (Matsys, 2010), <http://matsysdesign.com/2010/02/28/zerofold-screen/>accessed 10/03/2015

6 Matsys, Zero/Fold Screen, (Matsys, 2010), <http://matsysdesign.com/2010/02/28/zerofold-screen/>accessed 10/03/2015

DESIGN FUTURING

7CONCEPTUALISATION

Matsys, 2010, Zero/Fold Screen, Canada

8 DESIGN FUTURING

Author Unknown, SCAD Digital Fabrication Club |(L)Abnormal, (Arch20, 2014), <http://www.arch2o.com/scad-digital-fabrication-club-labnormal/> accessed 19/03/2015

9CONCEPTUALISATION

(L)ABnormal’s ornamental canopy was created using parametric modelling, resulting in a series of pleated canopies that envelope three existing columns. A series of lights within the canopy shine through small holes in the surface, an emulation of a starry sky. 1The result is intriguing and beautiful to look at.

The canopy demonstrates a large part of design ideals in the current environment. In this case, computation has been to used to design and fabricate a structure that serves no purpose other than aesthetics. It can be argued that both the materials used in this installation as well as the energy used to produce and run it are a waste.

With aesthetics such an integral part of design in its current state, it is not possible to reject it completely. Instead aesthetic principles need to be incorporated with other design parameters such as operability and function to create a new type of architecture that satisfies the human obsession with aesthetic style and beauty as well as allowing for a future that can sustain life on Earth.

1 Author Unknown, SCAD Digital Fabrication Club |(L)Abnormal, (Arch20, 2014), <http://www.arch2o.com/scad-digital-fabrication-club-labnormal/> accessed 19/03/2015

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Architecture and design is moving into a new phase with the increasing use of computation in many aspects of the design and production process. The realm of possibilities that opens up with the use of this new technology has a radical effect on the whole industry.

Yehuda Kelay talks about architecture being the response to a variety of parameters and issues that need to be resolved, which to do so requires both analysis and innovative creativity. With the use of computer aided design, this analysis side of the process can be assigned to a computer which is much faster and more efficient.1

Yet computer aided design has become much more than a tool to aid and speed a design or as a way of representing a pre-formulated design accurately. With the use of algorithmic thinking, computer software is beginning to be used to formulate a design, allowing one to produce a number of varieties from a preconceived set of rules and parameters. In doing so, this process allows designers to break down the creation of a building form into a series of parameters that can each be adjusted individually to reveal its outcome on the overall form2. In this way, designers are beginning to design these parameters, which then result in an overall form, rather than beginning with a design and then looking into the details of forming it.

Computation in design has also created a new

1 Kalay, Yehuda E, Architecture’s New Media: Principles, Theories, and Methods of Computer-Aided Design (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004), pp. 5-25 2 Oxman, Rivka and Robert Oxman, Theories of the Digital in Architecture (London; New York: Routledge, 2014), pp. 1–10

type of performative architecture. As the design becomes digitalized, so too is the analysis of efficiency in materiality, structural engineering and energy meaning that buildings can be designed to yield the optimum performance3.

In this way, architecture is undergoing a major shift as a result of computation so that form is now driven by performance rather than aesthetics, idealogies or material limitations.

This way of algorithmic thinking is closely linked to nature, which operates in similar ways to create optimum performance. As a result, designers are getting results that mirror geometries found in nature4.

The project Hygroscope by Achim Menges in 2012 is an example of the use of material computation. Though responsive analysis of the material, wood, they were able to create a design that responds to the environment without any technical equipment or energy use.5 By exploring the instability of the material in response to changes in moisture, they were able to create a climate responsive morphology. As a result, the structure opens or closes in response to changes in humidity. 6

3 Oxman, Rivka and Robert Oxman, Theories of the Digital in Architecture (London; New York: Routledge, 2014), pp. 1–104 Oxman, Rivka and Robert Oxman, Theories of the Digital in Architecture (London; New York: Routledge, 2014), pp. 1–105 Sushant, Verma, Material Computation: Towards a performative architecture, (Arch20, 2013), <http://www.arch2o.com/material-computation/ >, accessed 19/03/20156 Author unknown, HygroScope: Meteorosensitive Morphology, (Achimmenges, 2012), <http://www.achimmenges.net/?p=5083>, accessed 19/03/2015

DESIGN COMPUTATION

DESIGN COMPUTATION

11CONCEPTUALISATION

Author unknown, HygroScope: Meteorosensitive Morphology, (Achimmenges, 2012)<http://www.achimmenges.net/?p=5083>, accessed 19/03/2015

12 DESIGN COMPUTATION

David, Oliver, Landesgartenschau Exhibition Hall, (Oliver David, 2014), <http://www.oliverdavidkrieg.com/?page_id=559>, accessed 18/03/2015

13CONCEPTUALISATION

Furthermore, the use of design computation can be beneficial in the production process by using a streamline digital continuum from design to manufacture. In this way, digital design can be used to create non standard materials in a much faster process and increase accuracy in the manufacture thereby resulting in a shorter and more efficient and economical design-to-build time. This idea has been used in the Landesgartenschau Exhibition Hall in Germany in which the entire pavilion has been both digitally designed and fabricated1. The buildings primary structure is made up of robotically prefabricated plates of plywood. The load bearing structure is very thin, meaning it is very economical and resourceful its use of materials, made possible through digital simulation and surveying methods2. The structure gets it’s strength from the robotically fabricated finger locking joints which are a part of each panel, still visible from inside the building. The structure also boasts material efficiency by using timber as both the primary structure and forming the buildings envelope at the same time3.

However, this idea of material efficiency as a result of digital analysis and design is two-fold. While in some cases computation is used to minimise material waste and optimize performance, the digital streamline from design to fabrication makes prototyping and fast fabrication much easier, resulting in more material waste. It is so easy to quickly create prototypes and experimentation at each stage that materials are being used that serve little purpose and yield large amounts of wastage.

While it is evident that computation is highly beneficial in the field of architecture, the increased use of digital design in the formation of a building means that the design comes as a result of computer analysis rather than innovation and creativity and is thereby diminishing design in the way it was previously perceived.

1 David, Oliver, Landesgartenschau Exhibition Hall, (Oliver David, 2014), <http://www.oliverdavidkrieg.com/?page_id=559>, accessed 18/03/20152 Author unknown, Landesgartenschau Exhibition Hall, (Universitat Stutgart, 2014), <http://icd.uni-stuttgart.de/?p=11173>, accessed 18/03/20153 Author unknown, Landesgartenschau Exhibition Hall, (Universitat Stutgart, 2014), <http://icd.uni-stuttgart.de/?p=11173>, accessed 18/03/2015

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A lot of controversy surrounds the issue of computation in design and whether this is actually creativity.

Computation has evolved in architecture practice to mean that designers no longer create forms but rather design the algorithm that will then determine the form1.

An algorithm is a process or set of instructions made up of a series of parameters and rules that are finite. The algorithm is given an input, which undergoes this process to then produce an output.2 These parameters can relate to every detail of the building, including material, production and spacial limitations which are designed by the architect.

Therefore it is in understanding the process of creating and adjusting these algorithms that makes computation a true method of design. 3

Algorithmic thinking then enables new ways of thinking about form and architecture that is shaped by the parameters of the design with increased ability to resolve the complex problems that designing a building presents.

Rather than approaching designing by thinking about overall form, algorithmic thinking starts from the ground up by looking at component design, allowing each part of the design to meet

1 Peters, Brady, Computation Works: The Building of Algorithmic Thought, (Architectural Design, 2013), 83, 2, pp. 08-152 Wilson, Robert A. and Frank C. Keil, Definition of ‘Algorithm’, The MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences (London: MIT Press, 1999), pp. 11, 123 Peters, Brady, Computation Works: The Building of Algorithmic Thought, (Architectural Design, 2013), 83, 2, pp. 08-15

performance requirements on a more local level. 4

Many architects are now using algorithmic thinking to analyze performance and create a form that provides optimum function. The Endesa Pavilion by Rodrigo Rubio in Spain has been created using an algorithm to determine the site, position and angle of each panel of the building to allow the photovoltaic cells to collect the maximum amount of sunlight, as well as controlling how much light enters the building. 5

The structure was created using computerized prefabrication, so that the total construction of the project to only 5 weeks to assemble. 6

Similarly, the Acoustic Pavilion by Electrotexture Lab was created using an algorithm that searched for the optimum form and reflective environment for electronic music with its context of the Aalborg Harbour in Denmark. The design process involved experimentation in form, materials structure and acoustics which fed information into the computational algorithm to generate the finals design. 7

Both of these examples illustrate how computation and algorithmic thinking can be applied to create designs that are optimized for performance on a number of parameters, and specific to each site.

4 Peters, Brady, Computation Works: The Building of Algorithmic Thought, (Architectural Design, 2013), 83, 2, pp. 08-155 Goula, Adria, Shaped By Algorithms, A Solar Powered Pavilion That Soaks Up Maximum Rays, (Fast Company, 2012) <http://www.fastcodesign.com/1670678/shaped-by-algorithms-a-solar-powered-pavilion-that-soaks-up-maximum-rays>, accessed 20/03/20156 as above. 7 Author Unknown, Acoustic Environment, (Electrotexture Lab 2012), <http://electrotexture.org/>, accessed 19/03/2015

COMPOSITION/GERNERATION

COMPOSITION/GENERATION

15CONCEPTUALISATION

Above: Goula, Adria, Shaped By Algorithms, A Solar Powered Pavilion That Soaks Up Maximum Rays, (Fast Company, 2012) <http://www.fastcodesign.com/1670678/shaped-by-algorithms-a-solar-powered-pavilion-that-soaks-up-maximum-rays>, accessed 20/03/2015

Left: Author Unknown, Acoustic Environment, (Electrotexture Lab 2012), <http://electrotexture.org/>, accessed 19/03/2015

16 COMPOSITION/GENERATION

Bojovic, Marija, Meta-Follies: Real-Time Responsive Architecture, (Evolo, 2014)<http://www.evolo.us/architecture/meta-follies-real-time-responsive-architecture/>, accessed 20/03/2015

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The use of performance analysis in computation can be extended from physical parameters to also respond on a social level in terms of how people interact with the building. In this way, a building can analyze information from users and continue to be shaped in response to users even after its completion. 1

Meta-Follies by ecoLogic Studio is a responsive installation that has been conceived algorithmically to create an acoustic interaction between structure and user. It is a mechanic structure made up of reused urban waste such as polypropylene, modified sound kits, steel rods and chameleonic nano-flakes which together undergo a system of transformations in response to the contextual environment as well as behavioral response. 300 peizo-buzzers react to peoples movement which essentially create a ripple of sound that interferes with the sound of the buzzer.2 In this way, the algorithm will continue to change and adapt in response to people throughout its use, not just responding to performance analysis in its construction.3

While this technology creates a fascinating installation, further development is required to translate this into something that is practical within architecture and influential on the social interaction within a space.

1 Peters, Brady, Computation Works: The Building of Algorithmic Thought, (Architectural Design, 2013), 83, 2, pp. 08-152 Chin, Andrea, EcologicStudio Algorithmically Conceive Meta-follies (Designboom, 2013) <http://www.designboom.com/design/ecologicstudio-algorithmically-conceive-meta-follies/>, accessed 20/3/20153 Bojovic, Marija, Meta-Follies: Real-Time Responsive Architecture, (Evolo, 2014)<http://www.evolo.us/architecture/meta-follies-real-time-responsive-architecture/>, accessed 20/03/2015

CONCEPTUALISATION

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CONCLUSION

With an ever increasing population, it is becoming even more essential to think about design in a way that will change current trends and lead towards a future that can sustain humanity on Earth.

While current ideals in design revolve around style and aesthetics, a complete shift needs to take place. Design intelligence needs to be redefined to look at functionality and operability with minimum material waste.

It is clear that design computation will play a major role in this shift towards a sustainable future. The increasing power of computer technology means that building design can now be thought from the ground up, allowing operability and function to determine form, rather than style.

Furthermore, algorithmic thinking can alter the design process so that designers create an system of parameters that dictate the final design, allowing them to look at each aspect of a buildings form individually and how it affects the resulting form.

Computation can now be used in functional analysis in terms of structure, energy efficiency, material efficiency and many other aspects to create designs that are optimized in their performance.

It is therefore clear that design computation will play an integral role in the change of building design. As a result it will become possible to design in such a way that makes Earth sustaining humanity a possibility.

“We only have a future by design”- Tony Fry

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The concepts introduced in Studio Air have all been quite new to me and I have found them fascinating. While sustainability in architecture is something I have understood, I had not before considered the link between sustainable design and the role of computation.

Prior to this subject I had a very limited view of design computation as something used to create cool looking geometric designs without considering the beneficial role of computation in increasing efficiency in many aspects of the design process.

Beginning to attempt algorithmic thinking in the sketchbook exercises has been challenging as it is

a very new concept to me. I found the option of changing a single parameter within a system and being able to immediately see the overall results really useful and interesting.

In the past, designs that I have worked one were forms that evolved from conceptual and aesthetic ideas. While they would have been much easier to design the geometric shapes and patterns using computation, I am looking forward to integrating the ideas of analytical response and function optimization into future designs. Using these ideas I will be able to create projects that have a deeper meaning and respond more to the current context and necessity to design in a way that will lead to a sustainable future.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

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APPENDIX

WEEK 1: LOFTED VASE

Below are examples from the algorithmic sketchbook. Each was created using the Grasshopper plug-in for Rhino to create an algorithm that determines the forms

outcome.

In this exercise, a loft was created between a series of curves. By using an algorithm to do this, I was able to manipulate the curves in different ways and see how the overall form is affected. I started with a series of circles stacked above each other. In the first image I experimented altering the diameter of these circles, then in the second image also rotating and angling the curves to create an outcome that I found to be most appealing.

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WEEK 2: POINTS ON SURFACE

WEEK 3: L-SYSTEM TREES

As an extension of the loft algorithm, I next looked at different ways of adding to the surface. By determining a series of points on the surface, I could then add a series of shapes and lines at the points, experimenting with different sizes and positions along the normal of these points. In the second image, I begun to look at how to create different sized shapes on the surface using the random command, which resulted in a much more interesting form.

For the next exercise I looked at using Anenome to create an l-system algorithm, mimicking the growth pattern of trees. By adjusting parameters such as the angle, length and number of branches, a huge variety in results could be seen. In the first image I experimented using the symmetrical angle of 60 degrees, with a reproduction 60% of the start line. I then looked at adding an other angle on a third plane to create 3-dimensionality in the tree as well as randomizing the length and angle of the branches to result in something that looks most similar to a natural tree.

APPENDIX