Download pdf - Hong hanting 648412 part a

My name is Hanting. I am currently in the third year of my bachelor

degree and major in architecture.Over years I found it almost inevitable for architects to embed their memory of space – whether consciously or not – in to their design. Therefore, architecture has this strong quality that truly links the past and the future for individual and society. I prefer to see design as a process of seeking future possibilities from the past rather than a problem solving tool, and I believe the passage from past to present can be a map of our way to the desirable future, where new possibilities emerge as time requires. One of these new possibilities is digital architecture.Starting from 1970s, computer aided design has gradually increased its impact on conventional design industry. New technology altered the way information was processed and demonstrated: 3D modelling software allowed thorough communication of design ideas; NURBs increase precision in describing and constructing forms with curvature; BIM enabled synchronisation of design changes and analysis

INTRODUcTIONbased on complex building system; the popularisation of cNc equipment changed the top-bottom system of design industry into a lateral network. Thus it is necessary to understand how parametric design emerged through time, and how far it can go in the future.During the first two years of my degree, I’ve had plenty of experience with parametric design and cAD tools such as rhino and 3ds max, yet my encountered problems rarely require the skill of scripting. The only time I used Grasshopper was in Digital Design and Fabrication, where we generated a waffle grid with an existing script. It was not until then did I realized that there is a huge gap between computation and fabrication although they seem to have connected directly as technology developed. This journal will continually discuss the future of parametric design and its realisation. Hopefully, at the end of this journal, all of my questions about digital design in previous and current design project will be answered properly.

COMTEMPLATION- STUDLEY PARK BOAHOUSE

ELEVATION FROM THE WATERFRONT 1:100

ELEVATION FROM THE EAST ENTRANCE 1:100

HANTING HONG648412

TUTORAL 6TUTOR: HEATHER MITCHELTREE

Table of contents

A. conceptualisation

A.1. Design Futuring

A.2.Design computation

A.3. composition/ Generation

A.4. conclusion

A.5. Learning Outcomes

Appendix - Algorithmic

A. CONCEPTURALISATION

8 cONcEPTUALISATION

cONcEPTUALISATION 9

According to Fry in the book Design Futuring, design takes on a determinate life of its

own-designed things go on designing.1 As global environment is facing a vital change to a climate chaos, and this change results largely from human activities, it is time to reflect on what impact our design has on the reality and how we can control that. After all, the fundamental ability of designer is to prefigure what we create before the act of act of creation, which means we should take responsibility for all the impact our design may have.2

Therefore, ‘design futuring’ has to confront two tasks: slowing the rate of defuturing and redirecting us towards far more sustainable modes of planetary habitation. This requires fundamental change in design profession. A great deal of knowledge that historically has been acquired as the corpus of the discipline underpinning a profession, and the manner of its deployment, could well need to be discarded and replaced in order for any real ability of the ‘remade professional’ to drive affirmative change.3 As for architecture, changes of this discourse, such as deregulated pluralization of design activity, have happened in order to expand future possibilities. The point is, it is rather important for us to think about alternatives to current system, or just as Dunne said in Speculative Everything, “For us futures are not a destination or something to be strived for but a medium to aid imaginative thought - to speculate with.”4

The following case studies will demonstrate how architecture can contribute to field of ideas, technical workflows, patterns of living and ways of thinking. By seeking alternatives in design, they act as inspiration and cause changes to the world.

A.1. DESIGN FUTURING

1. Tony Fry, Design Futuring (Oxford: Berg, 2009).2. Fry, Design Futuring, 20093. Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby, Speculative Everything, 2013.4 Dunne & Raby, Speculative Everything, 2013.

10 cONcEPTUALISATION

Case study 1 - Metropol Parasol

The project by J. Mayer H. becomes the new icon for Sevilla, a place of identification and

to articulate Sevilla’s role as one of Spain’s most fascinating cultural destinations. The Metropol Parasol scheme with its large structures offers an archaeological site, a farmers market, an elevated plaza, multiple bars and restaurants underneath and inside the parasols, as well as a panorama terrace on the very top of the parasols. The megastructure of timber waffle “grows” from the archaeological site in a decadent city square which used to have cultural, political and economic significants. This defines a unique relationship between the historical and the contemporary city and initiates a dynamic development for culture and commerce in the heart of Sevilla.

In his 1964 book Investigations in collective Form, Fumihiko Maki defined the basic concept of megastructure, writing: “The megastructure is a large frame in which all the functions of a city or part of a city are housed... In a sense, it is a human-made feature of the landscape.”1 Therefore, the Metropol Parasol could reasonably be considered a megastructure. Although it does not house all the possible functions of a city, this new and artificial urban landscape does contain several of them—commerce, leisure and public space. This speculative form provide an alternative of what contemporary city can be, while highlighting the need to recover the urban meaning of words such as “square” and “market”.It questions, critiques, and challenges the

way technologies enter our lives and the limitations they place on design profession through their narrow definition of what it means to be architecture. A project of such importance and scale could be seen as a radical attempt to initiate a process of metamorphosis within the urban space.

Metropol Parasol was not the first megastructure that has been invented, yet it was truly the first ones that have been actually built. The difference between paper architecture and built project is that the later one has closer association with the reality. Therefore, it was not surprising when the project of Metropol Parasol were made to be the focus of intense controversy by the economic crisis and political problems currently troubling Spain. Opinions about the project touch both extremes. Supporters of parametric architecture praise the structural design and bravery of the concept; other architects, meanwhile, see it as a narcissistic celebration of form that is totally out of scale and context.2

Protests against this project has never stopped even after it was completed. In other sense, it seem to have created, almost at random, a democratic public space with people having to be patient and able to wait a long time listening to the opinions of others, as well as observing and being aware of the diverse kinds of life that inhabit the city.3

1. Ethel Baraona Pohl, “Waffle Urbanism”, domusweb.it, 2011 <http://www.domusweb.it/en/architecture/2011/05/10/waffle-urbanism.html> [accessed 16 March 2016].2. Pohl, “Waffle Urbanism”, 2011 3. “Magic Mushrooms”, domusweb.it, 2011 <http://www.domusweb.it/en/architecture/2011/07/02/magic-mushrooms.html> [accessed 16 March 2016].

cONcEPTUALISATION 11

vIEw PLATFORM OF METROPOL PARASOL

METROPOL PARASOL: PLAN



Case study 2 - Absolute Towers

As tools of real estate, tall buildings demand uncompromising practicality; anything

against the most efficient solution means making a sacrifice for architecture. This particular instance of the battle between the desires for optimisation and excess were known as the “chicago Frame dilemma”, after the city that perfected the technical solution to tall office buildings and narrowed architects’ options considerably.1 The vertical sameness, usually taken for granted, becomes incongruous when paired with a free-form horizontal plane, and it takes centre stage; stacking becomes the subject of architecture.

However, rather than stacking straight up to an extrusion, in the Absolute Towers, each floor is rotated from the one below it. This then lead to the result that in the interior, concrete sheer walls and columns must appear and disappear and floor plans are subject to constant adjustment, and in the end no two condos have the same layout. There is an extreme disjunction between a simple idea and the complex difference it creates.

1. Matthew Allen, “An Empathetic Twist”, domusweb.it, 2012 <http://www.domusweb.it/en/architecture/2012/11/07/an-empathetic-twist.html> [accessed 16 March 2016].


not in their plans (which are all the same shape), but in the cumulative effect of small rotations that follow different patterns in the vertical axis in each tower. The two characters—one perhaps feminine, the other perhaps masculine—were specified by simple formulas: from floors x to y, rotate 0.5 degrees; from floors y to z, rotate 4 degrees; and so on. While the figures are still humanoid, they have a genetically engineered calibration—an android feel—that is at home in contemporary culture.1”

The use of successive rotation also gives the towers an undeniable formal impact from the street. The Absolute Towers are unfailingly compared to human bodies; they require the anthropomorphic turn of thought that focused architectural modernism on abstract forms in space. In doing this, the Absolute Towers are clearly based on a parametric system, a result of computational rules. Just as Matthew Allen wrote in An Empathetic Twist,“The difference between MAD’s two towers as bodies in space lies

ABSOLUTE TOwER: PLAN

1. Matthew Allen, “An Empathetic Twist”, domusweb.it, 2012 <http://www.domusweb.it/en/architecture/2012/11/07/an-empathetic-twist.html> [accessed 16 March 2016].


Huge changes have occurred since computing got involved in design

process. To be specific, it changed the way information is processed, starting from 3D modelling to parametric scripting. Human input were gradually taken place of by computation, yet it is still vital in case of initialising ideas and optimising outcomes. As a result, the design profession might as well change as individuals from different discipline with different level of background knowledge of design are involved in the design. Meanwhile, there is a tendency for design and fabrication to be distributed so that the outcome can be personalised and has less constraint in time and space. Over all, computation provide alternatives in terms of form, logic and material to the current industry. The following cases provide a thorough explanation on how computation impacts on the architectural design.

A.2. DESIGN COMPUTATION


Case study 1 - Heydar Aliyev Centre

The design of the Heydar Aliyev centre establishes a continuous, fluid relationship

between its surrounding plaza and the building’s interior. Elaborate formations such as undulations, bifurcations, folds, and inflections modify this plaza surface into an architectural landscape that performs a multitude of functions: welcoming, embracing, and directing visitors through different levels of the interior.1 with this gesture, the building blurs the conventional differentiation between architectural object and urban landscape, building envelope and urban plaza, figure and ground, interior and exterior. By introducing computing into design process, the project discarded conventional vocabulary of modern architecture, such as point-line-plane composition. Instead, it used one surface to wrap up the whole space, providing a strong sense of fluidity.

Another thing that is truly impressive in terms of computation in this project is that the form generating strategy is coincided with construction method. what takes Sydney Opera House six years can now be achieved in two steps. Firstly, within the parametric space, all kinds of curves are defined by NURBs, which gives them mathematical qualities for structural analysis. Secondly, when NURBs geometry transforms into mesh, it automatically use linear items to approximate the curves, which can be seen as the guideline for structural members to be introduced into the system.

HEyDAR ALIyEv cENTRE

HEyDAR ALIyEv cENTRE: cONSTRUcTION

1. Saffet Kaya Bekiroglu, “Heydar Aliyev center”, domusweb.it, 2015 <http://www.domusweb.it/en/architecture/2013/11/15/heydar_aliyev_center.html> [accessed 18 March 2016].


“One of the most critical yet challenging elements of the project

was the architectural development of the building’s skin. Our ambition to achieve a surface so continuous that it appears homogenous, required a broad range of different functions, construction logics and technical systems had to be brought together and integrated into the building’s envelope. Advanced computing allowed for the continuous control and communication of these complexities among the numerous project participants.” 1

1. Saffet Kaya Bekiroglu, “Heydar Aliyev center”, domusweb.it, 2015 <http://www.domusweb.it/en/architecture/2013/11/15/heydar_aliyev_center.html> [accessed 18 March 2016].



Case study 2 - Messe Basel New Hall

The additions to the Messe Basel exhibition halls complex have recently completed

by Herzog & de Meuron in Basel, Switzerland. The project has three halls in total, and two of them are characterized by their abstracted expanded metal skins, with parametrically designed openings that seem almost to breathe as they offer views of the city in very precise points, primarily the social areas above the city Lounge, towards the public life of the city.1 These articulated twisting aluminium bands modulates and reduces the scale of the large exhibition volumes to its surroundings. T They are not simply decorative elements but a practical means to regulate the fall of natural light on adjacent properties and to add weightlessness and dynamism to the old exhibition hall which was referred to as the monolithic “big box”.

The 15,000 brushed aluminium panels that make up the façade were individually cut and bent in response to a parametric script that translates two-dimensional elevation drawings into a three-dimensional reality.2 Therefore, computation plays an important role in this innovation. A new way of regulating material performance has been discovered, which made the building envelope appears less like a gleaming building box and more like an artfully woven, metal basket. Moreover, it opens up a new field where an ‘ordinary’ material can be transformed into something special. In this large convention centre in Basel, the result being a convention centre that really feels more ‘woven in’ to its surroundings.

1. “Herzog & De Meuron: Messe Basel”, domusweb.it, 2013 <http://www.domusweb.it/en/architecture/2013/05/23/_herzog_de_meuronmessebasel.html> [accessed 18 March 2016].2. “Woven Aluminium Façade • Materia”, Materia, 2013 <http://materia.nl/article/woven-aluminium-facade/> [accessed 18 March 2016].


Generation of unexpected results through computation has the ability to go beyond

the intellect of the designer. Based on a problem-solving program, further options can be explored with the aid of computer. However, to get preferable results from self-emerged generation, the designer should take on an interpretive role to understand the results of the generating code, knowing how to modify the code to explore new options, and speculating on further design potentials.1 This ability to control the generation at a macroscopic level is known as algorithmic thinking.

By engaging algorithmic thinking into design process, computation has gradually changed its role from a digital tool to a vital element that is integral to the design itself. Performance analysis, material analysis, tectonics and parameters of production machinery used to be separated disciplines in the design industry, yet now are incorporated into one whole system.2 Although this new system allows for performance feedback at various stages of an architectural project, creating new design opportunities, it can be problematic as human input can never be eliminated from the process, which increases the risk during decision making. Moreover, once the physical construction started, the flexibility of parametric scripting no longer exists, which means it will be far more difficult to modify things at this stage than it in conventional architecture industry. The following examples will articulate the advantages and shortcomings of generation and scripting.

A.3. COMPOSITION/GENERATION

1. Brady Peters and Xavier De Kestelier, Computation Works, 20132. Brady Peters and Xavier De Kestelier, Computation Works, 2013


allows demonstration of the activity in a real beehive.The advantages of computer generation is fully utilised in this project. Although the general form of the structure is the composition of cube and sphere, the infill of 169,300 individual aluminium components and the connection details could be nearly impossible (and pointless) to be achieved without digital support. And the role of generation is not limited to this. Generation has the natural advantage in terms of biomimicry, as they both followed the process of self-emerge, and generation opens for human input so that the whole project is still controllable. As a result, the structure generated integrated a high level of complexity, while providing strong sensory experience to visitors.

Case study 1 - UK Pavilion

The UK pavilion at Expo 2015 in Milan, designed by wolfgang Buttress, is developed

around the concept of the beehive, as the humble bee plays a unique role in our ecosystem, while strong parallels can be drawn between the culture and interactions in a bee colony and those in human societies. The Hive is a 14x14x14 metre 3D cuboid lattice structure made from aluminium sited upon three metre-tall columns.1 A spherical void hollowed from its interior allows visitors to enter. People may seem like bees within a hive, and in this way the design plays with perceptions, shifting between the micro and macro. LED lights and audio-visual devices embedded in the structure

THE UK PAvILION AT EXPO 2015

1. “Grown In Britain”, domusweb.it, 2015 <http://www.domusweb.it/en/news/2015/01/20/expo_2015_uk_pavilion.html> [accessed 18 March 2016].



Case study 2 - Serpentine Pavilion 2013

Inspired by organic structures, Fujimoto’s signature buildings inhabit a space between

nature and artificiality. The Serpentine Pavilion 2013 was one of his project that aim to create a structure in between nature and artificial world. The organic form of the pavilion with a lightweight and semi-transparent appearance allowed it to blend into the landscape, while the repeating rigid grids generated to represent the artificial side of the design scheme.

It was truly a splendid form with inspiring logic embedded. However, it exposed the shortcoming of generation, as it failed in terms of functioning. The design was supposed to create a space functioning as a café, yet the architect‘s impossible attempt to integrate the café within his white metal lattice resulted in a bar top made of cubic modules that were protected from the rain by polycarbonate discs. compromising occurs quite often as designers sometimes get ‘lost’ in the parametric space and pay too much attention to test possibilities and achieve expressive performance. As a result, what the architects of the Serpentine Gallery pavilions are confronted with is, in fact, their struggle to understand architecture as an autonomous art form rather than as a social and aesthetic practice that participates in the production of cultural narratives and dominant structures of power.1

1. Marina Otero verzier, “The Avery Review | Fair Trade: Architecture And coffee At The Serpentine Gallery Pavilions”, Averyreview.com, 2015 <http://www.averyreview.com/issues/9/architecture-and-coffee> [accessed 18 March 2016].


Part A explained the history and theory of design computation, starting from

the concept of speculative design, to the essence of algorithmic thinking. As a new and effective design approach, computation and generation can be used to explore future possibilities and incorporate manufacturing into design process. The characteristic of self-emerge has made generation an innovative method as it goes beyond the intellect of the designer yet can be controlled with simple rules. In this way, design will be parametrised so that it can be modified with quantity and analysed with variables that affect the performance of the outcome. Therefore, solution to complex problems with multiple stakeholders and conflict interests will be optimised.

A.4. CONCLUSION


In this part, the concept of speculative design interested me most, as it regards

future as a medium to aid imaginative thought. In doing this, the approach of computation and generation was introduced. In my previous design studio, different possibilities were tested by pick one of the sketch models as a direction for further development. Now with the aid of computation, all of the ideas can be generated to the final stage and compare with each other for the best solution, and thus the approach might changes designers’ view towards future.

A.5. LEARNING OUTCOMES


A.6. APPENDIx


These forms are generated by “loft”, “contour” and “cull” respectively. Modiy the list of

the items can result in different forms, which have been explored during pracatce