David Rasner, Undergraduate Portfolio 2013

DAVID RASNER PORTFOLIO 2013

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WINDWAVES material I construction I technology keywords: mechanics, windmill, sensor, kinetics The windwaves project was the result of a collaboration between me and Nikolas Rach, as a part of the CMT (Constustion, Material, Technology) studio.

Excerpt from the final presentation: “No great strong winds are necessary to give this installation life, no dramatic gestures, but a movement from the onlooker (you), similar to that of blowing out a candle.

A small wind sensor gathers the information about this tiny wind movement and translates this input to the motion of a reacting tube network located over your heads. While taking control over the sensor, the user plays with the input of our machines brain and so, interacts with the installation.

The wind connects the participant (you) to the machine... “ Video:

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linear mechanics

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research I kinetics I technology

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SUPERPOSITION history I image I research keywords: Kasimir Malevich, Suprematism, superposition This installation was the result of research we did on Kasimir Malevich’s drawing: “Modern Buildings”. We took the two dimensional drawing and exploded it into three dimensions to illustrate some of Malevich’s ideas about space and movement.

Excerpts from the final essay: „Modern Buildings“ is part of a series of images, which Kasimir Malevich created between 1923 and 1926. They all share a birds eye view of simple geometric volumes aligned against a surface, with small human figures giving the images a sense of scale.

oddities. The shading of the surfaces does not correlate to light or position. With the top surfaces often being darkest. Some volumes and surfaces are only hinted at with outlines. The different views, when existing, do not clearly match up.

But only when trying to reconstruct the image in a CAD environment (ISOmatch script), do things really fall apart.

What at first glance seemed like a precise recipe for a building, quickly turns out to be highly arbitrary. Lines are crooked and angles do not cohere to any engineer’s

The images imply to be exact three-dimensional constructions (axonometric projection), sometimes even presenting different views of the same object . In the case of „Modern Buildings“ these are only executed as very rough sketches surrounding the image. Others works are more detailed in that respect. The drawings are also often accompanied by text. In the case of „Modern Buildings“ it reads: “It is pure form, the function has to be defined by others.” (...)

By following in Malevich’s footsteps – solely investigating form – the viewers attention is quickly caught by several

standard, be it axonometric or perspective. But what’s even worse, without additional “exact” views, creating a model becomes a matter of pure speculation, since a nearly infinite number of readings of the image of the image are possible. (...)

By tilting the head (Tatlin, “Counter-Relief”), one might believe, that you can change the perspective of the images. As if they were made up of surfaces flying through space, just being captured for a moment in that particular position for the creation of the artwork.

Avin Fathulla, David Rasner. Platform for History, Theory and Criticism. AKBILD (2012).

More information: modern-buildings.tumblr.com

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NESTING school I ecology I wood keywords: extension, education, prefabricated Excerpt from the final presentation: “We are not here to invent anything new, but to gain space quality through positioning of contrasts.

Therefore we keep on the one side the enclosed, rectangular classrooms of the existing building, which we, in orientation to the garden, partial open through exchanging the thick brick walls through glaspanels. On the other side we position the extension, contrasting and confusing with the existing building at some points, framing the courtyard, a place for community and communication...

Consisting of a wooden beam construction with an non-regular ground plan and wall elements embedded, alternately opaque and transparent the extension allows different views to the outside...�

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LOST & FOUND A selection of various ideas and objects that I made in the last 2 years (2011-2013), but never developed further. From left to right: 1) Fold-able structure which could be used for temporary bridges, or pavilions (wood and door hinges).

2) ISO surface sections.

3) ISO surfaces, box boundary (paper model).

4) Adaptive rod structure, intended to connect and fill unused urban “in-between” spaces (wood).

5) “Where do you start?”; Can structural elements define a space, or is it the other way around? (Wood, paper).

6) “Stretch and Pull” (Digital model, 3D printed).

7) Collapsing fragments, frozen in place (CG rendering).

8) Wood tension.

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POLYMER digital-analog I material keywords: digital/analog, material, entrance, movement The starting point was the manufacturing process of Expanded Polystyrene foam. The raw material is heated in a machines called the “pre-expander” , with steam at temperatures of between 80-100°C. The density of the material falls from some 630kg/m3 to values of between 10 and 35kg/m3. During this process of preexpansion

when reduced to it’s smallest components.

I started to develop strategies how to apply the through experimentation discovered material properties.

Part 2, Digital: One of the ideas was to use a motion capture sensor to create a library of common movements and simulate how a felxible space would react to a moving body:

the raw material’s compact beads turn into cellular plastic beads with small closed cells that hold air in their interior. This gives the EPS a lot of interesting properties. Not only is it an excellent insulator, but it can be, depending on the foam density, rigid and heavy, but alos quite light and flexible.

Part 1, Analog: My design process started as a series of small scale experiments where I tried to determine if and how exactly this material could be used to generate a space. My most interesting discovery was that the solid foam can become very adaptable, almost liquid,

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“Starting at the entrance, opening the door, removing shoes, walking down a corridor, sitting down etc. The motion capture data would be applied to a dummy model, which would then perform the motions in a dense point cloud.

The point cloud material properties were setup to mirror the EPS properties. The result were spaces optimized for the captured motions. An interaction between the digital and analog...”

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FACTORY 4.0 proposal I city I future keywords: data center, performance, industry, productive landscapes This project explored the typology of a factory, questioning if and how it is still relevant today.

I also speculated about what future industries (productive landscapes) could look like and if such industry could find place within our cities.

In the end I prosed a machine, consiting of a data center and a skin (optimized to gather wind), that would collect cold air and convert it into heat and electricity.

as Data Centres: whether embedded within existing edifices or isolated in the landscape, the programmatic requirements of these new, twenty-first century factories are calling for a radical reformulation of traditional architectural parameters such as human occupancy, scale and energy: it’s within this emerging scenario that we see the opportunity to explore new prototypes for the industrial complexes of the near future. (...)

More info: http://machineiscare.tumblr.com/

Cloud computing is hot, literally. Electricity consumed by computers and other IT equipment has been skyrocketing in recent years, and has become a substantial part of the global energy market. (...)

Excerpts from the design brief: Throughout architectural history, the factory has been a marker of: “revolution, technical and social, of innovation, in design and in process, of their moment, politically and economically”. (Darley, Gillian: “Factory”, 2003).

The shift away from early water-powered mills and workshops toward 20th-century Machine-Age dynamos and mass production assembly lines influenced the design and organization of not only the factory itself, but also their surroundings, including our cities. (...)

The present-day informatization of production generates an exponential accumulation of data. Far from being weightless, this accumulation of knowledge materializes in highly complex and energy consumptive buildings known

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Servers could be sent to homes and office buildings and used as a primary heat source. From the building owner’s perspective, it would be equivalent to a typical heating system: a metal cabinet is shipped to the home and added to the ductwork or hot water pipes. From a technical perspective, this creates new opportunities for both lower cost and improved quality of service, if cloud computing applications can exploit the

differences in the cost structure and resource profile between Data Furances and conventional data centers.

DESIGNED TO SERVE research I sustainability I life support keywords: loops, health, machine, isolation

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