Studio Air - Alison Fong 830833 Part B-1

Task 3 - “MEANING AND KNOWLEDGE” Titled “What doesn’t move, moves us”, this design responds to Ben Henson’s Untitled image. It focuses on an inanimate object - the statue. The statue itself however is imitating animate subjects - humans, crossing boundary between what is animate and what is not. Similarly when we think, we tend to go from one question to several other questions, before coming to an answer, but this cycle could repeat itself for the answer itself - it is a cyclic process and interrelating.

This relationship is shown through the pure, singular form that represents the simplification of our thoughts to generate an answer, and the many thoughts are represented through the panels below, which are in fact simply contours of the above object.

PART B. CRITERIA DESIGN B.1 B.2 B.3 B.4 B.5 B.6 B.7

Research Field Case Study 1.0 Case Study 2.0 Technique: Development Technique: Prototype Technique: Proposal Learning Objectives and Outcomes

Figure 1. Untitled (2016) - Bill Henson

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Figure 2. Perspective (Task 3)

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Figure 3. Perspective (Task 3)

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Figure 4. Elevation (Task 3)

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“ARCHITECTURE SHOULD HAVE A LIFE OF ITSELF - DON’T CONTROL IT.” - EGAN 2017 CRITERIA DESIGN

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B.1 Research Field

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he architect’s role is becoming increasingly specialized in the design of the outer shell’.11 Material performance is driving contemporary building designs to its limits, producing never seen or thought of complex geometries with the aid of technological capacity and freedom from standardization. The change from designing the building as a whole to only focusing on the exterior, is most likely propelled by the change in attitude towards design, where design becomes significantly more similar to artwork and the need to ‘show-off’ requires the design to be seen by the public in a more direct way of communication. There was a strong development within minimal surfaces, where the smooth and seamless surfaces were more preferred, for example the BMW pavilion “bubble’ at the Frankfurt Auto Show in 1999. Now building shells, have almost evolved to become the ornamental features of the building, as if returning to the time when ornamentation was celebrated on Gothic cathedrals or Greek agoras.

Ornamentation is inseparable to the object, as it communicates to its’ viewers and produces affects and resonance.12 Although ornamentation is revisited, technological capabilities enable architects to create and explore new spatial possibilities, for example Herzog & de Meruon’s exploration on the ornamented minimalism, in which they create a highly decorative skin, as seen in their ‘Signal Box’ (1999) in Basel, Switzerland or the patterning surfaces approached from mathematical concepts, for instance the ‘C-wall project’ by Andrew Kudless, which is based on the Voronoi tessellation.

The change in designs of the exterior shell, has led to strengthening of the building’s aesthetics to its functions, as well as differentiation of buildings, a key strategy in tackling the homogenization of building designs from the early stages of the International Style movement of cities being filled with curtain glass skyscrapers. It explores the need to portray culture within architecture, as well as how buildings offer a sense of identity, often shaped by social, economic, political and social context.13 Buildings are becoming more than buildings, they are representational figures that exudes feelings more than just based off aesthetics, but a deeper sense of connection and resonance.

11 Farshid Moussavi and Michael Kubo, eds (2006). The Function of Ornament (Barcelona: Actar), p.6.

12 Moussavi and Kubo, The Function of Ornament, p.9 13 Branko Kolarevic and Kevin R. Klinger, eds (2008). Manufacturing Material Effects: Rethinking Design and Making in Architecture (New York: London Routledge), p.19

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Anti-clockwise Figure 5. C-Wall Project (2006) - Andrew Kudless Figure 6. Signal Box (1999) - Herzog & de Meuron Figure 7. BMW “Bubble” Pavilion at IAA ‘99 Autoshow (1999) - Bernhard Franken

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Task 4 - “MADNESS OF VISION” The opening scene of the film West Side Story, saw the brawls between the two gangs interpreted as a dance choreography. However, the framing of the camera restricted our ability to foresee and thus there were constant overwhelming of content in the frame - with people coming into scene from all different angles and sides, all at once, then suddenly moving away into different scenes and so on. We reflected this idea into our model and used different colours to represent the madness that we saw from the choreography and camera framing, with the structure almost sprouting into different directions, creating different pathways that are linked together to create one whole entity.

“JETS! JETS!!!!!”RRRRRR (PEOPLE POP OUT OF NOWHERE) YUETING: “WHAT’S GOING ON...”

Figure 8-10: Opening Scene of West Side Story (1961)

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Figure 11. Elevation (Task 4)

Yueting: “Why are they (people) yellow?”

Me: (sends her another blue) Yueting: “Nevermind, yellow it is...”

HOW THE YELLOW VECTOR PEOPLE CAME ABOUT 30

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Figure 12. Plan (Task 4)

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Figure 14. Elevation (Task 4)

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B.2 Case Study 1.0

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oussoir Cloud is San Francisco-based studio’s installation designed for the Southern California Institute of Architecture gallery in Los Angeles. The complexity of this installation is in the individual petals, each having their unique geometry slightly different from one another, created by a computational script to calculate the curvature of each piece. Produced from ultra-light material systems, the vaults rely on each other to retain their pure compressive form. It drew inspiration from Antonio Gaudi’s hanging chain models, using form finding programs to determine the compressive forms in the installation; each vault is comprised of a Delaunay tessellation, where the cells are denser at the bottom with more connective modules but become looser at the top, where the porous pattern is created.

The human need to perceive, organize and structure the world around us into patterns and rhythms is intrinsic.14 Our sensory preceptors make things rational, by understanding things as visually logical objects or using knowledge and intuition to fill in the gaps of the unknown. In Voussoir Cloud, however there is an attempt to break the logical, as it attempts to defamiliarize both structure and material to create contradicting readings from conventional architectural typologies. The thin wood pieces look almost solid in form and create an almost porous texture, which in conventional thin wood piece structures would be irrational. The need to break away from the norm is a ‘style’ or movement that is being explored in design. Although it is human instinct to perceive things as patterns, it is also human instinctive to challenge or question the unknown, our curiosity always gets the better of us, and in architecture, this becomes a challenge to create the spectacular or the never-before-seen.

“Computational potential for generation complex forms and complexly patterned surfaces and structures is virtually inexhaustible”.15 It is important that although we use computational methods not to develop a distinctive style, but to explore the freedom to design the impossible. There are unlimited number of approaches and ways to create, that design is more accessible than ever before, and the number of people involved in the process extends from not just the designers but also the audience themselves, as they are empowered with the knowledge of the creation process.

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Kolarevic, and Klinger, Manufacturing Material Effects: Rethinking Design and Making in Architecture, p.20 Kolarevic, and Klinger, Manufacturing Material Effects: Rethinking Design and Making in Architecture, p.21

Previous page Figure 15a-c. Voussoir Cloud (2008) - Iwamoto Scott

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Case Study 1 Iterations

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C D E Unedited Voussoir Cloud Rhino Model and Linework

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Iteration A

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From top to bottom (1-5): Iteration A - Kangaroo Vector XYZ (Scales: +0.5, +1.5, +5, +19, +30)

Iteration A: This was mainly played with the secondary Kangaroo Script, which featured a Vector Direction component, this was seen to shift the main voids to a certain direction based on the vector direction parameter/scale. This was one of the more simpler modifications, and mainly pushed the aesthetics of the structure, and I would choose it as one of my most successful iterations.

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From top to bottom (1-5): Iteration B - Vector Scale [Primary Kangaroo] (Scales: 10, 6.5, 3, 0, -3)

Iteration C

These iterations were mainly focused in two parts: one of the main/ Grasshopper script and some on the kangaroo scripts, which were both scripted with the primary and secondary Kangaroo scripts.

From top to bottom (1-5): Iteration C - Vector Scale [SecondaryKangaroo] (Scales: 10, 6.5, 3, 0, -3)

Iteration B+C: This iteration and iteration C are fairly similar, however, although the starting structure remained the same, once changed within the Grasshopper script, the two developed slightly different designs. With B creating more tighter closed holes, and C creating wider holes (this is especially seen at the far bottom two modifications). Again similar to the previous iteration, the modification seem to only push the aesthetics of the structure. *Iteration C is in mesh mode as it is not able to convert to a nurb - possibly a result of modifications?

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Iteration D

Iteration E

Iteration F

Iteration G

From top to bottom (1-5): Iteration G - Line Strength (Scales: 1, 5, 10, 30, 60) From top to bottom (1-5): Iteration D - Graft Scale [Primary Kangaroo] (Scales: 0.9, 0.6, 0.4, 0.2, 0.15)

From top to bottom (1-5): Iteration E - Graft Scale [Secondary Kangaroo] (Scales: 0.9, 0.6, 0.4, 0.2, 0.15)

Iteration D + E: This is another double series from altering the main Grasshopper script, and was influenced by the Graft function, where the scale of the graft is changed. Although both structures were completely distorted, it is noticeable that only the ones in D have been formed into linework only, rather than forming a smooth surface like the ones seen in C. These two are part of the most successful iterations, as not only does it completely change the geometry, but also alters the perspective of geometry being definitely solid (though this is the majority in reality, it is not always the case in parametric design).

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From top to bottom (1-5): Iteration F - Line Length (Scales: 1, 2, 6, 10, 20)

Iteration G: This was mainly played with the secondary Kangaroo Script, which allowed for a modifications on the intensity of the lines. This modification si weakest in terms of it’s ability to change the exterior appearance, however is another example (apart from A) that clearly demonstrates simple logical algorithmic modification, where the structure gradually changes, in this case, becomes almost bulkier in thickness.

Iteration F: This was mainly played with the secondary Kangaroo Script, which featured a line strength component. Modifications in this function was difficult as there was no expectation of how much in scale could factor how much of a change, hence the scaling is not very much to scale.

However, this is one of the most successful iterations, as it pushes the model to a completely different structural feature and extrudes the geometry completely.

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Task 4 - “LIQUIDATION” Michael Gromm’s artistic style combines planned and unplanned methods, and using acrylic and oil he is able to produce organic forms and irregular patterns. The lines and clear definitions of the medium in the artwork were our main inspiration. The pavilion is shaped almost like the frozen state of the river, and engulfs part of the river itself, allowing full engagement with the water.

Figure 16. Any Malls (2017) - Michael Gromm

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Figure 17. Perspective (Task 5) CRITERIA DESIGN

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“What is success in architecture?”

- Class Discussion Question

Figure 18. Section (Task 5)

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“When you learn something from it..”

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Figure 19. Plan (Task 5)

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B.3 Case Study 2.0

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ts’ design stands out from its surrounding urban landscape in Taichung, and features a continuous surface structure, engaging in all surrounding directions. It is constructed with methods to realise freeform geometry; using shotcrete (spray concrete), which is quicker and cheaper to produce than constructing curved formwork.16 Ito names one of the interior spaces the ‘sound cave’, which features the same continuous surface structure seen from the outside, and creates a cave-like appearance in the inside, creating curved surfaces where sounds bounce off them and into the space. This opera house uses dynamic relaxation as its’ main form-finding method, where the aim is to find geometry that all forces are in equilibrium with each other. This address the use of mathematical methods in parametrical design, where mathematical processes are not to be understood fully, but simply exploited in the design process to create visual construction and enabling us to explore and discover actively.17 The design also relates to issues of environment, resources and energy, such as collection of rainwater and the use of eco-material.18 Current issues with sustainability have also changed the way we view form, as unlike in the past where form before function was the norm or vice versa, but now it seems as if the two have become just as equally important. Not only are we looking for an aesthetically satisfying design, but we are also looking for forms that aid or do not impact on the environment.

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Anita Hackethal, ‘Toyo Ito: Taichung metropolitan opera’, designboom (revised March 2010) <https://www.designboom. com/architecture/toyo-ito-taichung-metropolitan-opera/> [6 September 2017] Robert F. Woodbury (2014). ‘How Designers Use Parameters’, in Theories of the Digital in Architecture ed. by Rivka Oxman and Robert Oxman (London; New York: Routledge), pp.166-167 Hackethal, ‘Toyo Ito: Taichung metropolitan opera’.

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Next page Figure 20a-c. Taichung Metropolitan Opera House (2014 - 2016) - Toyo Ito

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First we drew a rectangle and then used populate2D within the boundary to generate random points that would then be applied with the Voronoi function, which created our base curves, that we baked to use it in our reverse engineer model.

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Using Surface Split, which is attached to the Nurb curves and rectangle boundary, we then generate the connections between the nurb curves, using items and lists to help find the right number that would select the gaps.

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Selecting the curves within the rectangle, we then used the same rectangle as our boundary for our grasshopper model. We selected alternating curves, creating two separately referenced curves that were part of the same Voronoi layout from previously.

Then use Divide Surface and generate Nurb curves, for smoother edges.

We then used Polygon Center to find the center point of each curve cell, then generate a smaller offset in the middle.

The offset and the main nurb curve are then lofted together.

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Finally, we mirrored our base function and deleted the extra geometry that were outside of the rectangle boundary.

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(This Page)Figure 21. Drawing of Colonnade of VCCC (Task 6) (Next Page)Figure 22. Drawing of Ian Potter NGV (Task 7)

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