Student Portfolio
A R C H 4 7 3 / 3 5 2 2 - D I G I TA L D E S I G N S T U D I O A N D W O R K S H O P Nada El Gabalawy Fall 2020
The American University in Cairo (AUC) School of Sciences and Engineering - Department of Architecture ARCH 473/3522 - Digital Design Studio and Workshop (Spring 2019) Student portfolio documenting samples of work submitted along the course, including research, experimentation, 3D modeling, digital fabrication, parametric design and modeling, physical model realisation and analysis. Student name: Nada El Gabalawy Student ID: 900160347
Š The American University in Cairo (AUC), May 2019
Nada El Gabalawy Architecture Student
become the architect I want to be, my perespective on everything changed. My way of thinking, my way of critiquing and analysing. This course specially has taught me a lot. Has opened my eyes on how buildings can be insired from just a very tiny detail in something in the nature. It will grow to become a very interesting design pattern and form, one which will blow your mind.
Ever since I was a little girl my dream was to become a successful architect. My role model in life is an architect, he amuses by all means, My Father. He alwasy taught me how to look and analyse the buildings surrounding me at any place. Looking on the essence and there differences. What was beyond the building. How to design and sketch. Have an eye of an architect. Eyes that critique and analyse. However, when I decided to live my dream and
Thinking out of the box was not an easy thing for me, but with taking this course it opens your eyes on the amount of details everything around you can have and how each and every detail can be an inspiration for you.
Decaying of flowers is the inspiration of this project as it much more than decaying. Bringing life again, protecting the jewel inside.
01 Mobile Shelter for the
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Mobile Shelter for the Homeless
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The proccess of thinking It first began by noticing how the petals had so many details and branching viens. Not only these branching but how the decay of petals and of the flower creates a life after and how viens hardens and form a protection layer on the fruit which is the jewel inside. Inserting light when needed and forming a shelter when needed as shown in some of the inspiration images. This made me thing of disecting the flower into two stages, the part where it protects the fruit forming enclosure and the other part is where the petals fall letting the light in for the fruit to emerge. This is developed in the design as shiwn in the diagram into to shapes or forms in the building. Also, as notices these veins are not just one but they are multiple sheilds and layering of patterns forming a hierarchy that shows the privacy of places. Where it is shown in the design by different things. The density of branching which is for the privacy and the different thickness forming layering of the skeleton and the veins.
ARCH 473/3522 - Fall 2020
Nada El Gabalawy
4 Here the figures may show how the layering in the model in indicated. The first layer which resembles the transparence but not to the extent of glass which is made out of EFTE foil that allows light to penetrate without the heat that annoys people. This layer is the first layer with perforations that allows all the sunlight and heat to penetrate at certain places so the fruit can develope well as a metephore. The parts of perforations are social nodes for people to interact, they are courtyards that allows the light to enter the building and social spaces. The second layer which is the branching of the veins that shows the density of branching that resembles the privacy and the thickness of branching where the thick veins are the skeleton structure ones and there are the small branching ones. There are different heights with an interactive roof that allows people to interact with the courtyards and the patterns produced by the shadows of the branching veins and having the feeling as if they are in the flower.
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Mobile Shelter for the Homeless
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Architectural drawings
Ground Floor Plan
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First Floor Plan
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Section A-A
Front elevation
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Mobile Shelter for the Homeless
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Section B-B
Side elevation
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Mobile Shelter for the Homeless
13 Gypsum material experimentation
02 The Blank Faรงade Canvas ARCH 473/3522 - Fall 2020
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The Blank Facade Canvas
Experiencing with different materials and different formworks
As in this phase we were asked to experiment with gypsum, a material that we had never felt nor experience before. It was a challenge and a very exciting journey. What I tried to do is to experiment with different frameworks and different materials and how each one has a different effect on the gypsum and how the experience changes as the texture and the shape of the form changes. The journey that each formwork will take you and let you experience. Every material has it is own behavior. I tried to experience with three different formworks and different materials to give and formulate different feelings and experiences. The first one was making the formwork with fabric and how it affects the form of gypsum. The second one was wire mesh and the double curved with double surface with different materials. The third and the last I tried experimenting with a curvlinear shape of framework of plasticine with formation of voids.
ARCH 473/3522 - Fall 2020
Nada El Gabalawy
Research Origin of Gypsum Gypsum is found in many parts of the world. Gypsum deposits lie in flat beds of about six to eight feet in thickness, and are often inter-layered with limestone or shale. Gypsum deposits were formed millions of years ago when salt water oceans covered most of the earth, and as they receded, may inland “dead� seas were formed which, as evaporation continued, became more and more salty. As those salts precipitated, they formed various compounds in turn, one of which was gypsum. As millions of years passed, these salt deposits combined with decayed vegetation and other minerals, and eventually the result was stratified rock, with layers of gypsum and layers of limestone alternating, the whole covered over with many feet of glacial deposits.
Fabric Formation Exploring the use of fabric as formwork for gypsum cement, this independent study aimed to create a series of small objects that express the hydrostatic qualities of liquids as they form to nonrigid fabric forms. Utilizing a multitude of rigging techniques, pinches, pulls, folds, twists, and bulges became the typoogical categories for formal moves and desired outcomes.
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The Blank Facade Canvas
What is Casting? Casting is a manufacturing process in which a liquid material is usually poured into a mold, which contains a hollow cavity of the desired shape, and then allowed to solidify. The solidified part is also known as a casting, which is ejected or broken out of the mold to complete the process.
Types of Casting -Plaster casting -Sand casting -Investment casting -Die casting -Low pressure casting -Centrifugal casting -Gravity die casting -Vacuum die casting -Squeezing die casting -Lost foam casting -Continual casting
Process of Casting
ARCH 473/3522 - Fall 2020
Nada El Gabalawy
Experiment 1
In this experiment my intentions was to play with the formwork in terms of texture and to what extent the gypsum would formulate curvature twists within it. Chosen the fabric as it is the best medium to allow you to shape and formulate the form you want with the amount of curvature you want. It was a challenge making the fabric in a way that would not break the gypsum when extracting them out of each other. However, it was a success.
Rough Texture Beginning with shaping the fabric in a dynamic manner that shows how the form of the gypsum can vary and take the shape of the concave and convex the fabric has done. Not only is the shape of curvature has differed but the texture of how pouring the gypsum and then flipping the module so it takes the texture of the fabric on the surface with its patterns. Playing with how light can interprenerht with the form and showing the shades and shadows of the different curvature of the form shows how interesting the form is and how a person would feel or like to feel inside this form.
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The Blank Facade Canvas
Process
Smooth Texture
Having a fabric and shaping it with a dynamic manner and twisting it and knotting it in places to get this effect. Then adding a plastic layer between the gypsum and the fabric to avoid the sticking of the two materials. Then begin the pouring of the gypsum and leaving it to solidify. It took around from 15 to 20 minutes to solidify. Then I removed the gypsum from the plastic and fabric. Some of it where it experienced a thin layer of gypsum broke and fell and did not resist the tension, but others where it was thicker it overcome the raking point.
Pockets and negative spaces
Restrictions
Concave and Convexity
At first it was not easy to formulate this form and having the gypsum one solid, but after conducting several experiments and seeing the limitations of the curving lines that the gypsum can overcome. With an addition to adding a plastic layer between the gypsum and fabric to see how will this affect the texture and how easy it is to take the gypsum out of the fabric. The form is rigid and solid enough, but the curvature of the form is what makes it challenging. ARCH 473/3522 - Fall 2020
Nada El Gabalawy
Experiment 2
Voids and light
In this experiment what I tried to experiment are two things having voids in the form and the how would it feel to have a high or a double space volume feel. One of the major or the main interpretation is light through this experiment and how it show the voids and its affect on the form. How gypsum is affected y the voids in the form, whether this strengthens it or weakens it. In fact it does both. As we all know that any voids weakens the structure but here it might do so if the gypsum is thin, but if it is thick it strengths it even more as it creates tension in the form by creating a concave and convex kind of feeling with the play of height which is the most important of how someone will feel out of the form standing or standing inside the form. Even this form can be experimented on both sides if flipped. As both sides have different feelings and different experimentation with the feeling of the voids. The formwork here differed as I experimented by plasticine shaping it like a mould and of a cave that have a main void inside that goes form the bottom to top and how this middle opening in the gypsum would affect the form.
Transformation of flipping the form
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The Blank Facade Canvas
Process Bringing a plasticine forming it on a cave shape manner and then putting a plastic layer on top of it and having a vertical element put in the middle of the framework to forma void in the form so that when afterwards the gypsum is poured it has a void in the middle and having the shape that is seen in the pictures.
Shades and shadows with the light from voids
It took around from 25 to 30 minutes to solidify. Then I removed the gypsum from the plastic layer and removing the wax that made to hole and cutting it to two halves to see the dynamics inside.
Restrictions It was not that stable from the bottom to stand stably on its own with an addition of cutting the form into two pieces to see the dynamics and the different feeling of the form inside and outside was not that easy. ARCH 473/3522 - Fall 2020
Nada El Gabalawy
Experiment 3 In this experiment what I tried to experiment is the concave and convexity the form can shape but using a different material which is wire mesh. A strong and rigid form work rather than the first two. What I tried to do in the three frameworks is moving from a very loose framework from a fabric to plasticine which is more rigid but can be shaped as you like to a much more rigid framework which is the wire mesh which can be shaped but but with high limitations. That form I tried to do is to have a concave and convex form that plays with hight and how enclosed the space might e or the form can shape. Having a mesh twisted but with limitations to the form forming a standing out load form that shows empowerment and with perforations of light through the thin layers of gypsum. Forming this mesh then putting a plastic double layered skin on the mesh and pouring the gypsum on top.
How light has an effect on the thin parts of gypsum and how it penetrates Transparancy of the material Concave and Convex Portfolio
The Blank Facade Canvas
Process Having a mesh twisted the way you want and then putting on top of it a plastic layer so the mesh won’t stick on the gypsum. Then pouring the gypsum on it.
Differnet heights
It took around from 25 to 30 minutes to solidify. Then I removed the gypsum from the mesh and what was interesting was the parts that were thin make like penetration of light but not completely open.
Restrictions It was too thin and cracked in parts but where parts where filled with a thick layer of gypsum it was a thick rigid structure that experienced different heights and feelings .
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Mobile Shelter for the Homeless
25 Double Skin Facade
02 The Parametric Facelift ARCH 473/3522 - Fall 2020
Nada El Gabalawy
Site The site chosen here is the Bloom Blank which is the Main Branch, South Teseen Rd, New Cairo. The main faรงade of the building is in a South/Southwest orientation, which is required to redesign the facade to formulate a double skin facade that each one decides wheather it is static or dynamic regarding the design.
Users There would be two types of people. There would be employees and customers that coming to the bank.
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The Blank Facade Canvas
Environmental Analysis
As here in the environmental analysis it shows how the sun is almost present most of the time, in summer and in winter. Which months are higher regarding the sunny days. From whoch side is the prevailing wind and this would help us see how the ventilation through the double skin would occur. How the humidity would affect my design and where to put openings and when to close.
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Design Approach In my design approach I decided to work with the dynamic aspect of the double skin. As my concept is creating a dynamic, movable, adaptable solar panels that move and adapt to where the sun is heading and towords it tilts and moves. This creates openings for ventilation where the hot air escapes from aove and fresh air from the bottom. In addition to forming voids and penetrations that allow light but not heat inside the building as the same as what was ment to happen in the experimental model in the gypsum phase. Voids and light
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The Blank Facade Canvas
Sketches
ARCH 473/3522 - Fall 2020
Shades and shadows with the light from voids
Nada El Gabalawy
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The Blank Facade Canvas
ARCH 473/3522 - Fall 2020
Nada El Gabalawy
Portfolio
The Blank Facade Canvas
ARCH 473/3522 - Fall 2020
Nada El Gabalawy