Student Portfolio
ARCH 473/3522 - DIGITAL DESIGN STUDIO AND WORKSHOP Kareema Hamdy Fall 2019
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: Kareema Hamdy Student ID: 900150151
Š The American University in Cairo (AUC), December 2019
Kareema Hamdy | Architecture Student Kareema Hamdy fell in love with minimalist architecture at a very young age, believing that true architecture is experiencially influential. She is a goofy food enthusiest, cat lover, musician, and outdoors person. Her dream is to become an achitecture theorist, publish a book, and work in the field of world heritage.
Table Of Contents 01 Mobile Shelters For The Homeless
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02 The Blank Facade
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03 The Parametric Facelift
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Sand Dunes: The chosen natural inspiration for the project
01 Mobile Shelter For The Homeless
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Project Outline Studies show that homelessness in Egypt is an alarming social issue that is currently affecting more than 12 million people nationwide, including around 3 million street children according to UNICEF and the National Center for Social and Criminological Research in Egypt. Despite efforts by the government to provide affordable housing to Egypt’s ever-growing population, homelessness remains a pressing issue that hosts serious threats including drugs, abuse, violence and health risks to mention the least, due to the abundance of slums where citizens live in extreme poverty and deteriorating basic services and conditions. Almost 80% of Egypt’s homeless children are found primarily in 10 governorates: Cairo, Giza, Qaliobya, Minya, Sharqya, Alexandria, Assiut, Suez, Beni Suef, and Menofya, based on the Ministry of Social Solidarity’s reports in the past five years. Efforts by the Ministry of Housing and the Ministry of Social Solidarity typically lie short of the increasingly growing population of the homeless. In addition, the outcomes of such efforts tend to result in shelters that are mass produced and fail to provide character and a sense of inclusivity to their residents. Some recent initiatives have attempted to address some out-of-thebox ideas such as mobile shelters and units but have not fully materialized. In this project, you are required to design a mobile shelter for the homeless. You are encouraged to develop several alternatives and design ideas as part of your preliminary search for a language of formal expression that responds to basic aesthetic and functional requirements. Your site should fall into one of the 10 governorates mentioned above, which entails an awareness of the context you are designing within and how it informs and inspires your design and character. The design is open-ended in terms of the required functionality, form, mechanism and number of residents, to allow you to generate innovative ideas; it should however lie within the range of 40-50m2 .
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Mobile Shelters For The Homeless
Chosen Governate: Giza
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Why Giza? Giza hosts a notable percentage of the homeless population in Egypt Giza is representative of most of the Egyptian climate.
What Are Sand Dunes? Sand Dunes are hills of loose sand formed by the movement of wind or water. Sand Dunes are dynamic in both nature and location, constantly being moved and shaped by the wind. They are formed by the tendency for sand particles to stick together if hit. The shape of a dune is entirely dependent on the direction of wind hitting it, making them ideal inspirations for shelters as they are shaped by their environments.
Why Sand Dunes? It is a common element in the Giza desert It is a dynamic phenomenon shaped by its environment Dune patterns could be used to formulate different iterations of the shelter Sand Dunes consist of micro patterns that come together to form macro patterns ARCH 473/3522 - Fall 2019
Kareema Hamdy
4 Sand Composition The most common composition of sand is silica in the form of Quartz as it is the most common mineral with weather resistant properties. It may contain coral and shell fragments and its formation depends on living organisms. Sand differs upon its location and the impurities present in it.
Sand with ingenious rocks and shells fragments originating at beaches
Sand with a hematite coating giving it the orange color
Heavy sands formed from quartz are rough in texture
Sand forming near volcanoes usually black in color and rich in magnetite
Parabolic Dunes
Nabkha Dunes
Star Shaped Dunes
Types Of Sand Dunes
Barchan Dunes
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Mobile Shelters For The Homeless
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Mobile Shelters For The Homeless
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Mobile Shelters For The Homeless
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Dynamic Module: FLARE kinetic ambient reflection membrane
02 The Blank Facade Canvas
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Project Outline Today’s computational capabilities introduce an associative and performance-based process that was not available before. Material exploration and digital fabrication in particular is gradually gaining prominence as a fundamental shift in design development and construction. Being able to fulfill “informed manufacturing potentials becomes a principal strategy in realizing innovative contemporary architectural design intentions” – Kolarevic and Klinger, Manufacturing Material Effects: Rethinking Design and Making in Architecture, 2008. In this experimental project, the objective is to physically explore with different materials and fabrication techniques to devise a unit prototype for a building façade. You are encouraged to investigate several physical /digital techniques and material explorations that can support the process of experimentation with your ideas, including but not limited to: - Casting - Fabric Forming - Tensegrity Structures - Sectioning - Tessellation - Folding Working in your same groups, you are asked to capitalize on your group concepts and inspirations to design and fabricate a prototype panel that would fit in a frame of volume 60cm X 60cm X 30cm. You are encouraged to research the specific fabrication approach or technique and generate a digital model for the desired prototype and fabricate using manual techniques or laser cutters.
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The Blank Facade Canvas
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Material Bimetals Two metals with different coefficients of linear thermal expansion [Îą] Following the equations:
Chosen Materials Steel
ARCH 473/3522 - Fall 2019
Brass
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Experimentation of Materials Trial 1
Using aluminium foil and parchment paper Two strips of aluminium foil are added to the oven at 130°C, one control strip and a strip with parchment paper glued to the back using UHU.
A very slight curve towards the paper size was seen in the experimental strip when left in the oven. The control strip remained unchanged
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When removed from the oven, the experimental strip gradually curved towards the foil side while cooling.
The Blank Facade Canvas
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Experimentation of Materials Trial 2
Using aluminium sheets and canson Two strips of aluminium are added to the oven at 130°C, one control strip and a strip with cansons glued to the back using “Kollah”
Before heating, the canson and aluminium were exactly the same size and well bonded.
ARCH 473/3522 - Fall 2019
After heating, the no curvature was observed, but the metal strip expanded and its edges surpassed those of the canson. This is probably due to issues with gluing the two materials
Kareema Hamdy
16 Experimentation of Forms Expanding VS Contracting Form
Number of Vertices
Greater difference in area within the contracting form compared to the expanding form
Area difference decreases as the number of vertices increase
Conclusion
The use of the triangular contracting form yielded the best results accordind to the experimentations. As a Result, it wil be used as the module in the final form
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The Blank Facade Canvas
17 Form Evolution Form 1
Form 2
Form 3
Form 4
ARCH 473/3522 - Fall 2019
Kareema Hamdy
18 Final Form Mechanism The panel is composed of a frame with a repeatable pattern with bimetal sheets attached to create an environmentally responsive smart facade. two frames can be joined together at different angles to create a dynamic facade form. It adjusts according to some parameters.
Parameters - Number of horizontal modules within the panel
Possible Application
- Number of vertical modules within the panel - Orientation of main module - Ratio between module and submodule - Range of depth of panel - Percentage of paneled frames [solids to voids] - Percentage of perforated panels. By changing these parameters, other iterations of the panel could emerge. These parameters could be used for both aesthetic and environmental reasons.
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Using long and narrow modules pointed upwards with only the southern orientd side cladded at the eastern and western facade. Sheets could be to allow diffused light when closed
Using wide and deep modules pointed downwards with only the top side cladded at the southern facade to shade from vertical sun,
The Blank Facade Canvas
19 Final Form
ARCH 473/3522 - Fall 2019
Kareema Hamdy
BLOM BANK Headquarters Assigned building for the facelift project
03 The Parametric Facelifft
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Project Outline In this project, the objective is to explore, generate and fabricate a prototype for a building faรงade skin that takes into consideration issues of environmental comfort, spatial relations and human aspects using a passive approach. You are required to develop a parametrically driven building skin for the building below (Blom Bank Egypt SAE - Main Branch, South Teseen Rd, New Cairo). The main faรงade of the building is in a South/Southwest orientation, and so you are required to devise an appropriate envelope that provides adequate shading and sun protection. Your building skin designs should originate from your explorations in Project 2. Each student should capitalize on the ideas captured in the group exercise and develop their own individual conceptual approaches, where you use the material exploration and fabrication exercise in Project 2 to derive parameters, rules and relationships that help you define extensive iterations for a wide variety of design alternatives and solutions. Your approach should devise a parametric logic for the design of the faรงade skin based on environmental, spatial, functional, and/or aesthetic considerations. The protrusion of the double skin faรงade component can go up to 1.20-1.50m. You are encouraged to explore several physical /digital iterations throughout your thought process. Your explorations should link your derived parameters to environmental and climatic conditions including but not limited to shading, daylight penetration, solar radiation, and other spatial, functional and aesthetic dimensions.
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The Parametric Facelift
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ŠAll rights reserved, American University in Cairo (AUC) December 2019