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Table of Contents B.1 Research Field B.2 Case Study 1.0 B.3 Case Study 2.0 B.4 Technique : Development B.5 Technique : Prototypes B.6 Technique: Proposal B.7 Learning objectives and outcomes B.8 APPENDIX

B.1 Research Field - Strips and folding H

istorically, fodling and strips are not rare to find in architecture, roman temples, from the morphological Ancient Roman’s areana Historically, folding and strips are not rare to find in architecture, folding has always been an important morphological technique to the architect, with ‘strips’, be it columns, beams or even invisible extension of axes… the scope of flying ,can broadly speaking, range from the contrast between bays and windows, foreground and recessed background down to the underlying design philosophy of an East Asian hand fan or a piece of origami.

wide range of standardised and fundamental industrial goods, thus one can safely argue, that creativity is now more manifest in assembly and permutation, and other collective forms of organisations instead of singularity. Frank Lyold, famous for his flexible but similar housing works and praising the machine age, were quite optimistic about this:” and insisted that industrialisation does not necessarily result in monotonous architecture but quite on the contrary, no two homes would be alike. (Frank Lloyd Wright, The Disappearing City, William Farquhar Payson (New York), 1932, pp 34, 45. )

This particular action in the first place to some extent signifies the maturation of human intelligence that our ancestors are no longer merely hunters and gathers but are capable of constructing complexity for aesthetic, political or ideological purposes at their will, thanks to food surplus brought about by development of agriculture.

Key to the idea of folding is, of course repetition, which is made ever more feasible since the industrial revolution interns of production. Maybe the reason modern architects are driven to embrace this technique could be attributed to the fact that we are now living in a world where basic products are efficiently assembled from a parallel corrugation

reverse folding

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B.1 Research Field - Strips and folding

Loop_3 students form Architectural Design 3 course at the Faculty of Engineering, Università di Bologna

This is an experimental research project exploring particularly the technique of folding. The projects fully utilised mathematical simulation, to generate the work, in which physics, algorithms and architectural aesthetics interplay with one another.

Trigonometric functions simulation were conducted with parametric design software and as a means of design device, emphasising rationality in generation of complex forms and appropriate justification in terms of structural stability and equally design strategy, with which the team was determined to get rid of the traditional ‘structure-skin-ornament‘ approach to architecture or other gerenal deisgn

‘Shape determines functions, and the energetics of functions dictates the optimal structure required.’’

The thesis of the design research studio is to reposition the physical model as a critical explorative tool in conjunction with computational design, whereby robotic technology is used for its fabrication.

(“The language of shape – the role of curvature in condensed matter” – Hyde and Larsson, 1997)

folding archieved by an attractor algorithm.

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B2 Case Study 1.0 Seroussi Pavilion

The Seroussi Pavilion was generated by self-generating vectors and electro-magnetic fields simulations. The underlying logics are obviously revolving around attraction and repulsion (the central points as ‘poles’).

Double charged trajectories produce corrugation inside as structural fabric, and unfold elegantly and efficiently.

The design differs greatly from traditional drawings of architectural practice, form finding though triangulation functions are the most interesting process that is integral to the design it self. The basic lines keep propagating along the ‘ridges’, demonstrating it’s own logic of being, of existence (mainly ‘fear’ of breaking down and not maximising the propagation of themselves), as well as structural and formal continuousness.

Though purely plotted by human intelligence, it was

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archieved by computers, with the logic of organisms, these facts have made the deisgn an perfect example of how biomimicry can be done with aid of modern computation technique and possibly hearold the age where architecture will end up adapting to environments as eagerly and quickly as living creatures on earth.

B2 Case Study 1.0 - Variations

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B3 CASE STUDY 2.0 TETRA

T

o some extent the installation designed by Dan Dodds is a crowd sourced one as it encourage mass participation to create a form that is produced by interrelations and collective activities investigating the structural and architectural potential of tetrahedron, the basic model that actually largely prescribe the structural framework consisting of plywood triangles that are bounded together with rope.

T

he interesting outcome of adopting tetrahedron as the basic geometry is that, unlike cubes or other more cooperative geometry, intrinsically the form will always branch out and it could be a challenge to obtain structural rigidity without computer simulation.

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B4 TECHNIQUE DEVELOPMENT

spring 1

spring 2

spring 3

spring 4

spring 5

joints joints in space

recursive tetrahedron aggregation, framwork, joints

aggregation, from radius 8 to radius 16 (left to right)

an attemp to make radii vary, not very succesul, redundant faces can be seen. rereverse engineering, framework generation

selected

joints radii from 0.2 to 0.6

details reverse engineering, final outcome, using fillet components and customised view

selected

selected

selected

selected

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B5 Technique: Prototype M

aterialisation of this generative technique could be very simple, as the unit module is a prism, which is in turn, made out of triangalular faces, and triangles happen to be the stablest basic geometry, therefore if an appropriate script is given, the only question remaining is the interconnection between structural members.

In the case of my prototype i choose toothpicks for the framework. i intended to use plasticine to demonstrate joints in digitally modeled in B.4....but given it has not been delivered to my home yet, i compromised by using simply glue, which effectively served the same purpose. the sequence is : 1 glue the first toothpick to a sencond one.

2 then glue a third stick to the previous two to comlete a.triangular frame

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3 then repeat the above two steps until i have enough prisms.

2 3

B

y having some sides being transparent and exposed to the exterior and the other closed and realtively opaque, the design outcome can allow users enjoy both the benefit of privacy and shelter while attracting and inviting people to enter and investigate and socialise.

W

has’s more, expoitation of the multifacetedness will also allow for adaptation to the local solar/climate conditions.

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B6 Technique: Proposal

Site: Merry Creek

T

he creek has been the site of heavy mining and industrial activities throughout the last century, potentially the industrial past would compromise its liveability, so that an interesting artistic installation built up among regenerating plants that can be explored with will have a chance to improve general satisfation and well-being of the inhabitants.

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B6 Technique: Proposal

Site: Merry Creek

A

nd the accentuation on assembly , disassembly and recyclability will open potential of adaptability for the installation as it consists of components that can be flexibly joint on one another in a myriad of ways.

Therefore it can be an amusement to pass time with kids and love ones but in the while it can also obviously serve for educational purposes

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o

ur design of the installation will attempt to overturn traditional experience of park as it is meant to be not only an explorable environment, a background for activities but more importantly it should engage people to reconstruct the environment itself and thus encourage them to actively participate in the development of built environment, to fully live up to the idea of ‘living archietcture‘.

B7: Learning objectives and outcomes I

t was quite amazing to see things i’ve been watching in part A to appear in my own work, and i have picked up some useful generative techniques along the way. The biggest struggle was always around grasshopper, which is a software not that mature that it sometimes crashes or conflicts between plug-ins emerge and there’s probably a slight lack of learning resources compared with Rhinoceros itself. But the process of obtaining the skills has been enjoyable, especially when i have successfully reverse engineered the canton tower and the case study 2.0 project.

R

egarding the techniques, it’s admittably hard to translate them into design ideas..building up a precedent has proven quite useful helpful to justify the formal and functional intentions.

W

hat’s more, I found the accentuation on data structure in Grasshopper very interesting that designers who are keen on parametric tools nowadays have to obtain certain knowledge about programming and data, at least the underlying principle, as a student form semi-IT background, i’d love to go on this path a bit further and see what’s down the track.

3D membrane structure defined by a line attractor.

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B8 Appendix This is a preliminary reverse engineering of the Canton tower, building up from a think plate that twists and scales simultanously according to the prescription of a given funtion, which i assigned as y=sine(X/2) here.

T

hen i tried a fairly different method my having two columns constantly entwine one another upwards to approximate the exterior form of the tower.

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REFERENCES 1. Frank Lloyd Wright, The Disappearing City, William Farquhar Payson (New York), 1932, pp 34, 45.

2. “The language of shape – the role of curvature in condensed matter” – Hyde and Larsson, 1997

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