SoftSpaces by Andreas Y. Kyriakou

SOFT SPACES

SOFT SPACES A Project by Andreas Kyriakou Andrew Potter Weixin Zhao Developed at Architectural Association School of Architecture AADRL Design Research Lab 2014 | 2016 in Patrik Schumacherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Studio assisted by Pierandrea Angius

SOFT SPACES

| INTRODUCTION

AADRL Design Research Lab | The DRL is a 16-month post-professional design programme, leading to an MArch (Architecture & Urbanism) degree. For over a decade, the DRL has been organised as an open-source design studio dedicated to a systematic exploration of new design tools, systems and discourses, targeting design innovations in architecture and urbanism. The DRL actively investigates and develops design skills with which to capture, control and shape a continuous flow of information across the distributed electronic networks of todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s rapidly-evolving digital disciplines. Learning in the studio is project-based and includes the development of comprehensive, year-long design projects, supported by design workshops and seminars, applying new forms of associative logic towards the conception and materialisation of comprehensive design proposals. Design work is pursued by collective self-organised design teams within four parallel design studios, addressing an overall design research agenda through shared information-based diagram, data, models and scripts. The collaborative structure of the DRL design studio enables design teams to address the programmeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s design research agenda through a sustained body of design work, which is regularly evaluated by student design teams, tutors, and invited critics, and is channelled towards the development of recursive, researchbased design methodologies and comprehensive design outcomes.

Behavioural Complexity v2.0 | Behavioural Complexity builds on scenario- and production-based research that is prototypical, exploring material and social forms of interaction. Behavioural, parametric and generative methodologies of computational design are coupled with physical computing and analogue experiments creating dynamic and reflexive feedback process. New forms of spatial organisation are explored that are not type- or site-dependant but examine scenarios that evolve as ecologies and environments that seek adaptive and hyper-specific features. This performance-driven approach seeks to develop design proposals concerned with the everyday. The iterative methodologies of the design studio focuses on the investigations of spatial, structural and material organisation, engaging in contemporary discourses on computation and materialisation within architecture and urbanism.

Patrik Schumacher Studio | Under the agenda of Behavioural Complexity, the studio works with programme-based objectives and selection criteria to the multi-objective optimisation. One of its ambitions is to integrate kinetic responsive capacities within the structures. However, these kinetic capacities utilise elastic deformation rather than hinge-based mechanisms. The research focused on the study of responsive deformation phenomena found in animal and plant organisms and these were developed through a series of extensive physical experiments. Through this investigation discoveries were made and applied to evolve various architectural subsystems like structure and envelope, both involving adaptive and elastic transformation.

THESIS DEVELOPMENT p.15 NEW OFFICE, NEW PHENOMENOLOGY

DESIGN RESEARCH

p.47

BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH

MECHANISM DEVELOPMENT

PROTOTYPICAL APPLICATION

DESIGN INTENT

p.163

SOFT SPACES

REDESIGNING THE DESIGN MUSEUM

REFERENCES BIBLIOGRAPHY MAKING OF CREDITS

p.299

Brief

This project aims to create a dynamic office environment through the use of actuated fabric surfaces. Taking inspiration from biomechanics of several natural organisms, these behaviours are reinterpreted to create various methods of actuation. Kinetic actuation enables the soft structuring of space. Flexible fabric membranes become three dimensional, creating a surface that is habitable, circulatory, and mobile. This mobile surface provides rapid redistribution of social groupings. The impact of these redistributions upon the quality of the space may be investigated via crowd simulation. This tool allows for a more accurate simulation of how individuals behave within the space and throughout time. Occupants flow at converge within the ceilingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s topology, congregating within nested spaces of the program distribution. Nested spaces create varying degrees of interaction and autonomy with the goal of facilitating a diversity of communication throughout the workplace. The articulated membrane of the interior, as well of the diversity of interior social conditions, is expressed loosely by the facade. The inside-out strategy of the buildingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s intervention is completed by this loose wrapping whose form is driven partially by movements of interior activities and partially by mechanics distributed across the membrane. Ultimately, this architecture hopes to express flexibility through an abundance of sensorial, spatial, and social experiences

THESIS DEVELOPMENT

1.1 New Office, New Phenomenology

Abstract | Phenomenology must become flexible to accommodate a mobile, animate architecture. Proposing a strategy that works from the inside-out, kinetic architecture engages the Gestalt in a novel way. Dynamic interiors now kinetically unfold, allowing for spatial and social becomings. Within these pliant interiors surfaces become projective, the user sensing his or her impact upon immediate and distant transformations. Together, the coalescence of these elements begins to suggest a new mode of phenomenology, one that is fluid rather than figural, immersive rather than analytical, and engaged with the social complexities human interaction.

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1.1.1 INTRODUCTION

Phenomenology 101 â&#x20AC;&#x201D; or 2.0? Framing kinetics as a heightened level of phenomenal articulation serves to elevate the importance of this dynamic architecture beyond the pure physicality of its movements. Accepting aesthetic desires and their interwoven relationship with both embedded meaning and spatial reconfiguration, another key aim of kinetic architecture, is essential in the advancement of contemporary architectural phenomenology. Proposing a strategy of architectural softness 1 , this investigation aims to align kinetic architecture with new developments in the phenomenological field. Infiltrating the design museum with what is termed as softness, a threedimensional intervention is made. Kinetic elements assist the proliferation of this proposed spatial and functional ambiguity through the animation of interiors and exteriors 2 , providing semiotic intent and, perhaps more importantly, affective impression.

1 Softness here meaning the supple gestures of physical (kinetic) features as well as the ability of programs and spaces to absorb one another. There is a pliancy which emerges as a result of this strategy; not solely amongst interior spaces but amongst their users. Continual remolding of space creates functional intermingling that has the potential to significantly alter the way in which employees may reconsider their routine role within the office. 2 An act facilitated indoors by dynamic furniture and ceiling elements and on the exterior by the implementation of pneumatic and water-based inflation.

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1.1.2 PART I

Soft Kinetics, Soft Gestalt

The world is becoming evermore soft. This desolidification exerts great influence over way individuals locate themselves within their environment. Existing as poised amidst “stability and instability” 2 it is the constant movement of systems themselves which enable their survival (as opposed to careening towards a catastrophic end or an icy stasis). Softness enables the acceptance and incorporation of information to catalyse its “already existing, and deeply intertwined, internal movements” 3 . These continuous states of animation and flexibility are suggestive of a budding romance between ideas of softness and a kinetic architecture. An architecture of soft kinetics aims to inhabit the space between input and output — the space between information and expression. Employing a cascade of interrelated movements, the simple triggering of one element may, through adjacency or reverberations within space, create an array of motions and reconfigurations far more dynamic than one element alone. This space between information and expression is a supple, pillowy depth. Within this interstitial space “all life and innovation takes place” 4 .

1 Soft Gestalt is the Gestalt of the contour rather than the figure. It is non-absolute and flexible as the contour’s extensive limits are never defined. 2 Kwinter, S. ‘Soft Systems’, Culture Lab 1, Brian Boignon (ed.), (New York: 1996), pg. 209. 3 Ibid., pg.. 209. 4 Ibid., pg. 216.

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Inflection

When Will my Inflection Show Who I am Inside? Answer — Never, at least not completely. Slip and Slide From the Baroque 1 and its sneaking suggestion of slippage 2 emerges a new mode of figuration — a modern mode that assumes both the individual’s relocation and the reinvented role of the curve in the definition of space and context. The Baroque slippage, this moment of movement, this instance of inflection, is a frozen condition. Engaging kinetics with inflection allows the marble folds of the Baroque to become animate. The supple interior and its fabric foldings form “surfaces of variable curvature” 3 which make location within this unpredictable environment challenging, perhaps impossible. This soft Gestalt exists prior to any defining boundary, creating an interior realm that is not compartmental or hermetic. On the contrary, the interior exists as non-spherical, transmissive, and

1 Lavin, S. (2011). Kissing Architecture. Princeton: Princeton University Press. pg. 101. Beginning with the Baroque a curious interest in the release of surface and the dissolution of unified or closed compositions presents itself. This foreshadowing, however faint or distant, offers the slightest glimpse of an architecture that now desires to be both animate and affective. Note Sylvia Lavin’s suggestions of envelope not as a “plane of representation” but instead as an “affective surface” which need not be enslaved to the rigorous standards of façadism. Or do not note these suggestions, as they will be discussed later in this writing regardless of whether they are chosen to be noted as this moment. 2 Cache, B. and Speaks, M. (1995). Earth Moves. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. pg. 34. Inflection, in the Baroque, is revealed by a slippage or an inversion. This slippage exists at the “point where…movements are reversed”. Inflection’s ability to exist removed from notions of inside or outside, of top or bottom, demonstrates Deleuze’s claim that the Gestalt’s underlying structure best suggests its intentions. 3 Ibid., pg. 41.

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projective. Inflection is not about the creation of an interior but, rather, a turn toward the interior. This interior is a saturated space — whose matter pushes out, bleeds through, and is sucked back in again — where one witnesses a strange, radiant vision of porosity — even mysterious, alchemic deformations. Free to detach from its previous responsibilities of façadism, the building’s exterior is able to inflect; the façade’s inflection exists in diametric opposition to previous notions of its role as a surface of representation. Inflection becomes an inward gaze, or at least a turning away of the shoulder from prying onlookers. The membrane becomes obstinate, “sassy” 4 even as it becomes suggestive of interior events rather than existing as a plane of projection. The transmission of inner workings across a surface that was once flat and crystalline has been thrown into turmoil by a membrane that is now an opaque obstruction. Tied now to the transformations the interior the membrane manipulates, migrates, and modulates, assuming and ever-shifting character. Temporal modulation is the new source of the trace 5 . The trace, an idea which not a new to the field of phenomenology, is first given publicity by Robert Slutzky and Colin Rowe in Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal 6 . The two attribute the trace to analytical Cubism and its diversity of depth and frequencies of figure, citing the “typically Cubist tension between figure

4 Kwinter, S. ‘Soft Systems’, Culture Lab 1, Brian Boignon (ed.), (New York: 1996), pg. 209. 5 Deleuze, G. (1993). The Fold. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. pg. 19. 6 Rowe, C. (1976). The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa, and Other Essays. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. pg. 161. A text which is focused heavily upon the perception of the figure and its recession or advancement within space, an emphasis later echoed by Schumacher.

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and space” 7 as a method of activating a visual field within which a space of re-articulation is constructed. Fifty-nine years after Rowe’s Transparency, architecture again encounters a resurgence of concern regarding the phenomenal 8 realm, this time cast within an entirely different weltanschauung. According to Patrik Schumacher, phenomenology is to be recognized as a “pre-semantic arena of articulation that gives scope to creative appropriation beyond fixed meanings” 9 . Within this realm the observer is continuously attempting to form “relevant unities” through the act of visual synthesis 10 . Schumacher too cites Cubism as the tipping point for perception in relation to previous modes of art. It is Cubism’s offering of perceptual multiplicities in front of a unified background 11 that Schumacher notes as the key concept of the Gestalt, primarily that “perception involves the organization of integral figures or patterns” 12 via the decomposition of complex scenes. It is the “latent readings” 13 present within

7 Ibid., pg. 166. 8 Schumacher, P. (2012). The Autopoeisis of Architecture. Chichester: Wiley. pg. 143. Phenomenology, as defined by Schumacher, “is concerned with the perceptual conditions of the built environment’s social functionality…[and] is based on the fact that the effective use of the built environment depends upon the user’s fast and comprehensive understanding of the built environment as a system of signification that reveals its social meaning”. 9 Ibid., pg. 145. 10 Ibid., pg. 146. 11 This being an idea that was already discussed by Rowe and Slutzky in reference to Léger. 12 Ibid., pg. 153. 13 Ibid., pg. 163.

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three dimensional space that give rise to the creation of a layered arrangement 14 in which qualitative Gestalt shifts may be activated. These remarks should prompt a moment of pause. This phenomenology as described by Schumacher remains reliant upon the privileged observer who is able to position him or herself at a distance and perform the act of decomposition so demanded by a complex scene. But this is simply no longer possible. The privileged observer is gone. No one is left to read the world in a frontal manner since frontality has been obliterated. There is no longer tension between figures because figures have fused — distinctions are torn down as objects are now understood as mobile, fluid, merged, folded, unfolded, veiled, and unveiled. The rapid comprehension of scenes, which is reliant upon the primacy of wholes and the subsequent recognition of constituent parts, is bound by necessity to a whole that obliges this specific relationship. The ceiling membrane’s flexibility denies the immediate registration of gestalt figures. This denial should come as no surprise. It should be considered a welcome revelation. The deflagration of traditional figure/ground relationships is evidence of phenomenology’s necessary update. The inflection of the exterior is indicative of the individual’s new place within. The interior becomes an immersive situation. Yes, while the boundaries of the Gestalt may be

14 Schumacher, P. (2004). Digital Hadid. Basel: Birkhäuser. pg. 19. This layered arrangement serves as the environment within which “parametric figuration” may emerge. Working via density, gradient, and convergence (and in rejection of “axes, edges, and clearly bounded realms”), multivalent spaces utilize these tactics to create areas of momentary coherence or implications of directionality that are not chained to rigid orthogonal obligations.

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flipping, switching, and playing tricks on the observer, they nonetheless exist as a closed figures, observed from a distance. One is left asking, is there an outside in Gestalt? The answer would have to be a resounding no. Quite contrastingly, there is a multivalent interior whose layers of membrane cloak one another, creating a diversity of depth. Before transformation takes place, surface exists as a flat plane. A field of the pre-actuated Gestalt transformations, this surface enables the emergence of figures that define their own space rather than existing within them. This marks a departure from the trace of Cézanne and Schumacher’s figuration 15 in which the trace, however faint, is still marked by the presence of a form or body. Now, Gestalt relationships emerge from the pre-semantic realm, their figure dissolved, defining space by limitless contour 16 . With contour taking precedence over figure, the shortcomings of rigid Gestalt phenomenology are exposed. The structure beneath, the contour, is indicative of the body’s attempt to escape itself — an internal movement that is not suggestive of a place but of an event. Gestalt switches become both spatial and temporal; figures fall apart to reveal traces of what lies behind the Gestalt 17 —

15 Schumacher, P. (2012). The Autopoeisis of Architecture. Chichester: Wiley. pg. 156-161. As Schumacher notes, continuity, similarity, and closure dominate the reading of Gestalt figures. 16 Somers-Hall, H. (2006). Deleuze and Merleau-Ponty. Symposium, 10(1), pg. 218. Space is never predetermined; “the thing draws space around it”. A reference to Klee? 17 Ibid., pg. 220.

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virtual forces 18 which are channelled to create confluences and convergences. The emergence of bulges and pulls within a continuous enclosure challenges the notion of the Cubist/Gestalt trace as it is no longer possible to form straightforward groupings. With different surface motivations cohabiting a single stratum the building, through its kinetic role, becomes the organizer. As a producer of sensations, generated within membranes and the interstices of spaces, which are then radiated outward the building has become an object in ecstasy 19 .

18 These forces analogous to those at work behind the slippage. 19 Lavin, S. (1999). Open the Box: Richard Neutra and the Psychology of the Domestic Environment. Assemblage, (40), p.6.

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Stefano Maderno The Martyrdom of Saint Cecilia (1600) Rome, IT

Form Defined by Surface

Surface Defined by Form

At this moment, surface defines the morphology it obscures. Rendered as opaque, its thick bunchings simultaneously obscure and shape.

Here, form pushes through as surface falls back. Emerging from behind its veil, underlying form causes drapery and enclosure to disappear.

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Introversion

Popping my Own Bubble Where better to witness the dissolution of rigid distinctions and the emergence of an ambiguous boundaries than within the veiling of sculpture. Wisps of stone simultaneously obscure and define, offering suggestion of forms that lie beneath. Fabric is fulled, giving thickness and texture to its surface while, in other areas it may be rendered sheer. More dramatically, marble is caught by an invisible force, twisted into a billowing, luxurious fabric plume. Gathered and rumpled, this textile flow is wrapped into and around itself, creating a weightless rush of stone. Here the material is transformed, appearing not as a vestment but as a viscous current; a turbid flow whose ripples attempt to defy the stasis of the very substance from which they are carved. Defying its material expectations, this Baroque fabric recalls the defining contour of inflection. This fabricâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s greatest power as a membrane is its ability to emerge from a field and mark territories within a previously seamless milieu. Yet it is able to return to a position within the indistinguishable field. It is able to reverse its emergence 1 . Surface, so archetypically rigid, becomes the generator of topological and volumetric becomings. That the surface and its boundaries have taken flight, touching down as a surface draping, enshrouding and adhering to an organic body is indicative of the contourâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new role of transmutation. The duality of the contour, its coexistent states of taut grip and effervescent encapsulation, places the surface in a state of fluctuation. It becomes an object in motion, whose outline is morphing, and whose morphology

1 Derrida, J. and Owens, C. (1979). The Parergon. October, 9, pg. 24-26.

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Moments of Slippage Gianlorenzo Bernini Bust of Louis XIV (1665) Versailles, FR

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is unpredictable. Thank goodness then for the kiss as it affords the building release from its ecstatic state. Moving inside to the membrane’s partner in osculation, one luxuriates in an interior that, from the street, was mere suggestion. Forces so ambiguously presented by the façade become kinetically alive, moving throughout the building in threedimensions. Through an injection of softness, distinctions between spaces dissolve. Now kinetically mobilized, surfaces dance while spaces enter one another, allowing once rigid programs to both merge and separate. But the kiss is not left at the building’s edge. Within this clandestine realm spaces become superimposed, free to brush, graze, overlap, invade, and subsume each other. It is this multiplicity of spaces that confounds “the viewer’s perceptual capacity to distinguish between…material and representational strata…as primary value converts into the production of new…affects” 2 . As spaces reconfigure creating a three-dimensional cascade of kinetic reactions, the initial functional shift of a surface is multiplied by a series of distant, latent affective productions. The notion of the kiss far exceeds intimate contact between soft bodies. The kiss is a substantive exchange which proliferates throughout space; a kiss enables the transmission of matter. Interiorities continuously disrupt one another in a viscous flow, creating a sensual tension which could only be described as a crescendo to a climax of affect. It is the dissolution spatial stasis, engendered by kinetic interiors, which embraces the “pleasures and

2 Lavin, S. (2011). Kissing Architecture. Princeton: Princeton University Press. pg. 82.

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possibilities of the kiss” 3 . Programmatic functions are not safe from the ebb and flow of interior configurations. Previously autonomous spaces are thrust into unforeseen adjacencies as their boundaries are literally relocated. Introversion operates in parallel with spatial inter-penetrability. Once cordoned off, porosity now reigns as programs are free to flood each other. In the spaces opened by the kiss, new functionalities present themselves. These functionalities challenge not only the nature of the office environment in which they are situated but they very structure of the discipline itself. They exist as a mirage. Their mercurial formation and disappearance escapes the grasp of a field that desires to freeze these distinct apparitions into one, seamless glimmering berg 4 . But, like the mysterious intangibility of the mirage, these spaces present themselves in wildly glorious configurations each demanding unexpected uses and producing unforeseen results. The outcome of human actives taking place within these malleable territories are undoubtedly more fertile and unique than those which originate within rigidly defined or compartmentalized environs. The kiss’s interruption and disruption 5 suggests the

3 Lavin, S. (2014). Flash In the Pan. London: Architectural Association. pg. 165. 4 Ibid.. Lavin writes that the kiss serves to expound the difference between entities, placing an emphasis on their twoness (their zweifalt?) and averts the “utopian collapse into unity”. It is pulling apart and existing beside that opens up space for indeterminacy and excitement. 5 Here the link between the kiss and the contour is cemented. This interruption and disruption is akin to the ambiguity and duality of aforementioned surface qualities present in the Baroque.

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adoption of a new phenomenology: spherical penetrability 6 . Kinetic movements and the spatial penetration they enable necessitate the union between softness and this phenomenal strategy. Now working from within, one must consider the building’s interior logic, its layerings, its tangled qualities as the new producers of explicit and implied spaces 7 . The overwhelming three-dimensionality of spaces defies their reduction to “two-and-a-half-dimensional spatial analysis, and thus resist[s] the logic of cubist montage on flat surface” 8 . Interiors, now consisting of virtually transparent volumes, become bubbles of co-isolation 9 . Digital transparency allows the building and its interiors to be viewed as a “sphere of approximate relationships” 10 rather than an object which may be geometrically rationalized to yield a two-an-a-half-dimensional diagram. Yet kineticism encourages the bursting of these bubbles. Here is where the soft Gestalt enters; contour’s flexibility

6 Petit, E. (2015). Reckoning With Colin Rowe. Taylor and Francis. pg. 20. This is an essential step in rationalizing Cubist logics with morphological and programmatic complexities that cannot be satisfied by collage or other similar means of arrangement. Bulges, Petit writes, indicate only the “thatness of a volumetric diagram or the whatness of it [while] analytical readability is only offered from inside the building” as new desires for programmatic inter-penetrability and spatial/social complexity/variegation demand logics that defy simplistic projection onto or translation through exterior surfaces. 7 Rowe, C. (1976). The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa, and Other Essays. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. pg. 167-170. 8 Petit, E. (2014). Spherical Penetrability: Literal and Phenomenal. Log, 31, p.31. 9 An idea inherited from Sloterdijk’s Spheres trilogy in which the city was conceived as a foam wherein every adjacency is a bubble that shares a wall with the next bubble, existing in a unified autonomy (the idea of individualgesellschaft). 10 Petit, E. (2015). Reckoning With Colin Rowe. Taylor and Francis. pg. 17.

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encourages the delimiting of space. The phenomenology of spherical penetrability encourages the impregnation of previously isolated bubbles in an act of â&#x20AC;&#x153;conviviality and atmospheric togetherness that allows for new possibilities of hedonismâ&#x20AC;? 11 . Sounds similar to a kiss, no?

11 Petit, E. (2013). Spheres and Labyrinths.

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Involution

Becoming Interior + Interior Becomings With a kiss comes excitement, drama or even anger; a kiss followed by a slap. For spherical penetrability this excitement is involution. Involution, as a rediscovery of the interior 1 , is an amplification of inflection. The building, now a fluctuating interior, folds its users into its soft underbelly. Like the gentle incorporation of egg whites into whipping cream, the individual becomes part of this homogenized mixture. No longer able to exist removed from the building, they are embroiled in its inner complications. Explanation is only offered from within as space becomes increasingly volumetric and the transmission of inner diversity to the exterior is diffused by its movement throughout contiguous spaces 2 . The user (Rowe’s analyst or Schumacher’s agent), now situated internally, is faced with the act of unraveling their involuted surroundings. Itinerant circulation enables the gradual understanding of complex, non-centralized inner spaces. A total rejection of the gridded labyrinth as an organizational strategy, itinerant circulation materializes multiple points of focus as one moves circuitously in three-dimensions. Itinerant circulation, now enforced by the soft Gestalt’s undulating contour, is kinetically invigorated as points of focus become ever-more dizzying. One is forced to contend with

1 An interior strategy is the only way to truly address the individual’s new location within the world — the turn toward the interior creates a non-comprehensible (in its totality) environment that also generates unforeseen programmatic and social situations. 2 Petit, E. (2015). Reckoning With Colin Rowe. Taylor and Francis. pg. 19. Here the reversal of the Rowean paradigm is made abundantly clear. The object of analysis is no longer able to exist removed from the subject as the object is now the nobject (an object to which one is tethered) as it has fully fused with its observer. Critical distance now eliminated they become one.

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spaces whose boundaries are blurred by inter-penetration while tectonic elements assumed to be static are, in fact, mobile. Like two sets of lips supplely engaged, itinerant circulation unfurls kinetic transformations which amount to a “gradual morphological transformation throughout space” 3 and throughout time. The object’s position becomes ambiguous, its existence distilled to a trace; it exists now “through its metamorphoses or in the declension of its profiles; of perspectivism as a truth of relativity” 4 . The building’s interiors now work to create moments which fluctuate between illusion and truth. Together, within this space, there exist multiple levels of interiority and exteriority. It is impossible to fully distinguish an object’s profile in its entirety. Surfaces and spaces, now inter-penetrating, exist in relationship to their neighbors, the interior becoming an endless “series of curvatures or inflections” 5 . In this domain of extreme inherence, one becomes lost in an undulating, disorienting softness.

3 Petit, E. (2015). Reckoning With Colin Rowe. Taylor and Francis. pg. 20. Here too one recognizes the obsolescence of the expansive grid. 4 Deleuze, G. (1993). The Fold. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. pg. 21. 5 Ibid., pg. 24.

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Softness

Featuring Kinetic Inter-Penetration Finally, the affection between softness and kinetic interpenetration has been sealed with a kiss. Actually, it has been sealed with several kisses. Inflection is now facilitated by a membrane indicative of interior desires and actions. Soft kinetics is the cause of the kiss and the root of affective exchange. Its membrane requires the indeterminacy and ambiguity inflection affords. Expressive of both interior suggestion and exterior detachment, inflection enables the jump to an introverted interior where soft kinetics play a more profound role. Leibniz’s trace and Lavin’s surface are motivated from within by an elaborate series of inter-penetrations of both functions and spaces. Kinetically motivated, these penetrations engender a soft, plush milieu in which latent readings and displacements of one’s own body are possible. Schumacher’s distant subject is subsumed by the building’s soft interior and redistributed through a series of foldings, unfoldings, and re-foldings. The individual is now able to sense the three-dimensional impact of his or her body. Displacement of the body through multivalent space returns previously unrealized information back to the individual. Their body has become augmented. They now orient themselves between stability and instability. Contending with the arrayed ramifications of their physicality they recognize the surface as not just a signifier of function but an indication of the building’s involution — its complicated interrelations. The cascade of kinetic reverberations initiated by a single functional (Gestalt) switch is amplified, leading to the creation of an asignifying sign. Sensed throughout

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the space, one signifying movement or reconfiguration becomes an affective event whose expanded essence holds more gravity than may be exercised by an individual Gestalt shift. Distributed throughout space, these signs work in companion with itinerancy to generate situations whose totality cannot be immediately understood. These distributions enhance the notion of the trace through the “production of the unforeseen rather than representing the unknown” 1 . These becomings are present upon surfaces themselves. When kinetically activated, surfaces are engaged in the act of fulling — the fabric’s gathered surface is a material now expressive of its intensive properties — the breaking of a surface by a fold as an asignifying event. Ultimately, kinetic inter-penetration persists at all scales, working from the building’s exterior posture to the character of internal surface textures. While migrating between these two extremes, it achieves navigates from a degree of ambiguity to specificity, with penetrations acting not only as membraneous perturbations but serving to disrupt the very life-processes of the building itself.

1 Reiser, J. and Umemoto, N. (2006). Atlas of Novel Tectonics. New York: Princeton Architectural Press. pg. 172-173. Reiser and Umemoto introduce the idea of the asignifying sign in response to a material semiotics (‘material realism’ as suggested by Kipnis) which they consider to be too simplistic as it is still reliant upon architecture “at its base, as a language”. The asignifying sign enables an ensemble of kinetic elements to suggest an intensity whose origins are detached any tectonic influence.

Within soft space, the body is augmented, displaced, and amplified. This occurrs both when an individualâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s deisre to change space has far-reaching pysical imact as well as when the buildingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s motions impress upon a large number of users. Ocuupants may sense the impact of their physicality.

Olafur Eliasson Your Uncertain Shadow (Colour) (2010) Berlin, DE

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1.1.3 PART II

Soft, But Not Too Soft The injection of softness into the building begins with the structure in its entirety and the life-processes at work within its bounds. Softness first aims to disrupt the building’s cycle of production. The goal is to break this cycle 1 , to disorder it, and to redistribute it in ways previously considered radical but now demanded both by the ever-increasing complexity of “networked society with its fluidity of technological communication” 2 and its representative architecture (kineticism). In the breaking of production cycles, different social groups are exposed to one another and functions become interlaced. The elevation of meeting spaces to interstitial levels, for example, engages the act of meeting not just as a coming together of specific users but as a visual attraction for a multiplicity of occupants (both the public and employees) within the space. Thus, the energy and activity surrounding the meeting and the physical repercussions of the meeting resonate deep into the building’s floor plate as a result of operable ceiling elements, as well as the more immediate elastic action of the jumping stool. These interior features act as producers of affective energy within and around (emanating from) the internal void. Spatial inter-penetrability, and thus programmatic interpenetrability and the disruption of production cycles

1 The breaking of this cycle suggests disintegrating rigid chains of command or binary public/private and formal/informal (even clean/dirty) relations. 2 Schumacher, P. (2015). The Impact of Parametricism on Architecture and Society. [online] Patrikschumacher.com. Available at: http://www.patrikschumacher. com/Texts/The%20Impact%20of%20Parametricism%20on%20Architecture%20 and%20Society.html [Accessed 25 Sep. 2015].

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are all results of this three-dimensional mixture. The user’s perception as existing within multiple spaces simultaneously, along with the rapid reconfiguration of these spaces, produces affect that is impressed upon the user. In opposition to neatly parceled areas of specific activity (regardless of how intense the level of these activities may be), interior inter-visibility enables the emulsification of energies. Uses, adjacencies, and activities 3 are free to materialize when necessary. Kinetics gains much legitimacy via its association with spatial inter-visibility and as a result of this three-dimensional organization, Petit’s description of an itinerant interior evidences the void not as a volume of centrality but as one of dispersion. The treatment of the void as a distributed element is enabled first by the profiles it creates when intersecting floor slabs. Rather than distinguishing the void’s form and then exacting cuts ex post facto, the shape is generated via desired spatial connections and the resultant intersections of these connections, with linkages being granted dimension by the human cone of vision. So, with view preceding cuts preceding volume, the void becomes not a center around which the building revolves but a space throughout which users pass, always maintaining various focal points and scanning continually for their destination. Readjustments of kinetic ceiling elements within office and gallery spaces adjacent to the void challenge not

3 Through adjacency and inter-visibility, the process of production is challenged. Inter-visibility allows spaces once remote or sealed from one another to be peripherally present. In this way, an office is always adjacent to the workshop which is always connected to a meeting room. The fluency of formally incongruous programmatic entities is evidence of volumetric softness’ influence over the building’s programmatic substance.

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only the character of its edges but also the range of its affective influence across the interior. Here the contour is key. The curve networks of the ceiling create swells and hollows, forming interior office arrangements that provide required degrees of autonomy or interaction. Network curves, which slip past each other in plan, depress to create inhabitable surfaces that guide circulation. Users move throughout this sectionally diverse environment, encountering areas of different social groupings and experiencing chance meetings. As a result of kinetic rearrangement, the contour’s impact never remains fixed. It acts as a membrane through which reverberations pass, guaranteeing fixity to no spatial arrangement. The kinetic exchange of spatial intensities is facilitated too by the relation of interior program groupings to the dynamic facade. When an office grouping that is adjacent to the facade merges with the grouping to which it is internally adjacent, the facade reacts accordingly 4 . By increasing the dimension of its apertures as well as the density of openings, interior reconfigurations are effused in a low-resolution manner, suggesting the internal flurry yet denying any exacting expression. Beyond the more localized communication of internal orders, the structuring of openings upon the façade aims to be demonstrative of internal energies as well. The distribution of primary structure and perforations creates a density of movements and patterning upon the façade’s surface. The slipping, dynamic quality of the ceiling’s rearrangement is signaled by densities of perforations which are organized externally in relationship to the density of nested social clusters, The facade rejoices in its ability to deform and reform,

4 This reaction acts to provide higher degrees of light and internal comfort appropriate to changes in occupancy and configuration.

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engaging its embedded geometries and freeing itself for radical and affective roles 5 . The roof, while playing a less dynamic role than its vertical sibling, is nevertheless active in the reconstitution of space, utilizing pneumatic tubing distributed along is profile (analogous to the pneumatic strategy utilized across the façade), granting upward and downward movement to the roof edge. Varying degrees of roof enclosure allow for the accommodation of diversely scaled events while providing a change in the building’s overall contour. Finally, the necessity of the transformation of “void into the vivid” 6 is apparent. The linkage of this internal nonobject and its power over all areas of the building (even the building’s élan vital) is not possible without kinetic strategies that enable re-channeling of space and activity upon demand. The unique profiles of the void’s edge determine the ceiling curve network and, thus, give rise to the spatial impact of the contour. The soft ceiling provides a plane from which social demands are met or dictated and exterior reconfigurations are generated. Ultimately, the marriage of kinetics and softness casts the void as the building’s affective engine. And yes, while these kinetic arrangements are capable of producing a symphony of Gestalt switches and functional rearrangements, it is through their reincarnation as contour that these switches produce sensations which are the multiplication of signs and signals. These sensations evidence a whole which transcends its parts to achieve something beyond itself.

5 Such roles are free from any servility to typical notions of façadism. 6 Ibid., pg. 83.

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1.1.4 CONCLUSION

Softness’s Higher Calling Softness should be considered the truest desire of today’s work environment. Through malleability, kinetics allows for full utilization of the contour’s spatial potential, potential inconceivable to both Rowe and Slutzky. Through the corresponding circulation (that of itinerancy) softness and its phenomenal associations and reverberations proliferate the building. Now the building becomes an affective environment. Facilitated by immanence of internal inflection and the organizational impact of this inflection, the building exudes energy. It is absorbed and transmitted via all facets (roof, façade, openings) and radiated outwards. Ultimately, the figural frequencies of the Cubist canvas and its past architectural realizations via Rowean propagation (and contemporary incarnation via Schumacher’s Gestalt) are granted new life by the unravelling of figure into contour. This new soft phenomenology engages kinetics in a more resonant way than Rowe’s could ever have. Softness, unceasingly proliferating, creates an architecture that engages the user both socially and physically and broadcasts this engagement into its surroundings. Softness responds to what architecture demanded to be: so much more than just a signal.

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DESIGN RESEARCH

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2.1 Biological Research

Initial investigations into plant and animal behaviours provided the base for three main areas of interest. The behaviours of inflation, flexible surface, and elastic energy served as models for prototypical kinetic mechanisms. By pinpointing the efficiency of natural actions, their most valuable features may be translated into kinetic strategies, with minimum effort expended to achieve maximum result.

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2.1.1 MIMOSA PUDICA

Kinetic Leaf Movement | The Mimosa Pudica can be found growing natively in Central and South America. The mimosa is a sensitive plant, famous for its leaves that fold when stimulated. This phenomenon is more than just visual effect, serving as a strategic adaptation local weather conditions.

Behaviour | The heavy tropical and subtropical rains of the Mimosaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s growing region have the potential to destroy vegetation through their torrential force. Here is where the ingenuity of the mimosaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s reaction is exhibited. Furling its leaves, the Mimosa is able to shield itself from potentially destructive rainfall at the sense of the slightest touch or vibration. It is this environmental sensitivity and the subsequent reaction that serve of interest to further exploration.

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Function Analysis Upon stimulation, the leaves of mimosa fold toward their corresponding stem. Each point of branch bifurcation contains a Pulvinus which is the element allows for leaf pivoting. The cellular diagrams of the Pulvinus show its behavioural states before and after folding.

LATION

MU TI

Pulvinus The Key Mechanical Section 52

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Cellular Mechanism The process of the Mimosaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dynamic leaf becomes clear when is investigated at the cellular level. Once stimulated, the cells on the extensor side lose water while cells on the flexure side gain water. In this way, a reversal of state is able to occur. d in g

Water Redistribution

Mimosa Body Bending Diagram

ed rb

er A bs o

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CURLED RELATIVE HUMIDITY 89%

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2.1.2 EQUISETUM: | HORSETAIL SPORE |

Equisetum is the only living genus in Equisetaceae, a family of vascular plants that reproduce by spores rather than seeds. Equisetum plants (horsetails) reproduce via tiny spherical spores that are typically 50 Âľm in diameter. The spores have four elaters, which are flexible ribbon-like appendages that are initially wrapped around the main spore body. The elaters deploy when drying or fold up in humid air. Walks are driven by humidity cycles, each cycle inducing a small step in a random direction. The dispersal range of the walk is limited, but the walk provides key steps to either exit the sporangium or to reorient and refold. Jumps occur when the spores suddenly thrust themselves after being tightly folded. They result in a very efficient dispersal: even spores jumping from the ground can catch the wind again, whereas non-jumping spores remain on the ground. The understanding of these movements, which are solely driven by humidity variations, conveys biomimetic inspiration for a new class of self-propelled objects.

SEMI-CURLED RELATIVE HUMIDITY 75%

UNCURLED RELATIVE HUMIDITY 12%

“HORSETAIL SPORES DON’T NEED LEGS TO JUMP”

THE TINY SPORE UNCURLS ITS FOUR RIBBON-LIKE ELATERS AS HUMIDITY DROPS. IF THE ELATERS UNCURL SUDDENLY, THEY CAN LAUNCH THE SPORE IN AN EXTREME JUMP.

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Features of a Horsetail Spore Spores are contained in sporangia, and the fern sporangium is a miniature marvel of engineering. A strip of cells along one side have thickened radial and inner walls, and as the sporangium loses water the cells shrink, simultaneously breaking the sporangium open and bending it backwards. When the strain becomes too great, a bubble of air is released from solution in each cell (cavitation), unleashing the tension and allowing the sporangium to snap back to its original shape, flinging the spores out at up to 10 metres per second. This briefly exposes the spores to gravitational forces. And, while they look like lifeless green dust, the spores of spiky horsetail plants can jump about 200 times their body length. These dramatic leaps happen after spores are soaked; when the elaters dry out they may unwrap so suddenly that a 50-micrometer spore jumps as high as a centimetre. Elaters once again curl up and dry out as humidity rises, ready again to make another dramatic leap.

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2.1.3 GREAT AUSTRALIAN CUTTLEFISH

Dynamic Camouflage | The Great Australian Cuttlefish is an exemplary case of camouflage. It goes beyond simple surface treatment or morphological adaptations, adapting comprehensively to its reef environment. Camouflage is implemented in order to deal with both environmental and social contexts. Varying behaviours drive the need for camouflage such as predator/prey relationships, communication, and crypsis theory. The organismâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s infinite array of coloration and patterning possibilities give it an imperceptible figure, its edges and surfaces both distorted and illusory. This is the ultimate advantage for the fish itself, as it is able to move seamlessly throughout its predator rich habitat. Riding along the current, the surface patterning of the cuttlefish is as fluid as the water itself, iridescent flows running rapidly across its figure while colour and surface act in symphony, recreating the rich textures of the coral reef.

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Dermal Composition The skin acts as a multi-layered system of active components with roles that function in consort with each other. Layers of chromatopores create a seemingly endless array of coloration as light which passes through pigment, bounces of a reflector, and passes again through a reflector creates two colours. This diversity is comounded by the skinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fluid base layer of proteins which allow for fluid reflective patterning.

Epidermis (dermal muscle network)

Yellows

Reds

Browns Iridophores Leucophores Punctate Chromatophore

Expanded Chromatophore

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Iridophore and Leucophore Iridophores are flat platelets that provide structural colouring (short wavelength blues, greens, and whites). They are triggered by neurotransmitters which cause a rearrangement of proteins. The shifting of the iridophore cells is evidence of chemically triggered coloration. Leucophores are spherical cell assemblies. They act as nearly perfect light scatterers that are able to reflect light evenly over the entirety visible UV spectrum. Together these two elements, free of muscular control, create a base dermal stratum upon which all chromatophore patterning is layered. The coloration provided by these elements is different than that of the chromatophore as it is not pigmentary. The specular structural coloration provided by these two elements working in consort is superior to specular reflection which is reliant upon a change in light source to modify colour.

Iridophore

Leucophore (Punctate Chromatophore)

Leucophore (Expanded Chromatophore)

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Chromatophore Chromatophores number in the millions across the skin of the cuttlefish and are under precise neural control. They produce pigmentary colour (long wavelength reds and yellows) are under activated by nerve signalling and a muscular network.

01mm

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01 The chromatophore in its punctate state (top) and expanded state (bottom). It is capable of a 500% surface area expansion. 02-04 Pigment sacs are attached to radial muscles. This muscle contracts and pulls the sac out into a disk of colour. When the neural signal stops, the disk relaxes and the color disappears.

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Inner Chromatophore Each chromatophore pigment sac contains hundreds of thousands of coloured granules that are able to compact tightly when in the punctuate state. Similar to the chromatophores themselves, pigment granules exist as a tethered network, capable of rapid expansion and contraction while regulating light through absorption, reflection, and fluorescence. The structure of the inner chromatophore is complex with granules tethered to each other, linked subsequently to the cytoclastic sacculus of the chromatophore wall, which ultimately is linked to the external network of dermal muscles. This hierarchy is responsible for innervation of the pigment control down to the most detailed level.

Tethered Pigment Granules

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Motion / Posture Camouflage Motion is synchronous with environmental factors such as sun and wave ripples while posture is determined by pattern matching in the third dimension. Arm posture is controlled by circular and dermal erector muscles and are visually driven. The orientation of arms to benthic (sea floor) stripes and water flow is evidence of the fishâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ability to perform motion camouflage. Light motion (read as contrast) and three dimensional objects within the environment such as plant life serve as drivers of the cuttlefishâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s arm articulation.

The Cuttlefish is capable of complex environment matching in the third dimension.

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Papillae Papillae are perhaps the most essential element within the cuttlefish’s arsenal of dynamic camouflage techniques. They are highly malleable and are operated by two distinct mechanisms of extension: muscular hydrostatic movement and flexible tissue. The skin’s two sets of dermal erector muscles function as a hydrostat (similar to the human tongue), with concentric dermal erector muscles lifting the papillae up and away from the surface of the body while horizontal dermal erectors draw the papilla’s perimeter towards its core to create a more articulate shape. Papillae are visually determined yet they are able to exhibit a localized response.

07 Distributed sensing

08 Localized coloration

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05-06 Dermal muscles act to for the three dimensional expression of papillae. When extended, tissue at the apex of papillae is thinner, suggesting stored tension that allows for elastic reduction and return to a flattened surface. 07-10 Multiple thin subepidermal muscles form a meshwork between the chromatophore layer and the epidermis, integrating localized color and formal response into one expression.

09 Distributed sensing

10 Localized topology

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2.2 Mechanism Development

Taking inspiration from the behaviour of key biological case studies, this period of research focused on movements that could be used to actuate surface. Natural behaviours of interest such as inflation, folding, and elasticity were mechanically interpreted to create strategies for the activation and articulation of surface. Beginning with the hydromatic cell and watergel material, our investigation of inflation proceeded to the constrained hydromatic pillow and, finally, the pneumatic pillow. Inflation, by means of water or air, were combined with investigations in folding. Creating a series of fold patterns, we were able to test the inflationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s capacity to create a variety of sectional and plan conditions. By this method, the mechanical interpretation of natural behaviours is able to have spatial and social implications.

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2.2.1 FORCE GENERATING PROTOTYPE

The bending behaviour is based on analysis of Mimosa Pudica mechanism and utilizing the material properties of Sodium Polyacrylate, a prototype capable of generating force enables further exploration. The prototypeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s power comes from water absorption and release. This power is clean and performed passively. The material is possible to be find in solid state (small spheres) or powder (granules). After measuring rates of expansion, it became evident that the sphere does not have the intensity to generate force. The powder is the only choice in this case. However, the powderâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s direction of expansion is even less predictable than that of the sphere. A structural framework allows for controlled and directed expansion.

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The Material | Sodium Polyacrylate Sodium Polyacrylate has the ability to absorb as much as 4 to 5 times its mass in water. Mainly, it is as a method of water retention for gardening and farm soils.

Volumes | Comparative Diagrams

400% Expansion

Powder

Solid State (Small Spheres)

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HYDROMATIC PROTOTYPES The Cell Inspired by the cellular mechanism of the Mimosa Pudicaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s movement, a cell is designed to achieve a similar behaviour. According to the Mimosaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cell properties, the designed cell should also has the same capacities. In the designed cell, the primary capacity is absorbing and releasing water. However, as an artificial cell unit, it should have more detailed properties.

Structure

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01 Framework of the developed cell 02 Framework assembling. Multiple fabrics enable water to be absorbed by more accessible paths.

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Cell Placement

01 Sequential distribution of cells 02 Cell amount deduction: weight reducing. Replacement of lighter structure and sequential distribution of cells. 76

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The cubic prototypes can generate inflation to enable the bending of geometry in which are attached. However, the prototype water absorption can increase its gravity and the gravity may turn out to resist the bending force. Water absorption time is about 3 -10 hours. This may cause the prototype behaves relatively slow so that its bending kinetic phenomenon is not obvious. To solve these issues, the prototype was improved approaching to less weight and more efficient water absorption.

Flat State 00:00:00

Partially Actuated 06:30:00

Fully Actuated 09:30:00

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LINEAR ARRANGEMENT

Hydromatic Cell and Surface Deformation - Catalogue Time in Water: ~ 10:00:00

CORNER ARRANGEMENT

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CENTRE + EDGES ARRANGEMENT

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CROSS ARRANGEMENT

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The Tube Second iteration of prototype - from individual cubic cells to one linear pillow.

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Skin 00:00:00 Base State

Pillow sealed with Hydrogel 01:15:00 Deformation

Fully inflated 03:00:00

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Prototype Applied to Surface

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Folding Guide

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Folding Guides

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PNEUMATIC PROTOTYPES The Pneumatic Pillow Using a similar logic, the hydromatic pillow is replaced by a pneumatic system.

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2.2.2 ELASTIC MECHANISM

Based on the Horsetail Sporeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ability to jump and to change its condition under different environmental situations, particularly humidity levels, elastic mechanism attempts to work in a similar way. This mechanism is activated by elasticity. It is developed using elastic materials like piano wires, clips and springs. Its main feature is its potential to store energy and translate it from stored to kinetic. Potentially, elastic mechanism can be part of ceiling or furniture, giving different qualities in the applied space. The mechanism is designed to be activated by users within the space.

Activated by elasticity push | release

Store Energy

Energy translation from Store to Kinetic

Diagrammatic explanation of the elastic mechanismâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s principle

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Jumping Mechanism Building upon the basic behaviour of the horsetail spore, this mechanism attempts to decode and simulate the sporeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s jumping behaviour through a physical model. Using a simple material like the piano wire, the mechanism is able to store energy of an applied force and to translate that energy into a kinetic behaviour once the force is released. FOR CE

D LIE PP

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2.2.3 INSPIRED SURFACE

As the papillae of the cuttlefish are controlled by concentric and horizontal dermal erector muscles, folding based on reflection is able to produce variegated results from a surface which is initially flat. These resultant forms may be evaluated across multiple scales, producing objects that can exist as differing architectural elements. With the potential to be ceiling, partition, floor, or furniture, these forms also frame spaces that take on distinct characteristics. These spatial characteristics, ideally, act under the influence of inhabitant desires and requirements. Additionally, they may reciprocate this act, helping to shape individual behaviours and programmatic functions.

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“PAPILLAE ARE PERHAPS THE MOST ESSENTIAL ELEMENT WITHIN THE CUTTLEFISH’S ARSENAL OF DYNAMIC CAMOUFLAGE TECHNIQUES”.

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As is exhibited by the image, these surfaces are able to create spaces of varied intimacy, scale, and suggested movement throughout. 100

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Base Shapes Folding patterns are generated from two basic forms, one singly curved in profile and one s-shaped. Building upon these surfaces, folding patterns may be developed and evaluated at different formal moments.

Applied Force Horizontal and concentric forces may be applied to give base shapes dimensionality and activate their inscribed folding patterns.

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Fold Library These applied forces, in combination with valley and mountain fold lines create topographies of varying inflection and concavity with facets and ridges that add light and shadow as well as new functionality to previously unremarkable (flat) geometries.

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Large Scale Surface

Medium Scale Surface

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Intimate Space

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Small Scale Furniture Element

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3 Folds Articulated Surfaces Catalogue based on surface fold lines.

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Six Fold Surface Simulation

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CUTTLEFISH SKIN

“Functioning like a hydrostatic muscle it is able to change shape due to differences across membranes”.

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2.3 Prototypical Application

Our prototype development interrogated the articulation of elastic surfaces. First introducing a single network beneath a lycra surface, we investigated the crease that may be formed and the subsequent space it began to suggest below. This idea was expanded to cover the entire ceiling surface of the building floor plate. Introducing a network of curves beneath the ceiling’s deformable membrane creates surface that extends into the space and may be occupied. Spaces formed by the depression of overhead curves may have varying degrees of enclosure based on program or user demand. Investigating multiple materials with different degrees of elasticity displays the possibility of varying flexibility across a single surface. By this method, spatial and social qualities may be embedded within and enhanced by the building’s material properties. Additionally, by varying the surface’s degree of transparency spaces may be physically separated yet visually linked. The last key investigation of the prototypes was an attempt to solve interior-exterior connection. Our prototypical investigation focused on creating sliding ceiling track that, through its motion, would engage rotating arms at the building’s slab edge. The indirect interior-exterior relationship is key to signaling interior activity to external observers. Additionally, through this link, space at the slab perimeter could open to provide area for more intimate meetings or work activities. Ultimately, the aim of these prototypes was to demonstrate a system of actuated surfaces that, beginning from the interior, create habitable surfaces whose reconfigurations are then linked to a mobile, accommodating exterior envelope.

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2.3.1 CASE STUDIES

BMW GINA Car | Conceived as a lightweight concept vehicle, the GINA car is an excellent example function and adaptability working in consort with one another. The vehicleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lycra skin is able to open and provide heat exhaustion as well as accommodate the formation of head rests and conceal lighting elements. In this way, the car exists as a seamless body from which required topologies emerge.

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Los Angeles Philharmonic Stage | The stage for the Los Angeles Philharmonicâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s performance of Cosi fan Tutte operates by a simpler system yet achieves dramatic results. Rotating curves beneath stretched fabric create and undulating stage that provides varying inclinations and a diversity of light and shadow.

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2.3.2 CEILING PROTOTYPE

The ceiling acts as the main agent of interior recombination. Through its curve network, the ceiling is able to deploy concentric and linked curves to create spaces that are both nested and bordered by surfaces of varying height and thickness. Non-concentric curves are introduced to bracket space and create smaller areas that offer opportunities for breakout spaces or areas of more intimate meeting. The ceiling’s motions are controlled by horizontal sliders which work to deploy curves vertically — this with the goal of minimizing slab thickness. These created spaces aim to nest and reconfigure, shaping areas that may bleed together and then separate, enabling an interpenetration of programs across a floor plate. The ceiling’s surface enriches the notion of interpenetration through its distribution of material stiffness. Surfaces of high elasticity deploy, breaking through surfaces of lower elasticity on their way to the floor. These less elastic surfaces pull first pull back, signalling an immanent change within the space. Distribution of material stiffness also serves to enforce areas of required circulation (such as spaces near elevator cores or storage areas) while dissolving almost totally along the void to create a soft, distended interior volume.

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Physical Prototype Test of Soft Partition

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Initial Articulated Ceiling Investigation Three different curvatures are able to activate the soft partition in the ceiling. This provides different spatial qualities. Their movements configure the space, highlighting different social interactions.

CURVE A Delivers more rigid configuration

CURVE B May delivers cluster configuration. Suggested for Office space

CURVE C May delivers cluster configuration. Suggested for Office space

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Ceiling Activation | Curve A

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Curve Network Application The ceilingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s curve network is composed of concentric and eccentric curves. This contrast in curvature works to bracket space and reinforce areas of either social engagement or more rapid movement. The depression of curves creates a smooth membrane that users move along and congregate within. Ultimately it is the curve network which enables a diversity of sectional conditions across a single floor plate and crafts dynamic, unfolding circulation amidst program clusters. In the image below, the surface pictured is made from multiple materials. The introduction of varying degrees of elasticity and transparency suggests regions with limited depression distance as well as areas with increased inter-visibility.

Ceiling Softness Prototype Mesh, Lycra, Latex + PTFE

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DEGREES OF SOFTNESS

CURVE NETWORK

Ceiling Softness Diagrams

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SPACES FORMED

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RESULT OF ACTUATION OF THE CEILING CURVE NETWORK

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Ceiling Prototype + Local Scenarios

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“THESE CREATED SPACES AIM TO NEST AND RECONFIGURE, SHAPING AREAS THAT MAY BLEED TOGETHER AND THEN SEPARATE”

S ES RV

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Surface Interpenetration

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2.3.3 FACADE PROTOTYPE - INVESTIGATION OF ACTUATION

Curve Network as Method of Facade Actuation | The facade functions to express interior rearrangements and reconfigurations through its movements. Acting at both building and component scale, the curve networks embedded within the facade and its double surfaces act to change the structure’s profile and its surface articulation. Driven first by the ceiling’s movements, the façade’s primary curve network moves horizontally across the building’s face, pulling with it an elastic membrane. This action works to subtly morph the overall shape of the architecture’s form, creating new peaks and valleys along its roof as well as expansions and depressions of volume across its section. A secondary curve network acts within this surface to provide a level of higher articulation to its expression. Existing at a scale related to adjacent interior spaces and their arrangements, this secondary network links the building’s total expression to its life processes. Lastly, it mediates in scale between the full-building wrapping and the inner membrane of the facade which acts as enclosure for interior and whose deformations are first in the cascade of radiative transformations. Ultimately the facade exists as a soft, malleable, and habitable realm motivated both by external expression and internal desires.

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Investigation of Curve Network as Method of Facade Actuation

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Investigation of Facade’s Curve Network Prototype’s Behaviour

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Facade Prototype, Latex

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2.3.3 CEILING / FACADE PROTOTYPE - COOPERATION

The following prototypes investigate the link between ceiling and facade movements. Intending to join the buildingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s two main membranes, the sliding motion of the curve mechanism is linked horizontally to vertical curve networks within the facade. The strategy of intervention within the building works from interior to exterior and these prototypes propose the solution of a loose, accommodating membrane which is reflective of internal rearrangement.

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Prototype with Sliders MDF, Mesh Fabric, Piano Wire

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SLIDING MOTION ACTUATES VERTICAL CURVE NETWORK WITHIN THE FACADE.

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SLIDING MOTION ACTUATES CEILING CURVE NETWORK.

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Vertical Curve Network Rotating Arm Ceiling Surface Horizontal Slider

Prototype with Sliders Exploded View

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Prototype with Rod Acrylic, Mesh Fabric, Piano Wire, Threaded Rod

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Prototype with Rod Ceiling + Facade Interaction Detail

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2.3.4 MOBILE FURNITURE WITH ELASTIC BEHAVIOUR

Within the variety of soft environments, an elastic behaviour is introduced. This is present as a furniture element. This mobile furniture utilizes the jumping mechanism which was investigated during the mechanism development phase. Additionally, a series of investigations studied a variation of parameters like the body flexibility, jumping ability, and the delay mechanism.

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Body Studies Flexibility

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BODY STUDY 2

BODY STUDY 3a

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BODY STUDY 4a

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Prototype Behaviour

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3.1 Soft Spaces

Our research has focused on the activation of elastic and fabric membranes through varying methods of inflation. These varying modes of actuation aim to provide surfaces which differ in their character and behaviour. The contraction and deployment of surface works to provide an office environment that breaks rigid spatial distinctions of the past while raising the probability of the chance encounter, a key social ingredient of the modern office. Framing kinetics as a heightened level of phenomenal articulation we hope to elevate the importance of this dynamic architecture beyond the pure physicality of its movements. Accepting aesthetic desires and their interwoven relationship with both embedded meaning and spatial reconfiguration, another key aim of kinetic architecture, is essential in the advancement of contemporary architectural phenomenology. Proposing a strategy of architectural softness, this investigation aims to align kinetic architecture with new developments in the phenomenological field. Infiltrating the Design Museum, London with what is termed as softness 1, a threedimensional intervention is made. Kinetic elements assist the proliferation of this proposed spatial and functional ambiguity through the animation of interiors and exteriors 2, providing semiotic intent and affective impression. An architecture of soft kinetics aims to inhabit the space between input and output â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the space between information

1 Softness here meaning the supple gestures of physical (kinetic) features as well as

the ability of programs and spaces to absorb one another. There is a pliancy which emerges as a result of this strategy; not solely amongst interior spaces but amongst their users. Continual remolding of space creates functional intermingling that has the potential to significantly alter the way in which employees may reconsider their routine role within the office.

2 An act facilitated indoors by dynamic furniture and ceiling elements and on the exterior by the implementation of pneumatic and water-based inflation.

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and expression. Employing a cascade of interrelated movements, the simple triggering of one element may, through adjacency or reverberations within space, create an array of motions and reconfigurations far more dynamic than one element alone. This space between information and expression is a supple, pillowy depth. Within this interstitial space “all life and innovation takes place” 3.

3 Sanford Kwinter, ‘Soft Systems’, Culture Lab 1, Brian Boignon (ed.), (New York: 1996), pg. 216.

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“SOFTNESS” AS THE ABILITY OF PROGRAMS AND SPACES TO ABSORB ONE OTHER.

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3.1.1 OFFICE TYPOLOGIES

The office typology is the environment in which we intend to intervene. Historically, the modes of social interaction within the workplace have been predetermined. Often these social strategies reflect corporate structures or a company’s mission. But what if these workspaces were to reflect the way in which modern society communicates, which is often spontaneous, quick, and informal? Our proposed strategy of “Soft Office” aims to align spatial configuration with social demands and occupant desires.

CELL Example: Jacques Tati’s Playtime, 1967 Characterized by high levels of autonomy and low levels of interaction, the cellular office provides focused and individual work with little awareness of surrounding activity.

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DEN + CLUB The den plus club arrangement is the current favoured office configuration. The private area designated as “den” space aims to provide focused and semi-individual work while the “club” spaces proved opportunity for group discussion and activity. These varying social conditions, however, still require separate spaces.

HIVE Example: Frank Lloyd Wright Johnson Wax Building, Racine WI, 1939 Characterized by high levels of autonomy and low levels of interaction, the cellular office provides focused and individual work with little awareness of surrounding activity.

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3.1.2 SOFT OFFICE

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Soft Officeâ&#x20AC;? accommodates situationally required degrees of autonomy vs interaction. The flexibility of this system is able to create zones that could be characterized as hive or cell (or anywhere in between) on a single floor plate while adjusting the ratio of these spaces throughout time. The softness of the deformable ceiling surface and its curvatures guides users through the space, leading them to concentrations of social activity or channelling them along circulation pathways. This soft ceiling works to shape and enforce social scenarios, helping to physically enclose space to varying levels of privacy. This way, through the blending of social situations, spaces present a variety of opportunity for chance encounters to occur.

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3.1.3 CHANCE ENCOUNTER

Working in conjunction with the social continuum, the chance encounter is key catalyst in the generation of novel ideas and promotion of discussion between departments. This strategy of unexpected interaction was first popularized by research and medical institutions and has since been introduced within technology firms and marketing offices. Chance encounter removes formality from communication that may be imposed by designated meeting spaces or settings. Reduction in formality encourages the freedom to speak as the social scenario becomes less hierarchical, leading to discussion that may have otherwise been stifled by corporate structure.

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Salk Institute Louis Kahn, La Jolla CA, 1965 A seminal example of socialization within the research environment, the Salk Institute’s serene exterior provides researchers a welcome reprieve from the solitary environment of the adjacent lab towers. Within the courtyard, underneath the Southern Californian sun, meetings between individuals from different departments or disciplines are able to take place.

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Cold Spring Harbor NY, 1890 Social encounters at Cold Spring Harbor are enlivened by the proximity of living and working spaces. As a live-in research institution, scientists and students are able to converse in a variety of programmatic situations. Additionally, individuals may take advantage of the idyllic natural environment, exchanging the typical drudgery of the workday for an outdoor meeting or discussion.

Center for Care and Discovery Rafael Viñoly, Chicago IL, 2012 At the University of Chicago’s Center for Care and Discovery, large open floors allow for unpredictable futures. The building’s sectional arrangement creates a common level where researchers, doctors, and public are free to meet and discuss in a casual environment outside of treatment rooms or laboratories.

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CASE STUDY

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3.2 Redesigning the Design Museum

This proposal works from the inside-out. Addressing the Design Museum as a case study, we intervene with softness. Examining prototypes and their behaviours, we combine them as elements within a system of soft, articulated membranes. Ceilings and surfaces become occupiable regions and way-finding elements. This interior world and its existing frame are accommodated by a flexible enclosure that is suggestive of activities within.

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Location within City of London.

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3.2.1 THE SITE

The site is in a riverfront area known as Butlers Wharf or Shad Thames on Londonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Southbank. Historically the area is a zone of riverside warehouses which were once used to store tea, coffee, spices, and other imports during the Victorian era. Today the area tends to be primarily residential with some office spaces in the renovated warehouse buildings. There are restaurants, cafes, and bars on the ground levels especially along Shad Thames and at the quayside along the river. The quayside is open public space. Access: Access to the area is limited, with Jamaica Road the most significant access point. The building is on the Thames waterfront in the London Borough of Southwark. Historically the site was approached from the riverside, though this is uncommon today. More commonly large semi-trucks access the building from the Shad Thames roadway which passes under the building. The site is near London Bridge station which is an Underground station as well as a mainline train station. Other nearby mainline railway stations include Waterloo International on the Southbank and London Charing Cross and Blackfriars on the Northbank. The nearest underground stations are Tower Hill, Bermondsey, and London Bridge.

01 - St Saviours Dock Conservation Area 02 - Tower Bridge Conservation Area

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Approach from London Bridge.

Approach from Maguire Street, through Jamaica Road.

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3.2.2 BUILDING INFORMATION

The current building at No.28 Shad Thames was developed in the 1950’s, and was originally used as a warehouse to ripen bananas. The area known as St Saviours Dock / Butlers Wharf was originally a working dock, the decline of which coincided with the decline of this industry generally in London. In an attempt to rejuvenate and regenerate this area, it came under the planning remit of the London Development Corporation in the 1990s.

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1950’s

The Design Museum was founded in 1989 and has been located at Shad Thames for the whole of this time. The building was converted from the former warehouse to its current incarnation by Terence Conan. As part of these works a roof extension to provide a further floor was added to the southern half of the building. The building over-sails the road at Shad Thames, carving an under-croft out of the building at ground and first floor. As a result of these changes, the building has a modernist style, which the Conservation Area Audit (CAA) notes as contrasting with the language of architecture surrounding it, this being the more traditional warehouse buildings of Butlers Wharf, which flank either side of the building fronting the riverside.

51 o30’N 0 o04’W

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Existing Plans

GROUND FLOOR PLAN Scale 1:500 Area = 1039 sqm

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FIRST FLOOR PLAN Scale 1:500 Area = 1140 sqm

First Floor Plan

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[ 1140 sqm]

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SECOND FLOOR PLAN Scale 1:500 Area = 1140 sqm

Second Floor Plan 192

[ 1140 sqm]

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Roof +5.50m [L2.5]

Roof +5.50m [L1.5]

Roof +5.50m [L2.5]

Roof +16.00m [L3]

THIRD FLOOR (ROOF) PLAN Scale 1:500 Area = N/A

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MEZZANINE FLOOR PLAN Scale 1:500 Area = 418 sqm

Mezzanine Floor Plan [ 418 sqm] 194

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LONG SECTION Scale 1:500

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3.2.3 PROGRAM STRATEGY - INTENTION

The building’s program is divided into three main components. The first component, the void, introduces a circulation element into the space. Within the void, interstitial mezzanine platforms are cantilevered. Linking with circulation, these mezzanine areas serve to broadcast meeting activities throughout spaces above and below as well as serve as locations for impromptu conversation. Flanking this vertical space, the two remaining program blocks are characterized by their relationship to context. Within the building’s northern (riverfront) exposure, public functions are placed. These gallery and event spaces are located here to guarantee their visibility to passers-by on the river walk. In combination with the facade actuation, interior public events may be strategically broadcast. At the building’s rear, office functions are located. These internally focused spaces are broadcast their activities to a lesser degree and are linked more closely to the mezzanine levels and meeting activities.

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WITHIN PASSAGE FROM RIVERFRONT TO ROOFTOP WE ENVISION A DYNAMIC INTERIOR ENVIRONMENT.

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3.2.4 THE VOID

The void acts as the building’s key three-dimensional intervention. Its form is shaped by the human cone of vision. By analysing visual connection lines between public, office, and meeting programs, the shape of the vision cone may be parametrically controlled to grant it a 3D volume. These cones give shape to the cuts within the building’s existing floor slabs. Within the void, vertical circulation is introduced. This circulation expands upon the idea of vision, creating a winding path that provides the user unfolding points of focus as they progress along its path. The circulation exposes movement throughout the building to those adjacent the void’s edge and is instrumental in creating an inward focused environment. Interstitial mezzanines are introduced between the building’s upper three levels serve to creating meeting spaces that are visible to individuals both working and circulating. The positioning of mezzanines is strategic as they allow visual access to meeting areas. In this way, the act of meeting becomes a public activity, encouraging other office users to join a social gathering if they feel it could be to their benefit.

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Floor Slabs No cuts

Standing Looking Up

Standing Looking Down

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Outside Looking In

Seated Looking Down

Floor Slabs Cuts as a Result of Vision Cones

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VERTICAL CIRCULATION

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HIGH VISIBILITY + PUBLIC FUNCTIONS

LOW VISIBILITY + WORK ENVIRONMENT

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Vertical Circulation An Itinerant Element | With view preceding cuts preceding volume, the void becomes not a centre around which the building revolves but a space throughout which users pass, always maintaining various focal points and scanning continually for their destination. Within the centre of this space vertical circulation is located, enabling this internal milieu to unfold throughout time.

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LEVELS 0-6

LEVELS 0-6 LEVELS 5-5.5 LEVELS 4-4.5 LEVELS 3-3.5

Itinerant Circulation through Void

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The Void and the Vertical Circulation

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Mezzanines The Meeting Experience - Elevated | The elevation of meeting spaces to interstitial levels, for example, engages the act of meeting not just as a coming together of specific users but as a visual attraction for a multiplicity of occupants (both the public and employees) within the space. Thus, the energy and activity surrounding the meeting and the physical repercussions of the meeting resonate deep into the buildingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s floor plate as a result of operable ceiling elements, as well as the more immediate elastic action of the jumping stool. These interior features act as producers of affective energy within and around (emanating from) the internal void.

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Mezzanine L3 - L3.5

Mezzanine L4 - L4.5

Mezzanine L5 - L5.5

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THE VOID

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STAIR

MEZZANINE

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3.2.5 JUMPING STOOL

Based on the elastic behaviour of the mobile furniture, investigated during the prototypical phase, we introduce the Jumping Stool. The stool serves as a mobile furniture element that, upon jumping, is able to create a free floor space. It functions as individual sitting element within the Gallery space or to create small meeting cluster within office programs. Its jumping mechanism may be activated by human weight while a lock and release mechanism keeps the stool on the floor for some seconds before it snaps back to the ceiling.

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1 FIXED TO CEILING

2 APPROACH + RELEASE

0.40m

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BODY The jumping mechanism is involved at the body frame.

0.40m

MAGNETS Designed to secure into magnetic ceiling docks.

LOCK / RELEASE MECHANISM Embedded into the body, offers safety and ensures stability.

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3 SEATED + LOCKED

4 STANDING + RELEASED

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5 FIXED TO CEILING

Exploded View

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Prototype

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3.2.6 CEILING + NESTED SPACES

The ceiling network, investigated during the prototypical phase, creates a floor plan, comprised of nested spaces that serve to facilitate the levels of interaction presented by the social continuum, with the goal of the chance encounter existing throughout the space. Additionally, it creates spaces that are nested within one another, allowing for areas that may act as concentrations of privacy or activity. Soft surfaces create this scale of autonomy to interaction. Through their deformation, surfaces become both occupiable and way-finding. The chance encounter is linked directly to surface reconfiguration. Colour mapping is utilized to demonstrate the degree of social interaction throughout the space (Social Mapping).

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NESTED SPACE

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Curve Network in relation to Nested Spaces

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LEVELS 6

Event Space + Roofscape

LEVELS 5 Office

LEVELS 4

Office + Gallery + Cafe

LEVELS 3

Office + Gallery

LEVELS 2

Office + Gallery

LEVELS 1

Office + Gallery

LEVELS 0

Workshop + Reception

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Social Mapping Social Quality

Cellular Space

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Prescribed Space

Co - Working

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Circulation Area

Full Social

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Chance Encounter

COLOURS / DIFFERENT LEVELS OF SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT

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Social Scenarios LEVEL 4

ISOLATED SOCIAL GROUPING

Cellular Space

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Prescribed Space

Co - Working

Part Social

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DISTRIBUTED PART-SOCIAL

Circulation Area

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PART SOCIAL AT VOID

Full Social

Chance Encounter

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Social Scenarios LEVEL 5

ISOLATED SOCIAL GROUPING

Cellular Space

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Prescribed Space

Co - Working

Part Social

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CO - WORKING AT PERIMETER

Circulation Area

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CO - WORKING AT VOID

Full Social

Chance Encounter

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Ceiling Deformation Reflected Plan + Section

REFLECTED CEILING 3d PRINT

Longitudinal Section A

Longitudinal Section B

Longitudinal Section C

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3.2.7 SOCIAL INTERACTION BEHAVIOUR

Utilizing colour mapping as its foundation, crowd simulation is able to simulate agent behaviours in relation to the space they inhabit. Characterizing areas along a social continuum, agents respond to the social function of the space they inhabit. Programmed with different behaviours, agents may slow down and linger for set periods of time, continue at a steady pace, or increase their speed. This simulation provides information demonstrating the circulation of users throughout the building and the relationship circulation has with social function. As a result, by shifting the social qualities of the space, we are able to return circulation information which can inform the configuration of curve networks and ceiling deformation.

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CELLULAR SPACE

CROWD SPEED = 0 BEHAVIOUR: SITTING / EVERY 500 FRMS

PRESCRIBED SPACE

CROWD SPEED = 0 BEHAVIOUR: WAVING / EVERY 200 FRMS

CO - WORKING

CROWD SPEED = 10 BEHAVIOUR: LOOKING UP

PART SOCIAL

CROWD SPEED = 0 BEHAVIOUR: SITTING / EVERY 300 FRMS

CHANCE ENCOUNTER

CROWD SPEED = 20 BEHAVIOUR: WALKING / DIVERSION OF WALKING ORIENTATION

FULL SOCIAL

CROWD SPEED = 35 BEHAVIOUR: WALKING

CIRCULATION AREA CROWD SPEED = 25 BEHAVIOUR: WALKING

Agents Porgrammed Behaviour 241

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Crowd Simulation | LVL 4 Scenario: ISOLATED SOCIAL GROUPING

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Crowd Simulation | LVL 4 Scenario: DISTRIBUTED PART-SOCIAL

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Crowd Simulation | LVL 5 Scenario: CO-WORKING AT PERIMETER

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Crowd Simulation | LVL 5 Scenario: CO-WORKING AT VOID

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Users in Workspace Social Mapping 12-hour Building Cycle Social Behaviours linked by Void

Exhibition Space Cafe / Restaurant

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Users in Gallery Users in Meeting Spaces Users in the Cafe

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Mezzanine Meeting Spaces

Office Clusters

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12-hour Building Cycle Social Behaviours

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3.2.8 INTERIOR CONFIGURATION

Ceiling curve networks work in cooperation with furniture rearrangement to create spaces of differing functionality and social character. Desks may be spaced regularly while curves remain relatively flat in order to create and open plan office space, similar to the hive typology. Contrastingly, desks may cluster tightly, curves may depress deeply, and an intimate meeting/conversation area will appear. Ultimately, the flexibility of this system facilitates an office environment that may adjust itself throughout time to both the demands of users and productivity.

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A variety of furniture arrangements across the same floor.

Floor Plate Small Areas Defined

Floor Plate Small Areas Defined + Alcoves

Floor Plate Medium Areas Defined 258

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Floor Plate Large Areas Defined

Floor Plate High Occupancy

Floor Plate Compressed Gallery + Free Office 259

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A variety of furniture arrangements and nested spaces across the same floor.

Floor Plate Small Areas Defined

Floor Plate Small Areas Defined + Alcoves

Floor Plate Medium Areas Defined 260

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Floor Plate Large Areas Defined

Floor Plate High Occupancy

Floor Plate Compressed Gallery + Free Office 261

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A variety of furniture, social and program arrangement across the same floor, highlighted by a colour code.

Floor Plate Small Areas Defined

Floor Plate Small Areas Defined + Alcoves

Floor Plate Medium Areas Defined 262

Office

Gallery

Cafe

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Floor Plate Large Areas Defined

Floor Plate High Occupancy

Floor Plate Compressed Gallery + Free Office 263

Interior View LEVEL 5

Physical Model

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3.2.9 FACADE STRATEGY

The buildingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s facade is double layered and employs a strategy of both deformation and perforation. The facade is composed of two primary surface areas: one which is pneumatically activated and one which is activated by hydromatics. Pneumatics serve to actuate primary facade contours. These contours may be expanded to reveal surfaces of high perforation. These perforations allow increased light indoors while providing visibility to both the riverfront (for gallery functions) and river (office functions). The surface between these primary contours is perforated less densely, with its patterning responding to the density of nested spaces on the interior. The motion of this surface is activated by arms slab edges. These arms are key to the interior-exterior connection as they transmit the motion of ceiling curves to the exterior. Depression of ceiling curves, related to the reconfiguration of space, triggers the movement of arms. By this method, the exterior surface becomes and signifier of internal activity. A secondary facade is inserted as a buffer between the interior and exterior. This membrane is patterned with perforations like the exterior and it serves to hug the spaces of the interior. Better

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defining interior areas, they also open more intimate spaces at the slab edge for small meeting or conversation. Hydromatics are placed at ground level and actuate the facade surface to provide shelter to those entering the building or passing by at grade. Hydromatics provide a passive mode of actuation and are suggestive of an initial research interest in cellular expansion. Their localized placement aims to negotiate with London’s damp climate and the building’s dynamic form. As mentioned previously, the building’s perforations are linked to both primary contours and secondary surface. Providing both direct functionally and semiotic effect, the facade’s perforations are strategically located. Perforations along primary contour lines, take advantage of pneumatic inflation and are densely grouped. Resultantly, they offer maximum view across a large, extended surface. On regions between these dense areas, facade perforations reflect the potential program arrangements of the interior. This patterning is more abstract than in primary regions and is indicative of the building’s activities without revealing their true nature.

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FACADE CONTOURS

PRIMARY + SECONDARY NETWORK

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FACADE PERFORATION VIEW + SPACE DRIVEN

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Facade Functional Diagrams

FACADE SURFACE PNEUMATICALLY CONTROLLED

FACADE SURFACE HYDROMATICALLY CONTROLLED

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DEGREE OF PERFORATION / DENSITY low

high

DIRECTION OF EXPANSION RIVERFRONT / ROOFSCAPE

DIRECTION OF EXPANSION RIVERVIEW

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Physical Model 3d Print

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FRAME 000

FRAME 010

FRAME 020

FRAME 030

FRAME 040

FRAME 050

Facade’s Pneumatic Deformation

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FRAME 000

FRAME 010

FRAME 020

FRAME 030

FRAME 040

FRAME 050

CHAPTER 003

Facade’s Hydromatic Deformation

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Furniture Configuration + Facade Actuation The soft reconfiguration of the interior becomes translated by the facade. Shifting social scenarios, indirectly play out upon the facade.

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Physical Model Interior View and Facadeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Double Layer

West Part of Facade Night View

Birdâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eye view from the riverside.

Physical Model

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Facade Chunk with Perforation 3d Print

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Physical Model View to the interior LVL 4 - LVL 5

REFERENCES

APPENDIX

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cache, B. and Speaks, M. (1995). Earth Moves. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Deleuze, G. (1993). The Fold. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Derrida, J. and Owens, C. (1979). ‘The Parergon’. October, 9, pp.3-41. Kwinter, S. ‘Soft Systems’, Culture Lab 1, Brian Boignon (ed.), (New York: 1996). Lavin, S. (2014). Flash In the Pan. London: Architectural Association. Lavin, S. (2011). Kissing Architecture. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Lavin, S. (1999). Open the Box: Richard Neutra and the Psychology of the Domestic Environment. Assemblage, (40), p.6. Petit, E. (2015). Reckoning With Colin Rowe. Taylor and Francis. Petit, E. (2013). Spheres and Labyrinths.

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Petit, E. (2014). ‘Spherical Penetrability: Literal and Phenomenal’. Log, 31, p.31. Reiser, J. and Umemoto, N. (2006). Atlas of Novel Tectonics. New York: Princeton Architectural Press. Rowe, C. (1976). The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa, and Other Essays. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Schumacher, P. (2012). The Autopoeisis of Architecture. Chichester: Wiley. Schumacher, P. (2004). Digital Hadid. Basel: Birkhäuser. Schumacher, P. (2015). The Impact of Parametricism on Architecture and Society. [online] Patrikschumacher. com. Available at: http://www.patrikschumacher.com/ Texts/The%20Impact%20of%20Parametricism%20on%20 Architecture%20and%20Society.html [Accessed 25 Sep. 2015]. Somers-Hall, H. (2006). ‘Deleuze and Merleau-Ponty’. Symposium, 10(1), pp.213-221.

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MAKING OF

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CREDITS

A Project by Andreas Y. Kyriakou Andrew Potter Weixin Zhao

| Cyprus | USA | China

Developed at Architectural Associtation Design Research Lab AADRL 2014 / 2016 at Patrik Schumacher Studio assisted by Pierandrea Angius

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Special Thanks to Patrik Schumacher Pierandrea Angius Theodore Spyropoulos Shajay Booshan Robert Stuart-Smith

Irem Dรถkmeci Leyuan Jiang Ying Xia Shimu Wang Yihong Chen Yawen Xue Yingying Yuan

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Architectural Association School of Architecture AADRL Design Research Lab 2014 | 2016