AIR STUDIO
SEM 1 2017 TUTE#3 MEHRNOUSH BOWEN MA 760802
Journal wk 01
01.Design Futuring Green Negligee - EPI-PHYTE Lab
The green Negligee is a design research project proposal created by EPI-PHYTE Lab, an architectural design and research team based in New York. The project composes of a metal mesh netting as an addition façade to the pre-existing family housing apartments located in east Europe. The mesh system is designed to be light-weight. The structure reveals the urbanised concrete structure within avoiding the process of demolishing and rebuild. The design ideology within resonances strongly with the Idea ‘design futuring’. Instead of treating design in a fixed frame focusing on fixing the current issue it demonstrates a system that is created by designers/researchers which enhances itself in time. The structure is composed of three elements where the overall form are designed based on today’s digital modelling technology combined with data analysis. The upper parts are installed with wind harvesters, under that are greywater filtering systems where the bottom creates growing beds for light weight local Flora. The project attempts to blur the boundary that separates human and nature in a systematic way, where the design is more than a mere façade but a process that will gradually enhance local ecology and residence’s resource efficientcy while maintaining it in the bigger picture.
GCCP- Google, BIG studio, Heatherwick Studio Three big names in their own fields of work, the new google headquarter located in Mountain view USA are the architectural crystallisation of development of the sustainment. Proposed both by Bjarke Ingels and Heatherwick with googles support, the buildings of the future came to being. Google and the designer attempted to avoid the process of build, demolish and rebuild. Making flexibility is the key work for the office structures within, ‘the architecture within are almost like giant pieces of furniture that can be connected in different ways’ Bjarke Ingels. The buildings come with great flexibility making them easy to be uninstalled as individual components and reused to suit potential needs in the future. These which are then protected under a simple, transparent super light membrane envelope making it almost impossible to separate the interior and exterior, both in the context of nature to human, and google to the local community. With cars restrained in the design, almost every corner of the project became accessible for local communities, google workers, local fauna and flora. The membrane is installed with semi-transparent shading system that is light reactive to achieve both energy efficiency and maximise the use of natural daylight. ‘there are ways that we can try of make spaces that aren't just for next 5 to 10 years but many decades to come.' – Bjarke Ingles ‘We will keep developing ,we will keep researching, in terms of material and technologies. The architecture will evolve as times evolve.' - Thomas Heatherwick The two quotes are the spirit of tomorrow’s design which is encapsulated in the google’s project.