AIR studio Journal Part A
Haochuan Guo (David Guo) 659741 Semester 1, 2017
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Self Introduction My name is Haochuan Guo, and I'm a third year architecture student at the university of Melbourne. The 2 years of architecture study is a continuous process of exploration for me . I exlopred what exactly meant by designing, and how to balance between professor’s requ irements and my own ideas. It is a bittersweet journey, and my strong passion for design ha s kept me persistent. It is also this passion that helped me carry on through difficulties and fr astrations, and gained recognition and fulfillment at the end. All of my design projects up until this point have been done by traditional techniques such as hand drawing, physical modeling and some digital modeling programes, but I have never touched the designing approach that is called computation like grasshopper, and this subject give me an opportunity to explore a totally new world of design.
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“It is a question of building which is at the root of the social unrest of today: architecture or revolution.” -------Le Corbusier
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century earlier, Le Corbusier responded to the potential social upheaval because of industrialization in that machine age by proposing understanding a dwelling as a 'machine for living'. The first several decades of the 20 centry saw a series of social upheavals. Living in that age and to respond its situation, Le Corbusier proposed his famous saying "Architecture or Revolution". However, we living in the new century face very different situations compared with earlier architecture masters, but the new environmental and social conditions impose very diiferent challenges
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A.1. DESIGN FUTURING Case Sduty 1 Project: Endesa Pavilion Architect: Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC) Date: 2011 Location: Barcelona, Spain
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he Endesa Pavilion is a prototype that demonstrates the role of parametric designing methods in creating intelligent and sustainable architecture, and how architectural forms can be generated by the parametric design. The form of the building is optimized by parametric modelling methods that consider the local environmental conditions. The building's variation and complexity in its form is not merely driven by the architects' aesthetic tastes, but also by the inherent functional purpose at its very early stage of design, which is to minimise the energy consumption or even produce a surplus to feed other conventional buildings' consumption. Therefore the interesting point is the parametrically designed building is able to has variation and complexity in its forms driven by the intent of functionality that is precisely the same reason why modern architecture often present forms giving feelings of simplicity, austerity and lack of variety. Over a period of one year the project was used as a
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control room for the monitoring and testing of several projects related to intelligent power management. It is the first 1:1 prototype of a wooden solar-tracking facade system applicable to different scales and latitudes. The adaptive modular system is based on parametric modelling and digital fabrication, with an algorithm oded to optimise geometries depending on local conditions to create a constructive system that aims to integrate passive strategies with active ones, traditional knowledge with cutting-edge technology, and local conditions with global logics.
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A.1. DESIGN FUTURING Project: Mobius Project Architect: Exploration Architecture Location: London
Nowadays, built environments are increasingly held responsible for environmental crises due to its greenhouse gas emissions, industrial a:nd operational outputs and ecological disturbance. This proposed architecture demonstrates how mimic fundamental principles of ecosystems can help facilitate sustainability by making specific references to a case study of an ecosystembased biomimetic architecture. The Mobius Project is a proposed architectural project, being as a combination of urban farm and city restaurant located in a roundabout in London, designed by Exploration Architecture. The architecture employs an approach of closed-loop system that is inspired by how material and energy cycle through ecosystems to nourish
the interconnected relationships among different species. The building has different parts responsible for different functions, including a greenhouse, a fish farm, a restaurant, a wonne1y composting system and a "living machine" water treatment system. The seasonal food people eat in its restaurant comes from the productive greenhouse, and food scraps f om the restaurant is either composted in the wonnery composting system, or fed to fish. In the building, the local was biodegradable will be processed for composting or diverted to the anaerobic digester that produces methane to generate electricity and heat to support the greenhouse's operation. Also, the solids flited fom the
wastewater can be used for anaerobic digestion, while the remaining water is treated by the "living machine" that imitates ecosystems of wetlands by integrating bacteria, zooplankton, plants and fish, and the treated water will be used for drinking and crop in-igation in the greenhouse. In the project, we can see the interdependent relationships in natural ecosystems are mimicked and a small-scale ecosystem is created, consisting of producers (crops in the greenhouse, plants in the "living machine"), consumers (fish, humans) and decomposers (bacteria, zooplankton, worms). A sustainable model is realized here by designing this ecosystem-based architecture where every species has its own role to play but at the same time its performances will also nourish its relationships with other system participants. Also, the closed-loop model, being like ecosystems, minimizes negative impacts of the building by "feeding" the system with its own output.
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