Systems Culture Sem 1 2013

SYSTEMS CULTURE daniel hazmy 376182

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Systems.Culture posits that for architecture to remain relevant it must engage with the forces that shape society. Architecture must interpret these forces into new modes of spatial experience or ‘affect’ (Moussavi, F, The Function of Ornament, 2006).

Through this mechanism architecture is able to retain an authentic connection to contemporary culture. Affect is therefore the result of cultural forces acting on materials, under the curation of a designer.

Systems.Culture explores this relationship and focuses on the implementation of contemporary digital design tools as curatorial devices.

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ABOUT

Systems.Culture is interested with creating affects in architecture as defined by Moussavi - where “affects engage people through aesthetic perception”. 1 In her installation during the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale, Moussavi explained that historically, architects instilled meanings or ideas in their architecture through signs, symbols, building typologies and styles in hoping to be in par with the culture at the time However, in today’s globalized and plural society, with different backgrounds and upbringings, a singular meaning that could be understood by all can never be achieved. Hence for architecture to be relevant in today’s society, architecture must provide a common ‘ground’, where in this case, it is the affects. 2

Systems.Culture aims to translate cultural motives that are prevalent in today’s society to conjure these affects. These cultural motives will drive the architectural design that act as a starting point and also to ensure that the architecture produced at the end is relevant to what is happening now and what it might be in the future.

Apart from that, Systems.Culture is also concerned with the relationship between materiality and affects. Materials can also contribute to the experiential affects with their particular properties, such as textures, colours and transparency. 4 Systems.Culture then ties all these relationships between culture, materiality and affects using contemporary digital design tools.

Peter Eisenman provides a clearer definition of affect in architecture where he states that “Affect is the conscious subjective aspect of an emotion considered apart from bodily changes. Affect in architecture is simply the sensate response to a physical environment.” 3

1 Described online at http://www.farshidmoussavi.com/flash/index.html#/projects/777 2 Described online at http://www.farshidmoussavi.com/flash/index.html#/projects/777 3 Peter Eisenman, “The Affects of Singularity,” in Andreas Papadakis (ed.). Theory and Experimentation, Architectural Design, London: Academy Editions, 1992, pp. 42 - 45 4 Kolarevic, Branko and Kevin R. Klinger, eds (2008). Manufacturing Material Effects: Rethinking Design and Making in Architecture (New York; London: Routledge), pp. 6-24

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CHAPTER 1

CULTURAL FORCES

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CULTURAL FORCES

Artwork by Nick Gentry

The current zeitgeist that we are living in is the Information Age that sparked from the creation of ARPANET in the 1960’s, the predecessor of what we called the Internet today. The Internet is basically made up of millions of computers around the world that are connected to each other. As computers are being more and more ubiquitous, Internet is growing at a rapid rate to provide faster and reliable global connectivity that couldn’t be achieved before.

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When the Internet was first commercialized, it’s usage was seen more as a technology that provides convenience, such as email, instant messaging and file sharing services, enabling humans from different geographical locations to communicate with each other without worrying on how much will it cost, how long will the information going to take to be communicated or whether the information will arrive safely on the other side as they would with the

traditional mail system.

As the awareness on how beneficial and useful the Internet can be in our everyday lives grows, more and more people at that time quickly adopted this technology at a very fast pace, creating demands to improve it significantly and subsequently changing many of the ways we experience our lives today.

As this technology becomes better and more efficient, many new services such as e-commerce, e-news, e-conference, forums, blogging platforms, as well as social networking sites have emerged making life today not only significantly more convenient but also more productive. There are also opportunities to learn about almost anything on the Internet, making it one of the most useful learning tools for educational purposes. Today, most people around the world will be very familiar with the Internet and the services it provides (where Internet access are available) and

Artworks by Nick Gentry

People are spending more time on the Internet, being absorbed into the digital world and most often disconnected from the physical world. Most of us spends so much time in the Internet but never really question or wonder what the Internet has actually done to our lives. to a certain extent, depends heavily on it.

These new services on the Internet requires us to create usernames or digital identities to represent ourselves on the web. Generally, these digital identities do not by any means reveal who we really are, thus fostering anonymity to be prevalent within the digital realm. Anonymity on the Internet has generated a lot of discussions regarding on the social and cultural impacts it will have since the commercialization of the Internet.

However, anonymity is no longer seen as an issue but instead a part that is very much acknowledged within the digital culture.

A recent concern that arises within the context of digital culture is the multiple identities a person could have thanks to the advent of social networking sites as well as other Internet services like e-mail. This concern is carefully captured through the artwork produced by Nick

Gentry (Figure above) that discusses on how humans have reversed the emphasis on their digital identities over the traditional identity in the physical world.

In essence, the artist is trying to convey this exaggerated emphasis of digital identities that are inherent in our culture now. His artworks also hinted at what humans will become in the future if this continues to go on, humans will be more android- like, with these digital identities acting like the different operating system that one can choose to boot with at any paticular time, and where the human body is just a shell or piece of hardware that have no purpose without its operating system.

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TRANSFERRING MOTIVE

“I’m not really sure which parts of myself are real and which parts are things I’ve gotten from books.

- Beatrice Sparks, Go Ask Alice I totally agree with what the artist, Nick Gentry is conveying and proposing through his artworks. Is there somwhow a way to stop this from happening by carving and eroding through all these multiple identities to reveal the traditional identity that we have been neglecting? I am interested in using this idea as the cultural force to shape architecture as well as to produce the resulting affect.

To translate this idea to architecture, however, proves not to be a simple task. My group and I then decided to translate this idea of carving and eroding using physical processes. We chose to work with grafitti as it’s one of the popular cultures in Melbourne, We scouted around and observed all the grafittis on laneways and came up with pretty interesting observations.

Most graffitis have short life span as every while and then, another artist will paint another layer of grafitti on top of it, hiding it from view. The same process will then 8

These series of images shows the carving of multi-layered grafitti paint on a wall.

be repeated until the wall is essentially covered with a thick layer of paint. We see this as an analogy to how our digital identities are layering on top of our traditional identity, ultimately forcing the latter being concealed from society.

To reveal the layers of painting below, we carved the multi-layered grafitti paints on the wall using a sharp metal object. As we were carving away and reveal bits and pieces of what was underneath before, we realized that this itself gives an interestng affect (Figure above). We can see the layering as well as the contours that made up those layers on the wall clearly once we carved them. There are also striking colours and vibrancy that stands out from the rest of the paintings on the wall.

Using this image as a kickstarter, we will tried to emulate the affects that were produced using contemporary digital techniques.

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CHAPTER 2 TOOLING

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WHY DIGITAL?

Series of iterations from using Diffusion-Limited Aggregration (DLA) and Marching Cube algorithm.

With the advances of technology, be it the architectural software or the fabrication methods, architects are now being spoilt with new and innovative methods and processes to produce architecture.

More and more organic forms that are certainly not one of the Platonic solids can now be designed and be built easily.

Using contemporary digital techniques also enables an architect to utilize the generative processes that will certainly be useful during designing.

Not only that, these digital tools also enables automation of routine and repetitive tasks that can speed up the design process.

These tools are able to simulate forms in nature and also emergent behaviours found in many flora and fauna’s system.

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The above image is a series of tests and iterations that I did using digital contemporary techniques. What I have done is basically using a diffusion-limited aggregation algorithm to simulate growth and then trying to get a surface from all the curves generated using marching cube.

Although the techniques that I am working with is not directly related to carving or erosion, by doing this series of tests, I am able to see how different parameters can affect the outcomes which can be incorporated in future testing.

My other group members also did their own tests using digital techniques where we then shared the knowledge gained among ourselves.

PRECEDENTS 1

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1 Image from http://generativedesigns.tumblr.com/ 2 ColoRing by Jo Nagasaka 3 Pathfinder by Daniel Widrig 4 Contemporary Vernacular by Jason Orbe-Smith http://www.suckerpunchdaily.com/2013/03/29/contemporary-vernacular/#more-28850 5 Image from http://generativedesigns.tumblr.com/

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PRECEDENTS

# Glass Farm

// MVRDB Architects // Different methods to perceive materia

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ality

PRECEDENTS

# Diffused globes // Catie Newell // Different methods to fabricate physically

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SKILLING //Exploration 1 Since these explorations will all be focused on producing a chandelier, we did some material tests using resin. We wanted to use a material that can be casted, have color and also transparent.

//Color blending and transparency tests

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One interesting aspect from the tests is that we can imprint something onto the resin, in this case paper with words on it.

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//Exploration 2

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We did another material test using milled green foam to simulate the effect of erosion and carving in nature. What’s great about this exploration is that there is a play between light and shadows which gives depth.

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//Exploration 3

The symmetry of a platonic sphere with a central light references the traditional chandelier and a traditional, idealized understanding of self and identity. Thus, a sphere was chosen as the geometry to work with.

In the cyberworld, we can have as many identities we want, in which over a certain period of time, slowly gains importance and cloud the real identity. This is represented by the multiple layers of spheres on top of of the real identity.

The result from this is a large, multilayered sphere that prevents anyone from digging through and to find out who we really are.

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Our real identity

Multiple identities

Our real identity

Most of these identities that we make up on the Internet revolves around social medias like Facebook, Youtube and Twitter. It is of our interest to reveal the real identity by carving and digging through the fake identities associated with these social medias.

These online identities that we have often grows on us and we tend to act like and portray our online identities even in the physical world. By using Diffusion Limited Aggregation algorithm, we want to try to backtrack this unconscious obsession of our online identities. We used the social medias as the attractor points to generate the algorithm, which resulted in the multiple lines as shown.

The curves then generated this mesh which we will use to to carve and dig through that multi-layered sphere in order to reveal the core, which is our true self.

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The process revealed a certain portion of the sphere and the next four images will show the sphere in different views.

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Top view

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Right view

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The resulting sphere with carved out holes to reveal the core

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Left view

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Front

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Eventhough it seems it’s been carved, there is no contrast between outside and inside

Perspective view

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The process from backtracking with DLA to carve into and dig through the multi-layered identities, however, didn’t really reveal much about the true self, hence we decided to pry open the sphere in order to reveal more.

The geometry was not planar and would be very difficult to fabricate, thus we had to rationalize the geometry by contouring it.

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Perspective view

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The resulting contours of the sphere from the prying action.

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Top

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Right view

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Left view

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Perspective view

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We abandoned this technique of fabrication because it does not represent carving effectively.

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//Exploration 4

All the Internet cable station in the world is highlighted with red dots on the map.

The dots were then remapped as points onto a cylinder.

The points then generate aggregation of lines using the Diffusion Limited Aggregation algorithm.

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Using marching cube algorithm, a mesh was obtained from all those lines.

Different iterations were produced. //Iteration 1

Among all iterations, this one in particular I feel is the best, because it had the most opening and gives a better sense of being carved compared to the rest.

//Iteration 2

//Iteration 3

//Iteration 4

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//Exploration 5

This exploration utilizes 3D Coat, a voxel scultping software, to manually carve a solid, in this case a rectangle.

This is the resulting mesh after it’s been carved digitally.

Based on our interests of layering and colors in the beginning, we divided the mesh into layers.

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Each layer is given a different colour, an attempt to simulate what is happening with the carved graffiti wall.

We find that this is not the result or the affect that we are after.

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Grotesque

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Folding

Organic

The mesh after it’s been carved with 3D Coat gives a strong affect of being carved. There is an organic feel to it, grotesque and alive. This is what we like about this exploration and pursued it further.

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//Exploration 6

Apart from exploring aggregation algorithms, we also explored diffusion reaction algorithm to see what kind of affect that can be produced by having two different objects reacting with each other.

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At this particular point, we felt that this exploration did not give any useful feedback on our concept of carving.

But in hindsight, this exploration prove to be useful during our future material tests.

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//Exploration 7

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This exploration explores the process of subdivding a sphere to create a void within the spheres as if it’s been carved. The different iterations ranges from single and simple openings to many complex openings. We thought those with medium number of openings are the best as not to hide nor reveal too much.

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// First prototype

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//Final Prototype

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For the final prototype, we used parametric modelling to generate the negative that will be carved out of a sphere. I then used voxel sculpting to further accentuate the details of carving.

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# Juxtaposition [1] 46

// Rough and detailed interior

# Juxtaposition [2] // Smooth Exterior

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//Fabrication

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We wanted to fabricate this chandelier with resin, so we had to create a mold out of the digital model. We used pinkisil at the start but we soon discarded this as we realized that our fabrication process will be destructive, where we have to destroy the mold in order to take the resin out. We then used the contouring technique to make the mold from 1mm boxboard. By doing this, we managed to keep the tiny details in our digital model as compared to the earlier contouring technique that we explored at the beginning, which you can see from the top left image, the thin scratches is still visible. We then create another mold that is spherical and is split into two parts for the exterior. We then covered the contours with plasticine, to ensure that the exterior will be a smooth surface. We didn’t cover the interior mold with any plasticine so that it will remain rough. We then poured resin into the mold, one half of a sphere at a time.

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# Physical carving // The process of removing the boxboard mold

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# Tools // What we used to physically remove the mold from the resin cast

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SUMMARY

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For the chandelier project, we were interested with carving and erosion as a mean (process) to generate ornamentation. We then explored many different digital techniques to try and simulate this as a process which ranges from diffusion limited aggregation, diffusion reaction, and also voxel sculpting. Through these explorations, we consciously tried to reinterpret the cultural motive, which is the exaggerated emphasis on multiple digital identities over the traditional physical identity.

What we were trying to achieve is essentially to carve and erode through these multiple identities to reveal the traditional identity which leads us to the affect of juxtaposition between exterior and interior and also between rough and smooth. The fabrication technique that we used to produce the chandelier was resin casting, as we wanted to retain all the detail of complexity in the chandelier.

From the mid semester crit, we received feedback on what different kinds of affect can be produced if we use emergent

system instead to produce the carving and also how the chandelier gives a sense of inversion, by inverting the ornamentation to the inside instead on the exterior. We then tried to input this feedback into the next stage of translating this affect into an architectural scale.

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CHAPTER 3

MATERIAL AFFECT

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REFLECTION

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From the mid sem crit, there were a few things that were mentioned that could have been better with our chandelier project. Firstly, there is no clear connection on how we get from the artworks to out reinterpretation. What we could have done is to explain or show explicitly how the two are connected.

Next, we stated a few keywords that might be our affect, but we didn’t show them in our explorations or in the final chandelier. Another thing was that the process we gone through was a linear one, instead of taking a step back at one point and maybe go back to a previous exploration that might give better results. We were trying too hard to try to get to a result that we didn’t pay attention to the process and let it aid us with the design. Besides, there is also no opportunity during the design process for the design to generate itself. Instead, we manipulate it. There is no sense of surprise. For the next part, we will try to incorporate some bottom up approach in our explorations. Finally, there should

have been a better way to fabricate the chandelier, instead of resorting to 3d printing and contouring. We should have think more on how to, if necessary, to create something new or a machine that would do what we need to achieve.

In conclusion, the chandelier we produced was an interesting and beautiful object by itself, but it does not convey the original ideas or motives from the artwork that we chose. Somehow, along the way during the exploration process, all of it is lost. I guess, we didn’t really put much thought on the affect that we are really trying to achieve, in a sense where it would connect to our social motive.

TRANSLATION TO ARCHITECTURE

For the art gallery, we wanted to continue with the idea of achieving the same affect using ornamentation.

We hope to produce a contemporary reinterpretation of ornament that reflects the current advances in architectural design and fabrication methods. As mentioned, for the chandelier, we used digital carving to derive the desired affect and then used casting to fabricate it. To translate this affect into an architectural scale, however, we wanted to use physical carving as the fabrication method instead. For this reason, we looked at how carving and erosion occurs in nature as precedents.

From our observations, they can be described as having purposes as well as behaviours. The purpose is essentially to remove or delete bits and chunks from something which we will try to emulate physically by using acetone to dissolve green insulation foam. The behaviours are meandering, branching and bunching which we will also simulate using agent based system. The reason for combining

these two different techniques is because we are interested in the relationship between digital and physical fabrication at an architectural scale.

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PRECEDENTS

# Ornamentation // Louis Sullivan

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PRECEDENTS

# Purposes // Carving // Erosion

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PRECEDENTS

# Behaviours 62

// Seeking and Meandering // Bunching // Branching

PHYSICAL TESTS

We did several physical tests by dissolving green insulation foam with acetone and observe the entire process so that we can impart these to the agents. We used syringes to control the amount of acetone used as well as the depth of penetration into the foam, apart from having more accuracy. We also fabricated a machine that demonstrates how this process of dissolving can be automated using digital fabrication similar to CNC. From these series of tests, we deduced that each drop of acetone will dissolve the foam in a roughly spherical shape where the amount of drops will determine the area of effect. One interesting aspect that was produced from this process of dissolving is that it leaves a trail of thick, glossy green dye as a residue on top of the rough textured surface of the carved foam. We looked closely at the trail and we imagined they could possibly be the trails left by the agents and try to tease out all the behaviours that would relate to the actual behaviours of carving and

erosion in nature. As observed, three distinct behaviors, cohesion, separation and alignment are apparent which we then assigned to each of the agent in the script.

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r

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Cohesion

Separation

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r

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Weaving

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Alignment

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DIGITAL TESTS

After the physical tests, we now have a number of behaviors that will be assigned to the agents. The script for these agents was done in Python in Rhino. Each of them will tend to move closer to their closest neighbors, will separate if the number of agents within a certain radius exceeds a certain amount, and an agent will try to align to the same direction as their neighbors. Apart from that, all agents will be attracted to an attractor point to simulate the meandering behavior in nature. All agents will also leave trails and carve a specified object with spheres of random sizes for every iteration.

To a certain extent, just by having these few basic behaviors, the agents somehow managed to leave trails that emulate the behaviors found in nature.

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From this, we felt that by having the agent to carve in a spherical manner is too simplistic and the result lacked connection to the actual carving of the green foam.

marching cube algorithm to extract polygonal meshes from the trails left by the agents. This produced a far better synergy with the physical tests. They possess the organic quality similar to natural processes that was lacking when we used the spheres.

At this stage, we have developed a digital technique that is in sync with the actual physical process which we will use to carve three moments within the art gallery where we want to focus the ornamentation on.

# Agent Behaviours [1] // Cohesion

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# Agent Behaviours [2] // Separation

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# Agent Behaviours [3] // Alignment

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# Agent Behaviours [4] // Attraction

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# Agent Behaviours [5] // Trail and carving

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ITERATIONS

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# Digital Simulation of carving // Using voxel sculpting instead of spheres

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Not similar

Marching cube algorithm

Booleaned from an object 79

[1] Three moments // Entrance

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# Massing studies // Height

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# Massing studies // Form

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# Pattern studies // Texture

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# Pattern studies // Image mapping

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[2] Three moments // Atrium

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# Site Plan // 1:500

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# Elevation // 1:200

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# Moment [3] // Gallery

# Moment [2] // Atrium

# Moment [1] // Entrance

// Level 1 98

// Level 2

// Level 3 99

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# Section // 1:200

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[3] Three moments // Gallery

# Process [1] // Layering blocks of green foam

# Process [2] 106

// CNC milling for form

# Process [3] // Running agent script on surface and remapping trails onto the green foam

# Process [4] // Generating meshes from trails

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# Process [5] // Subtracting mesh from surface of the wall

# Process [6] // Additional details using voxel sculpting

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REFLECTION Through these physical and digital testing that we made, we are proposing a new way to look at as well as to produce ornament. We are also proposing an alternative fabrication method to produce a fairly complex looking ornament using cheap materials and at the same time having a certain amount of control over the volatile process using agent based system and computer numerically controlled fabrication method. We are also proposing to use green foam as the choice of material in this process because they produce a very distinct affect that is only inherent in them.

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