AIR 2018, SEMESTER 1 ZHIYIN WANG Tutor: Allan Burrows
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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INTRODUCTION
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A.1 DESIGN FUTURING
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CASE STUDY 1
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CASE STUDY 2
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A.2 DESIGN COMPUTATION CASE STUDY 1
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CASE STUDY 2
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A.3 COMPOSITION/GENERATION
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CASE STUDY 1
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CASE STUDY 2
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A.4 CONCLUSION
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A.5 LEARNING OUTCOMES
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A.6 APPENDIX-REFERENCES
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INTRODUCTION
Zhiyin Wang Make dream come true.
I'm
a third year international student majoring in Architecture at University of Melbourne. Three years ago, I dropped out of Central South University which was one of the best universities in China and came to University of Melbourne. From then on, I was no longer confused about future and found the dream to contribute my whole life ----being a good architect. I know realizing the dream needs me to make great efforts and overcome huge difficulties, including learning designing software, reading huge articles and presenting my ideas in English, but I believe that I have enough patience and love to keep myself going, just like a fish trying to swim out of shackles. In daily life, I enjoy drawing architecture, through this way, I could clearly experience the beauty of the form in different architectures. For instance, City of Sky, from Miyazaki’s film, was filled with imagination about architecture in future. And Fallingwater, the famous masterpiece of Wright, presented the great value of sustainable architecture. In the past two years, apart from hand drawing, I also learned some useful digital techniques to help me design, such as the plug-in Panelling Tools in the course Digital Design and Fabrication, which made me have a preliminary understanding of digital techniques. And I hope to learn further about digital design in Studio Air.
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4 1.Personal drawing:A fish swimming out of shackles 2. Personal drawing: City of sky 3. Personal drawing: Fallingwater 4. DDF: Brave heart
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A
.1
DESIGN FUTURING
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Nowadays we are living in a high-speed developing social environment, which is accompanied by the increasing demand to keep supply, such as overpopulation, lack of energy and globle warming. These public problems increase the difficulty of development and reduce the possibility of sustainability. In the other words, they make our future "defuturing". Everyone living on earth has the responsibility for these public problems, especially designers. For architects, they should pay more attention to social problems and propose appropriate design solutions to help design futuring. In Kropotkin's writing, he also wanted to restore the natural environment from the damage of industrial development. And design futuring needs efforts from two aspects: slowing down the speed of defuturing while redirecting the society towards for more sustainable modes of design. With the development of computer techniques, there are an increasing mass of free design softwares providing the public with digital designing skills. Although most of the public's skills are only at junior level, design as a kind of skill is widely accepted and used by public. Hence, the way to realize design futuring is to make design become Indispensable skills in life of public. Everyone should take the responsibility of designing better future for human, and architects should lead this profound change in society.
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A.1 PRECEDENT 1: OPod Tube Housing, 2018
1.Opod Tube Housing in narrow alleyways between buildings
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2.Multiple units with mental stairway
3.Inner space of Opod Tube Housing unit
Design futuring----Possible solution to overpopulation
Hong Kong architect James Law of James Law Cybertecture turned concrete water tubes
into "micro homes", which would be possible solution to overcrowded cities. Hong Kong as a famous city is also widely known about its lack of both space and affordable housing. The living conditions of most poor people in Hong Kong are very awful, without any guarante, and some of them even live in the "cage house". The Opod Tube housing was just designed to solve this problem and give the poor dignity of living. This design reused concrete tubes around 8 feet in diameter, and turned them into 100 square feet of living space with necessary equipments, which could accommodate one or two people. These tube housings could be easily installed in narrow alleyways between buildings, which means the land for construction could be used to the greatest extent. And these multiple units could be stacked freely, with simple metal stairways providing access. According to Mr Law, the inspiration of Opod Tube housing tube is practical, both for young people looking for homes as well as city governments trying to provide affordable options. This design not only provides a kind of solution to overpopulation, but also indecates a new way about future architecture. This kind of architecture does not have fixed form, and the form changes depend on the specific context. It is flexible, loose and unshaped, just like the characterof water, which could adapt to a variety of environment.
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A.1 PRECEDENT 2: Japan Pavilion, Expo 2000
1.Inner space of Japanese Pavilion
Design futuring----Humanistic Care in Paper architecture The designer of Japanese Pavilion in Expo 2000, architect Shigeru Ban, won the 2014 Pritzker Prize for his paper architecture. Compared to the trend of using the newest materials and techniques in architecture, Ban pays more attention to sustainability and humanistic care behind buildings. Japan Pavilion completely adopted recycled paper, the skeleton of the arched main hall was made of fibre containers, which were covered and protected by fabric and paper film. During the half year exhibition of World Expo, this paper architecture exposed to the sun and rain, but its heat barrier was good all the time and did not leaked at all. Since then on, Shigeru Ban and his paper 10 building was noticed by the world.
2. Diagram of Japanese Pavilion
Another interesting thing about Japanese Pavilion is when World Expo ended, the pavilion was dismantled and returned to Japan, then its materials were reused again and become the pupils' exercise books. As paper architecture is low cost, convenient and sustainabble, it gives people new ways to consider about future design. For nearly twenty years, Ban is committed to helping people caused by natural disasters using his paper architecture. Although paper architecture is temperary, the humanistic care withnin it is forever. As a result, I think design futuring should not only have the meaning of form and function, but more important is the sense of responsibility for the future of mankind.Let the architecture truly be a sanctuary for human spirit. 11
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DESIGN COMPUTATION
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Computation is a series of commands in order to solve problems. By programming and calculating in the computer, commands can make modeling and generate visual images, which could be the prototype of architectural design. Nowadays with the help of softwares like Grasshopper and Digital Project, design groups could work on complex project which has huge amounts of data to be computed. As the development of computational methods in architecture, designers are able to deal with complex architectural models.3 From then on, the surface of architecture with complex geometrical shapes became a trend. But is it the more complex surface we achieved, the better architecture we got? What kind of architecture is the best in design computation? In my opnion, when reasonable computation and algorithm develop to a certain extent, the building could show artificial intelligence. In the other words, Architecture itself should be a smart body. It can react to the surrounding environment, interact with human beings using architectural way, but "unlike its creators, computer never feels tired, never makes silly mistakes4. "As a result, Bionic architecture and Interactive architecture may be good examples on the combination of using computers in the design process.
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A.2 PRECEDENT 1: AL Bahr Tower, 2012
1. Overview of AL Bahr Tower
Design computation---Bionic Architecture In view of the weather in Abu Dhabi, there is strong sunshine in a week that basically keeps the temperature above 100 degrees F, and there is no possibility of rain. In this extreme weather condition, the architect Aedas decided to put the architectural surface design as the most important task. The screen, as the curtain wall, forms an independent frame on the exterior wall of the building. Each triangle on the screen is coated with fiberglass and programmed to respond to the movement of the sun, therefore the tower could reduce the obsorbtion of solar energy and glare of the sun. 14
2.Triangle unit reacted to the sun path
3.Surface design
In the evening, all the screens were automatically closed. It is estimated that this design will reduce more than 50% of the solar heat and the energy drainage needs of buildings. In addition, the shading can filter light, making the tower more selective on the finished glass. Through computation design, the tower was just like a smart body and the surface was like its skin, which could react to the surrounding environment(sun path, heat). So this tower was seen as an attempt of bionic architecture. I hope design with computation could go further from this buiding. 15
A.2 PRECEDENT 2: Shanghai Bund Financial C
3.Surface design
1.Flowing surface of Shanghai Bund Financial Center
Design computation---Interactive architecture The core function of the project is a cultural center, and also a place for brands to organize activities and release new products. The building is surrounded by several layers of moving curtain, which are programmed to be flowing along three tracks and consists of 675 independent magnesium alloys tassels. The length of these tassels is from 2 meters to 16 meters, and it can move in each track alone. As human activities are different, this building changes its form to adapt to human activities. Architecture like this project which could have interaction with people is seen as interactive architecture . 16
Center, 2017
2.Surface design diagram
To achieve interaction, design computation is nessessary to be adopted. Just like Bionic surface, they are both need to be well programmed to compute their form, their moving tracks and other important information. Design computation profoundly influenced design process and promoted new design ideas.
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COMPOSITION/GENERATION
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The definition of composition is combining units or elements to form a whole thing while generation is a transform process from many elements to a new thing. For instance, a line is composed of numerous points, but a single point could generate a line through moving. When composition/ generation comes to architecture, composition may be mainly about parametric modelling and generation is thought about how to produce the model. Through parametric modelling we could explore complex geometrical shapes, and then, we could analyse and optimise its performance through software analysis until we are able to generate it.
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A.3 PRECEDENT 1: Heydar Aliyev Centre, 2012
3.Overview of Heydar Aliyev Centre
From Composition to Generation One of the most challenging part in this project is the design of the building surface. Zaha hopes to have the whole surface continuous and homogeneous. In order to achieve this aim, they integrated different functions, construction logic and technology systems into the building envelope system. Advanced computation technology helped this project come true, including continuous control of strucutre and complex communication processes between project participants. 20
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2.Site response diagram
3.Construction process of Heydav Aliyev Centre
The Gaidar Aliyev cultural center is mainly composed of two cooperative systems: the concrete structure and the spatial structure system. In order to create large scale free space without columns and enable visitors to experience the fluidity of inner space, vertical structural elements are wrapped in the enclosure structure and curtain wall system. So from it we can konw that in order to embody the fluidity of space and the beauty of curves, Zaha actualy intentionally hide or omit some structural components, which brings difficulty to construction . As a result, the structure details need to be analyzed and computed carefully in order to achieve the optimal implementation. 21
A.3 PRECEDENT 2: Ribbon Chapel, 2013
1.Overview of Ribbon Chapel
The unique church is designed for the wedding, consisting of two spiral staggered staircases. As the architect adopted curves as the basic structure, the real construction was much more complex than just parametric modelling. In order to let the two spiral stairways support each other, Nakamura produced a free-standing structure, which is like a spring and helps to absorb the earthquake effectively. During the generation process, he optimized the structure third times and solved the problem about slant caused by settlement when the scaffolding was removed. 22
2.Optimizations of structure
3.Spiral staircases
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CONCLUSION
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Design futuring contributes creatives ideas to future architecture. Everyone should take the responsibility of designing better future , and architects should lead this profound change in society. Computation plays a important role in comtemporary design. With paramatric software, the design process becomes more efficent and intelligent.Through parametric modelling we could explore complex geometrical shapes, and then, we could analyse and optimise its performance through software analysis until we are able to generate it.
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LEARNING OUTCOME
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The discuss about design futuring helps me broaden my horizons and makes me realize the responsibility of architect. Through the learning of Grsshopper , I get a better understanding of design computation. Composition and generation push me to consider about some possible gaps between paramatric modelling and construction, and let me know that good architectures are revised over and over again!
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A.6 REFERENCE Dutton, Thomas. and Lian Hurst Mann, eds(1996). Reconstructing Architecture:Critical Discourse and Social Practice(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press), pp.1-16 Fry, Tony(2008). Design Futuring: Sustainability, Ethics and New Practice(Oxford : Berg), pp.1-15 Issa, R,(2010), Essential Mathematics for computational design, Second Edition, Robert McNeel and associations, pp1-42
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