Architecture Design Studio : Air Week 1 - Architectural discourse LEE Tze Yung, Fiona 369973
Still remember in the very beginning, I mostly used free-hand or traced drawing to express architectural components. Undeniably, this help to enhance our drawing skills and understanding structures by repeatedly draw and traced. However, it’s kinda time-consuming and inaccurate. For simple design you can still moderate easily, but will be a really hard job for detailed and large projects. The first digital software I used was sketch-Up, it is easy to use and allow me to express architecture in a 3D format. It provides perspective view which allows me to understand the building easily. Not merely looking at the 2D elevations and plans. After that, I start using AutoCAD, it makes life much easier as it can provide accurate scale and dimension. Although it takes time to pick up with those software, it is worthy and valuable. Not a beginner but an elementary learner of Rhino & In-design. Honestly, I was quite desperate as this subject expected us to digitalize our model by using a software which I am unfamiliar with. Therefore, I look through the self-learning video in Lynda.com during weekend and seek help from my peers. I realize Rhino was an important and profession digital software which frequently used in the architecture industry. I can see how many benifits i can gain if i am able to master these software well. Therefore, I will definitely pay more effort and hopefully achieve a great improvement in my Rhino & Grasshopper skills after 12 weeks studies.
I’m a third year Architecture student, and this subject is the fifth studio i take in my undergraduated course. I have been using few digital software such as Sketch-Up, AutoCAD and Photoshop in my previous project. I took some intro lessons on Rhino and In-design in Visual Communication last semester.
THE BOATHOUSE Previous work : Architecture Design Studio Water
The project is about exploring the formal rules, compositional and aesthetic principles of an architect – Richard Meier . After observing and analyzing Meier’s work, try to follow his style and design a boathouse in the manner of the master. The boathouse was design in a free structured building. Using the idea of pilotis, I placed columns in grid style to enlarge the horizontal openness by lifting building off ground. Size of shape of floor plans were shaped in different ways. It enabled me to create a two or three story voids in my design, it propose a changeable reading of space and volumes during the daytime through sunlight. Public place were usually seated in enclose area yet serving place were bounded by walls. All these helps to create a great contrast of public & servinig area as well as solid & void.
ARCHITECTURE AS DISCOURSE
THE YAS HO Architect: Asymptote
Location: A
THE YAS HOTEL Architect: Asymptote
Location: Abu, Dhabi
THE TOPOGRAPHIC VEIL Although the veil only had one surface and one edge, it was actually preserved under a continuous deformation of objects. Deform by stretching, the veil comprised two hotel towers and a link bridge, and acts as a tunnel- like sculpted shell above the Formula 1 track to let cars to pass through.
On the other hand, the complex geometric structure and its unique outline shaping gave people a delightful impression. The pixelated lighting designed by Asymptote creates a dynamic appearance at night, with colors flowing smoothly across the double curved surface and create a stunning picturesque style of architecture.
The well use of topological space in the architecture inspires me a lot. I will try texting on stretching, twisting, bending a simple shape to combines different elements together and see if I can link building and external environment together.
The well use of lighting and reflection in the architecture brings a dramatic effect to the design as a whole. This gives me an insight on the following project that the architecture may convey different message and express various kind of feelings in day and night times. I shall do further investigation on lighting effects afterwards.
ARCHITECTURE AS DISCOURSE : THE IRREGULAR CUBE
THE BEIJING NATIONAL AQUATICS CENTER
Architect: PTW Architects, CSCEC, CCDI, Arup Location: Beijing, China
The Water Cube shows a discourse of generating various geometry structure. It’s not only visually striking but also shaped in a simple regular form with a vary complex geometry. Behind the irregular, organic patterns foam bubble structures, it was supported by digital technology. The digital device facilitated the translation of geometrical information to the fabrication machine. It significantly breaks the constraints of the grid. Therefore, the geometric pattern was independent from the internal structure grid. This give me an insight that every kind of shapes had a potential to form a building structure. Aside from the limits of regular grid structure, more opportunity can be discover during designing process. And the parametric software and digital fabrication will be a powerful tool of expression.
Computer has became an unavoidable part of human life, as well as the architectural discilpline.
Better presentation of idea.
Computer presents data graphically and numerically. It had the ability to avoid arithmetical mistakes as well as storing heaps of information. This not only convenient designers a lot but also ensure the accuracy of design outcome. Computer can do things quickly and repeatedly, furthermore able to alter mistake in much easy way.
Breaking limitation
Architect could adopt a design process that would ensure that their creation met the design goals, abided by craftsmanship’s constraints and reduced the likelihood of errors. It could help fabricate and construct the resulting building which was very time consuming by doing this by hand. Besides, computer was a multi-function tool, it can do multiple works in the same time.
Insight to problem
Computation in architectural design was known as a problem analysis, also feasibility analysis. With computer, it expanded access to information, for example, site condition. Using these information as starting point, it make things much easier for architects to determine size of building, use of material and estimate develop process. All of the above attempts to forecast the effects and problem may appear during design process. Computation can definitely help in discover possible side effects and afteref-
People move – Architecture stops. People desire – space defines. The designer as spatial programmer collects movements and desires and releases them into the conception of building.
Computers in Architectual design process.
(Anderson, 2011)
The Möbius House by UN Studio, Het Gooi, Holland (1993-1998)
Digital modelling has greatly affected the design method. Digital generated forms are not design in conventional ways, new shapes and forms are developed. This can be illustrated by the Mobius House in Netherlands. The house was shaped in a 3-dimensional torus and strip shape. And it was created by generative processes based on topological concept. Design of architecture can be more creative and complex since the information can be extracted, exchanged and utilized with far great facility and speed.
It provide a better presentation, since the digital model was cohesive and complete enough to contains all the information necessary for designing and producing a building. The digital model of the Walt Disney Concert Hall was express in four-dimension. It not only clear enough to show the plans, sections, and elevations of building but also the volume and spatial relationship within the architecture. The four dimensional model also shows the interior structure of the building, this allow audience to figure out the circulation, flow of journey and orientation of building much easier than simple looking at 2D plan and section drawings.
Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, U.S. (1999–2003)
How parameter patterns are used? The perforated skin. The emphasis on building performance is redefining expectations of the building design, its processes and practices.
Architects: Jacques Herzog, Pierre de Meuron Location: San Fransico, Carlifornia, USA
DE YOUNG MUSEUM Performative Architecture Performative architecture is a kind of architecture that building performance is a guiding design principle as an emerging approach to architecture. The emphasis on building performance is redefining expectations of the building design, its processes and practices. De Younf Museum by Herzog & de Meuron is a remarkable revival of a building that has been badly damaged in the past earthquakes. To help withstand future earthquakes, the new design of the building was able to move up to three feet due to a system of
ball-bearing sliding plates and vicious fluid dampers that absorb kinetic energy and convert it to heat. The designers were sensitive to the appearance of the building in its natural setting. The landscape was designed to create a pleasant, functional environmental that would allow visitors to enjoy California’s welcoming climate. The rest of the landscapes design focuses on creating a link between the building and its surroundings through historic elements from the original museum.
The outside skin of the De Young Museum was clad in a copper panels covered with abstract pixelated patterns derived from over 650MB of images. The complex covering process was produced by mechanical process and sheet metal skills came from A. Zahner Co. Computation make architect’s life much easier as digital softwares allow them to iterate the extraction process as many times as needed, giving them complete artistic freedom. The software made it possible to accurately and efficiently manage the massive amount of data, fabricate the panels correctly, and ship them halfway across the country while making it easy to install the in a correct order. The abstract texture of canopy was created by mapped highconstrast digital images onto the building surfaces and pixelated into a finite set of depths or diameters.
FEDERATION SQUARE
Architects: Donald Bates, Peter Davidson Lab Studio Location: Melbourne, Australia
Only possible to create by computer. Federation square was one of the most complex and ambitious construction projects undertaken in Australia. Federation square was form within a triangular pinwheel grid, the fractal façade and surface was combines with small and fragment component unit, the complex design contains connection of thousands little segments and patterns which was only possible to create by computer.
In other words, It has successfully break the pass limitation and expressed the advantages of digital architecture by expressing more possibilities of forms and effects. It’s a kind of invention that digital programmes helps to deal with a variety of configuration and arrangements. With the help of computer, unique patterns, figurations and surface qualities can be developed.
It allows the grid and building patterns to treated in a continuous changing and visually dynamic way. It not only proposed a new language which the traditional architecture elements such as plans, elevations and sections cant express but also allow a better presentation of idea.
Advanced computational technologies were required in the structural design of the Opera House. Organized by scripts of the dynamic systems of parametric design, the auditorium was represents in a NURB surfaces, the organic shape helps to form a continuous, seamless surface. Meanwhile, the faceted structural skin was covered in triangular tiles made of glass and granite. It combines parametric geometry with traditional methods, such as the sand-casting of the main structural steel nodes, and it is vaulted off of a separate, interior volume of concrete that houses the opera theatre.
Parametric modelling / Project One: Architects: Zaha Hadid Location: Guang Zhou, China
GUANG ZHOU OPERA HOUSE
Parametric modelling / Project two:
Sagrada Familia Architects: Antoni GaudĂ Location: Barcelona
_____________________ As a parametric models generation system, the possibilities for application of the design procedures are absolutely boundless.
Parametric modelling systems pose a challenge to expend the design process beyond current limitations by The Sagrada Familia church had a protracted period of construction since 1883, building was completed between 10 and 100 years. During the time, the building access was constrained and information are hidden within the building fabric. By adapting parametric modelling, Gaudi designs the columns by varying sizes and shapes and treating the initial shapes as parameters. It allows types of transformation and design creates were consistent with the historical information on the church and able to test different design solutions and find out the most potential one.
Offering more flexible to design parts and assemblies of complex nature Provide reliable system to test instances of designs from a single model Expand design exploration of at the initial stages of the process Parametric modelling requires rigorous thought in the process to build a model that is appropriate for the needs of the designer and a very sophisticated structure. Even it can be time consuming, a good parametric model has the advantages to provide a solid structure that will act as a container of information of the design history.
REFLECTION Parametricism has its roots in the digital animation techniques of the mid1990s, it has only fully emerged in recent years with the development of advanced parametric design systems. The structural framework composed of a mesh constructed with linear steel members, the joint conditions is particularly complex as it receives multiple linear elements from varying angles and pitches connecting to one point. The different dimension of steel and connection angles in the architecture reveals that parametric design allows element to change flexibly and result in interesting outcomes.
CASE STUDY 1.0
McCormick Tribune Campus Center [ OMA ]
_______________ GRASSHOPPER ADAPTION With a parameter space of grid of circles surface. I taken the definitions and create new works from them. 1 - 3 Images are always 2D and made up of numerous pixels. By using the image sampter in grasshopper, i tried to associate the size of circles with the image by adjusting the radius of circle and the number of rows and columns of the grid. Density and quantity of circles were change according to the brightness of image, In the process of modifying the surface i can see how the circles develop and the surface outcome was getting more likely to the input image. 4 - 5 Than i start to change the plane of the surface by transform it from 2D to a 3D surface. A+fter baking all the commands, i select control points from different portions and adjust their Z value. This was a kind of mapping skil 6 I tried to create new work by adding vertical lines to the surface, and the different height of the vertical lines also creating an interesting outcome, which may contribute in mapping and landscape making.
Taichung metropolitan opera house Architects: Toyo ito Location: TaiChung, Taiwan
Geometry in Taichung metropolitan opera house.
It is formed with several connecting curved walls, inlaid floors, inlaid interior and exterior walls. The freeform geometry was express in a rational and efficient manner, the continuous surfaces in an open structure which actively engages its surroundings in all directions and creates great opportunities for artists and visitors, stage and auditorium, interior and exterior. Wyndham city gateway project
“ Building such a structure containing three-dimensional curved walls was generally thought impossible but we are making the impossible possible.� Wu chun-shan, president of lee ming construction
Geometry deals with shapes, but in actually handling these shapes. Geometry deals with the construction and representation of free-form curves, surfaces, or volumes. The language and knowledge of geometry chitecture.
has grown and developed giving a view into a fabulous world of pure order. The expression of these ideal forms in the world as structure and ornament and continues to be an activity of architecture.
The Taichung metropolitan opera house give me an insight in applying geometry theories in the Wyndham city gateway project. With the prominent site location and open landscape, it would be very interesting to applied continuous structure and open structure. Initially the open structure could help to maximize the accessibility of the wide public and conventional lighting. Besides, with the geometric approach, the shape could be freeform and abstract, it can seat to unite three site of the Gateway installation together as well as provide a great viewing from all directions.
___________________ CASE STUDY 2.0
MVS Harbour Study & Corner Study
M I N I M A L S U R F A C E S is a surface which has zero mean curvature at all points. The mean curvature of a surface is an extrinsic measure of curvature that comes from different geometry and locally describes the curvature of an embedded surface in ambient space. an equipoise of tensions.
These two studies were trying to explore a type of minimal space and sort out the equipoise of tensions to its maximum potential. Developed by continually subdividing a precursor, gravitating the gradients to their lowest energy configurations, it’s noticeable that the surface could still retain their ability to develop, to link and extend continuously.
_______________ GRASSHOPPER ADAPTION
_______________ RE-ENGINEERED OUTCOME
S I M I L A R I T I E S D I F F E R E N C E S Creating the model by continuously mirroring a single surface, the surface enables a continuous surface with sidedness remained. Both projects were likely a subtracted structure, however the re- engineered model was more symmetry between different faces and less abstract compare to the real project. The result shows varied density and perception of distance and depth can be achieved. Having different variations is essential to produce the most ideal outcome that can be best performed my design criteria in the Gateway Design Project.