AIR AMANDA DO TRAN 586541 STUDIO 13 SEM 01/14
A.1. DESIGN FUTURING
BINTELLIGENT A ZERO WASTE LANDSCAPE
AN INTRODUCTION As an entry to the Land Art Generator Initiative in 2012, Bintelligent was designed by Austrian architects Tajda Potrc, Denitsa Angelova and Manuel Konrad, and was intended to be located in Graz, Austria.1 With a site that is home to one of the world’s largest landfills, the architects hoped to create an infrastructure that can aid in the reduction of wastes and achieve a solution not only to the city’s waste problem but also to the global issue of excess waste production. To create something that can reduce and even make use of wastes, to promote waste recycling and contribute to the strive towards a sustainable future. The design intent was to create ‘a sculpture that raises awareness of our way of dealing with waste but at the same time offer a new way to achieve zero waste.’
PROCESS AND FORM: A DIRECT RELATIONSHIP The project’s main approach was hence fundamentally based on the principle of recycling. With methods of waste collection, distillation and other processes of waste recycling significantly determining the formal characteristics of the final umbrella-shaped sculpture. The curvilinear and concave nature of the infrastructure can be seen to have been especially designed to draw rainwater and other waste products into it and allow ease of collection. The area needed to allow waste storage at the bottom of the infrastructure, as well as other recycling agents, determined the large circular base and the design it’s tree-like footing form. The footing area can then be used for other purposes of seating and recreational space to visitors.
An environmentally, functionally and aesthetically successful design.
COLLECTS, FILTERS AND RECYCLES An umbrella-shaped sculpture, designed for collecting, separating and recycling waste products whilst producing renewable energy through its organic PV panels as well as collecting and filtering rain water. Organic PV panels are placed along the top of the structure to allow complete self-sustainability. The waste collected through from the concave roof is first compacted by the solar powered compacter, and later washed with the collected rain water. The cleaned waste is then transported to a recycling facility. Used rainwater is then cleaned and can be used for further washing of waste products or for gardening purposes. The recycled materials are used to produce cradle to cradle products in the West shore area industry as well as building other Bintelligence and solar modules.
CONTEXTUAL CONSCIOUSNESS I find Bintelligent to be an extremely successful proposal, as not only does it embody so many processes from producing electricity to recycling waste and rainwater, but on top of all that be an infrastructure to the surrounding context. All its processes are invisible to the visitors under the its soft and seamless facade design. The structure is able to integrate itself into the nature through its natural form whilst being an artistic infrastructure to the site at the same time. Not only does the Bintelligent allow the reduction, reuse and recycling of waste products, but at the same time the structure creates and changes the waste into renewable energy and giving it back to the community, all whilst serving other functional and artistic purposes.
INITIAL INTEREST Based on the practise-based experimental research project by designer Dr. Zane Berzina and architect Jason Tan, electrostatic energy is being explored as a speculative and poetic potential to the generation of renewable energy, as well as how it can be incorporated into an interactive architectural installation.2 Electrostatic energy can be found in our everyday lives and our everyday interactions with the environment.
WHAT IT IS The phenomena of electrostatic arose from the forces described by Coulomb's law, where electric charges exert charges from and upon one another. Since the times of classic antiquity, it has been known that some materials such as amber have a tendency to attract lightweight particles after rubbing against other surfaces.3 Although electrostatically induced forces often appear rather weak, those induced between certain elements can create forces of great voltage,3 ranging from the simple attraction of freshly opened plastic wrap against our hands to the friction of shoes on carpet, to the damaging of various electrical components, to the operation of photocopiers. Electrostatics is the build up of charge between two surfaces upon contact with one another, and is similar to the electricity induced from magnets or batteries.4
HOW IT WORKS The process of contact causes electrons to be pulled from one surface and relocated onto the other. Although charge exchange happens all the time when two objects come in contact and separates, the effects of the charge can only be seen when one of the surfaces are highly resistant to electrical flow. This is due to the charges that are transferred to or from the highly resistive surface are often trapped there for a long enough time that its effects are noticed. These accumulated charges then remain on the surface until they eventually fade off to ground or quickly released through a neutralizing discharge5 - how and why you get that feeling of shock upon contact with certain surfaces; it is the build up of electrostatic energy on that object. This is due to the charges that are transferred to or from the highly resistive surface are often trapped there for a long enough time that its effects are noticed. These accumulated charges then remain on the surface until they eventually fade off to ground or quickly released through a neutralizing discharge - how and why you get that feeling of shock upon contact with certain surfaces; it is the build up of electrostatic energy on that object.
ELECTROSTATIC ENERGY THE PHENOMENA OF STATIONERY AND SLOW-MOVING ELECTRICAL CHARGE
THE VISION I hope to continue exploring the possibilities of translating and displaying electrostatics into other forces, such as those of audio or visual patterns. Hence, by further studying and understanding the complexities of electrostatic energy and its potentials, I hope to explore how it could be effectively utilised to play a part in creating an architectural project. By possibly collecting the electrostatic energy generated in an object, I hope to create an installation for the 2014 Land Art Generator Initiative competition that not only answers the brief of self-sufficiency and energy generation, but also to be an dynamic infrastructure that is active, responsive and interactive.
A.1. REFERENCES 1. Potrc, T., Angelova, D. and Konrad, M. (2014) The Land Art Generator Initiative, Available at: http://landartgenerator.org/competition2014.html (Accessed: 8th March 2014). 2. Zaneberzina (2014) E_Static Shadows, Available at: http://www.zaneberzina. com/e-staticshadows.htm (Accessed: 9th March 2014). 3. Faraday, M. (1893) Experimental Researches in Electricity, London: Royal Inst. 4. Hernamm, A. H. and Melcher, J.R. (1989) Electromagnetic Fields and Energy, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. 5. Griffiths, D.J. (1999) Introduction to Electrodynamics, Upper Saddle River, NJ.: Prentice-Hall.
A.2. DESIGN COMPUTATION Not only has computational paradigms profoundly influenced the discourse of modern architecture, it has shifted the methodology and thinking of design.
During its early introduction, Computer-Aided-Design (CAD) was used only as a drawing tool to speed up the process of construction documentation. It was only after its transition to computational design1 in recent years that it was utilized as a design mechanism and is now widely recognised as a powerful tool for creative design.
Today, with the benefit of computational design, even algorithms of the greatest sophistication can be simultaneously re-simulated and redeveloped through pre-set parameters. Multipl geometric variations can be immediately created and developed without the need to manually modify each element through trial-and-error.
While computational design is often seen as a process which removes the designer, in reality the designer's impact on the final design may be far greater that one would imagine. The algorithmic representation of ideas are the result of simulations being generated through digital systems of computational processes, set and authored by the designer.
Hence, where many complex designs can only be achieved through interdisciplinary efforts and communication, they can now be created effectively and efficiently through computer genertions . Computation design has created a new spectrum of design possibilities with the greatest of efficiency. Not only is it a technical tool for productivity and accuracy of construction methods, it is also a potential for creative innovation.
As Christopher Alexander once quoted, "a digital computer, is essentially, the same as a huge army of clerks, equipped with rule books, pencil and paper, all stupid and entire without initiative, but be able to follow exactly milions of precisely defined operations."2 - operations that are specificaly authored by the designer alone.
It allows for the generatation of geometries beyond the constraints of two-dimensional construction drawings and gives architects the freedom to achieve design complexities that would be difficult otherwise, if possible at all.
THE BUBBLE PAVILION BMW International Auto Presentation Frankfurt, Germany, 1999 Franken Architekten
Computation can also be used to map and visually represent data though the practice of architecture to create interesting results. Before sustainability became a widely-enforced concept, Franken Architekten designed the pavilion for the 1999 BMW International Auto Presentation in the form that best realised the company's clean sun and water energy-generated cars: a drop of water. From its concept through to its very construction, the Bubble BMW pavilion was entirely created with digital computation.3
Rather than creating a form that merely mimicked the form of a water droplet, Franken Architekten used a used a drop simulation computer program to generate the form based on the very properties that make up water molecules. "Three hundred spherical Plexiglas sheets were thermoformed over computer-numeric-controlmilled polyurethane foam molds at temperatures of 150 degrees to 160 degrees Celsius..."3 creates the pavilion's form of two merging water droplets. The Bubble was one of the first structure in the world to be entirely created using digital means.3
HYGROSKIN - METERORSENSITIVE Permanent Collection, FRAC Centre Orleans France, 2011-2013 Achim Menges in collaboration with Oliver David Krieg and Steffen Reichert
I was intrigued not only by how the HygroSkin - Meterosensitive Pavilion explores the narrative of computational design but also how it's used to create componentbased, climate-responsiveness architecture. The structure is meteorsensitive due to the thin planer plywood sheet's dimensional instability in relation to moisture.3 This causes the plywood to autonomously bend and curve, making the architectural skin change in accordance to the moisture levels of the atmosphere.
The project uses a computational design process to simulate the form based on the elastic properties of the material and its ability to form curvilinear surfaces. "The computation process integrates the materials' capacity to physically compute form in the elastic bending process, the cumulative structure of the resulting building components, the computational detailing of all joints and the generation of the required machine code for the fabrication with a 7-acix industrial robot."4
Not only has computational paradigms profoundly influenced the discourse of modern architecture, it has shifted the methodology and thinking of design.
A series of modular panels makes up the pavilion, where each components are joined and connected through vacuum pressing. Robotic trimming is used to further define the panels and ensure precise tolerance levels are met.4
The manifestation of computer technologies has changed architectural design and thinking in ways that are beyond that of technical drawing advancements. It has allowed for a new freedom of architectural creativity.
Where the integration of computation and material behaviour seemed like an idealised concept, Hygroskin demonstrates that it is now a proposal that is not only feasible, but a method of great creativie integrity and value. .
In my response to the LAGI brief, I hope to integrate the processes of design computation with material behaviour and structural characteristics, to create a design of material originality and contextual consciousness, and achieve the computation potential of unexplored architectural possibilities.
A.2. REFERENCES 1. Achim Menges, Computational Design Thinking: Computation Design Thinking (AD Reader), ed. by Sean Ahlquist (UK: John Wiley and Sons Ltd, 2011). 2. Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, and Murry Silverstein, A Pattern Language (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002). 3. Franken Architekten, Bubble (2013) <http://www.franken-architekten.de/> [accessed 18 March 2014]. 4. Achim Menges, 2013 HygroSkin: Meteorosensitive Pavilion (2014) <http://www. achimmenges.net/?p=5612> [accessed 19 March 2014].