E DI T O R ’S NO TE This is the second of the HKDI Architecture Projects Review publication #02 – Architects as Makers – Design, Material and Fabrication” which offers an overview of a collection of material exploration workshops and 1:1 fabrication works from 20132018. The curriculum of HKDI Architecture covers the fundamental aspects of the study of architecture namely, Design Studios ; History and Theory ; Technical Studies ; Visualization and Media ; Professional Practice. It is seemingly a typical core structure of curriculum that runs in most prominent architecture schools. Like other architectural institutions, the call and challenges of the digital age with the juxtaposition of local culture, values and ways of making and construction has to be answered. Here, the school evolves a pedagogy that based on the “learning-by-doing” ethos and amalgamating the pillars of the fundamental aspects of architecture – design and technical studies. The works presented here illustrated how topics and knowledge of Material, Structure and Constructions are examined and informed to Design studios with creative experiments, researches and hands on experiences. By means of 1:1 constructions and fabrication, students take on the challenge of how to realize the design within the realm of architectural practice, both in terms of commonplace logistics and future trend of digital, parametric fabrications and productions. A literature dialogue on architectural design education reviewing the above topics was included in this publication, and it is our honour to have Mr. Peter Hasdell, Associate Dean of Environmental and Interior Department, School of Design, Hong Kong PolyU contributes his meaningful writing to this publication.
Carol Leung Visiting Fellow HKDI 3
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Di al ogue : Archi t ect s As Mak e r s
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Mat er i al
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Syst em & J oi nt
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Di gi t al Desi gn & Fabr i cat i on
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1 t o 1 Const r uct i on
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Acknow l egment
Dialogue : Architects as Makers ‑ Design, Material and Fabrication Discussion on how architectural design pedagogy responds to current trend of design, material and fabrication in the context of digital age is pressing for architecture schools in Hong Kong. Peter Hasdell of PolyU, Eddie Chan of HKDI and Carol Leung of aehstudio (Visiting Fellow, HKDI) were invited to write on issues and critical perspectives upon the topic of “Architects as Makers ‑ Design, Material and Fabrication”. A literature dialogue between architects and educators with different professional background would help reinforce and advance the education of the discipline on a constructive basis. On Architecture Education : Pedagogical changes in Digital Age and Beyond Carol Leung An Education of intuition and process Eddie Chan Making and the physical parameters of design Peter Hasdell
O n A rc h itec tu re Educati on - Pe dagogi cal ch an ges in Dig ital A ge an d b eyon d Carol Leung (Visiting Fellow, APID, Hong Kong Design Institute)
“ The computer did not invent parametric design, nor did it redefine architecture or the profession; it did provide a valuable tool that has since enabled architects to design and construct innovative buildings with more exacting qualitative and quantitative conditions. “
two pioneers and are developing the new morphogenetic generation of "form-finding". A key precursor of the group is Greg Lynn whom produces series of research on "Blob" and "Fold" architecture and published in his book "Animated Form". Greg employed the digital tools advanced by the contemporary animation software developed in USA West Coast and Bay area of California, trying to re-define the design process of architecture that operates with sets of variable parameters in response to forces, flows, fields, topological surfaces, etc. "Splines" are used to explore the notion of open-ended form-finding instead of Cartesian coordinates.
Stephen Phillips, Parametric Design: a Brief History, ARCCA Archives, AIA
A brief profiling of parametric designs and fabrication Parametric
Surfing on the wave of the Maker Movementix, and the quest to "realize" and "fabricate" the virtual complex forms by emerging design practices embarked a fractal evolution of parametric design research and practices into different streams. The technological development in Computer-Numerical-Control (CNC) machine tools that operate in two or more axes escalated the advancement and extended the boundaries of exploration by architects like Fabio Gramazio & Matthias Kohlerx, Philip Beesleyxi, Achim Mengesxii, Rael San Fratello Architectsxiii.
The term parametric originates from mathematics (parametric equation) and refers to the use of certain parameters or variables that can be edited to manipulate or alter the end result of an equation or system.i Science of Morphology - the study on structural system and growth patterns of nuanced complexity in Nature, took form during the early 20th century by mathematical biologists like D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson who published a book “On Growth and Form” ii, followed by Alan Turing who published "The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis" which accounted for the development of patterns and shapes in biological organismsiii. Breakthroughs in computer science embarked the era of "parametric designs" after the mathematical study of fractal geometry and theory by mathematicians like Benoit Mandelbrot and K.J. Falconeriv.
Early digital architecture As denoted by Mario Capro, the early digital architecture caught on the “first wave of digital design theory: complex curvilinear shapes, sinuous and elongated lines of movement in space, interactive and immersive environments augmented by digital multi-media technologies”v. Riding on vigorous scientific and technological development of computing hardware and software in the 90s, architects in the West started to experiment on architecture with the ability in manipulating curve lines by using vectors, control points and complex mathematical spline operations, a software development as a result of computer-aided manufacturing advancements in automobile and aeronautical industry developed since mid 90svi.
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Aided with the CATIA design software and CAM manufacturing, Frank Gehry designed and built the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (1997), the extravagant realization of complex forms marked the beginning of curvilinear and formalistic architecture trend of the 20th century. While the former Expressionism of the late Modern Movement fueled by the ideologies of painters and philosophers, the contemporary formalistic architecture is empowered by digital technologies. Iconic architecture with amorphous forms designed by Zaha Hadid, Morphosis, FOA, etc. led the camp of pioneer studios and adventured in both parametric design and constructions. The design and construction of such complex geometry in part or in whole is materialized by using BIM or other NURBS-basedvii modeling software to organize 3D building geometry through logical relationships, and by integrating fabrication and design within a common 3D platform that can share with manufacturers and fabricators.
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3 Fig. 2a Sisyphus, Museum of Digital Art, Zurich, 2016-2017 ©Gramazio Kohler Research Fig. 2b Rock Print, Chicago Architecture Biennial 2015 by ©Gramazio Kohler Research Fig. 3 Hylozoic Ground, 2010, Venice Biennale, Italy by ©Phillip Beesley
Since then, the architecture profession showcased voracious development in additive or subtractive processes of digital and parametric design and fabrication exploration, which currently moves onto robotic fabrication with material feedback looping systems, biomimetic designxiv and fabricated structures with natural materialsxv,xvi Overwhelming morphogenetic/generative/performative parametric design operations are produced seemingly as a result of educational and research outcomes from the elite chain of architectural schools across the globe, namely UCLA, SCI-Arc, UC Berkeley in USA, AA school in the UK, TU Delft, etc. Multi-disciplinary international labs and studios like the Block Research Group at ETH Zurich, Mediated Matter Group, MIT Media Lab, etc. were established in past few years to crush the boundary of mere "form-finding" pursuit but a whole new arena of digitalmateriality experimentation and fabrication. The Armadillo Vault (Venice Biennale 2016) and the MycoTree (collaborated with KIT, Germany at Seoul Biennale 2017) are two projects developed by the Block Research Group which showcased the sophisticated digital craftsmanship in geometry-based complex structural design developed based on new algorithms in advanced computing software and robotic machines. On the other extreme, the MIT Mediated Matter group focuses on Nature-inspired Design and Design-inspired Nature with research conduct at the intersection of computational design, digital fabrication, materials science and synthetic biologyxvii and the application to design across scales from micro-object to the building.
Fig. 1 Comparison of traditional and NURBS splines modelling © AutoDesk 2014
Fractal growth and contemporary evolution in the West In other trajectories of parametric design evolution, Morphogenesis mathematical studies were re-visited and heralded by a group of contemporary architects and designers, attempting to integrate design and fabrication by using parametric algorithms operations. Inspired by the "Analog Computing" or "Material computation"(Kolarevic and Malkawi, 2005)viii - the formfinding methods that Antonio Gaudi and Frei Otto used based on physical chain models in response to different sets of parameters/control factor, such as gravity or surface material performances, some of the younger architects trained in the digital era took reference to the
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Parametric designs in other regions Spores of the emerging parametric design and fabrication had been sprung towards East at the turn of this century after the influx of professionals and scholars from the West to seek for architectural design projects and teaching posts after the huge financial crackdown and drawback in the Westxxi. While the West suffers from long-term depression, the 2008 financial crisis did not have a huge impact on China’s economy. On the contrary, the country became a bubbling hotpot for an enormous amount of infrastructure and architectural construction development. Starchitects like KPF, SOM, Gensler, OMA, Herzog de Meuron, Zaha Hadid, Coop Himmelb(l)au…etc. had been invited to design and built an arsenal of iconic architecture across the country. Along the march, other young emerging academia, architects and designers trained in internationally renowned schools of architecture are fleeing to the vast playground to seek for opportunities in practices, experimental, and teaching. The consequential phenomenon precipitated in local Chinese architect and student’s architectural education and practices. Some of the key figures like Ma Yansong of MAD Architects, employed advanced digital/parametric computer literacy and technology to develop his “Post-BLOB/Organic/Futuristic” forms and has been strongly influenced by Zaha after receiving post-graduate education abroad. Abundant sources of local construction labour and low cost of CNC fabrication machines facilitated a lot of locally educated emerging architectural design studios like Archi-Union Architects (Yuan Feng, Philip)xxii and HHDFUN (Hua Hui Beijing) to materialize their parametric designs with local materials juxtaposed with advanced digital operations.
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Fig. 4-6 ICD/ITKE Research Pavilions 2015 -17 ©ICD/ITKE University of Stuttgart Fig. 7 saltYgloo 2013 by ©Rael San Fratello Architects Fig. 8 MycoTree-Seoul Biennale 2017 by Block Research Group, FCL ETH Zurich ©Carlina Teteris
Earthy materials are currently adopted as DIY 3D printing material and young designers like Brian Peters and peers grasped on the open source protocol and technologies to develop parametric 3D-printed “Building Bytes”xviii clay bricks with interlocking joints and different three-dimensional façade profiles. Detour from the mainstream “elite” ways of advanced algorithm and technological basis digital fabrication, the two architects James Steven and Nelson Ralph hurdled through the struggle between either analogue or digital, right or wrong, researched and developed their “Digital Vernacular” xix of which local workers can also anticipate in contemporary parametric ways of construction by using the portable CNC gears and device “Suitcase CNC” xx economically and technologically available to local craftsmen and workers whom can work with local cheap materials in remote vernacular sites.
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Fig. 13 Chishe – Robotic installtion of parametric grey brick façade in China ©Archi-Union Fig. 14 Earthly Pond in Qingdao ©HHDFUN
A step ahead in the process of modernization, Japan developed a strong portfolio of internationally renowned architects with the impeccable theoretical basis in the realm of Japanese architecture. Traces of heritage in Metabolism and Structuralism from architects like Kenzo Tange, Fumihiko Maki, Kisho Kurokawa and Arata Isozaki stemmed the seedbed for the current underlying principles of parametric design – which both decoding structure and form by logical and algorithm parameters, while the early masters manifested the organic growth of structures and cities with strong influence from utopian ideologies at that era, and differentially, the current open operations of free-form finding parametric designers are based on complex mathematical morphogenesis with more advanced digital intelligence. Younger Japanese architects (not all though) like Yusuke Obuchi of Digital Fabrication Lab, University of Tokyo – the cradle for most Japanese Metabolism Masters, designed the interactive Wave Garden and joined the alliances of the global shift in parametric designs. Next to Japan is the uprising South Korea whom conquered the world with their popular culture and scoring high-end mobile and digital technologies. With Zaha’s iconic DDP landed in the heart of Seoul, younger generations like Minsuk Cho of Mass Studiesxxiii tangos with the rest of Asian parametric force in the field of design and fabrication.
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In Middle Asia, particularly in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, large-scale parametric high-rise and institutional building constructions are catching the worldly audience’s eyebrows in all social media and is a playground of international corporate architectural design firms to flag their futuristic, neo-expressionistic and iconic buildings on the desert ground or even on the ocean. Similar to China, Middle Asia students graduated from elite overseas schools went back to their home country with abundant land and finance to shape contemporary cityscape. Studio Symbiosisxxiv in India is one of the kinds whom embraced Zaha’s strong influence and is generating dozens of “Zaha-style” architecture all over the rapidly transforming urban
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Fig. 9 Silk Pavilion by Mediated Matter Group, ©MIT Media Lab, image by Steven Keating Fig. 10 Building Bytes: 3D-Printed Bricks, ©Brain Peters, source:Dezeen Fig. 11 &12 Suitcase CNC ©make-lab™
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landscape in India. Yet, more humble and sustainable practices can also be found in the gulf area, Iranian firm Sstudiommxxv has started to develop “laser-cut stencils” for simple parametric bricklaying to address the economically less privileged local projects. Another group of Turkey and Portugal architects ADAPt’sxxvi free-form parabolic brick vault “FaBRICKate 2016” was derived from parametric computation yet the construction was adapted to low-cost vernacular brick material and resulted in complex form and surfaces. Across the Atlantic, the Latin America countries also have international representatives in parametric design: Fernando Romero of FR-EE’s signature Museo Soumaya and a collaborative studio LAB (laborayorio de artes binarios) is an example of younger “Maker” generation ride on the co-working principles within the realm of emerging digital design and fabrication in Chile.
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Fig 18 STIK Pavilion © T_ADS Obuchi Lab University of Tokyo Fig 19 DAL Canopy Design © DAL, Hunan University
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Fig. 15 Ring Dome, Mass Studies, Korea, source:Dezeen Fig 16 Punjab Kesari Headquarters by Studio Symbiosis, source:worldarchitecture.org Fig. 17 ADAPt, FaBRICKate 2016, Iran; source: cfile.org
The wide spectrum of researchers, designers, architects, and academia formed an alliance attempted to manifest on parametric design becoming central and dominant to international architectural discourse, both in theory, practice and education. Hence, discussions on how architecture education should be shifted in echo with the “New Paradigm” of the current digital parametric design and fabrication operations is what most architecture schools need to address and answer for.
Zooming back to the city of Hong Kong, a place between East and West with a regime between developed capitalism and developing socialist market economy. Even though the construction technologies in high-rise building are of world class, a phase delay has happened in the development of parametric design and fabrication. Due to the fact that large-scale CNC facilities had only been set up by young foreign parametric design academia a decade ago in the two oldest local universities, the evolution and actualization of parametric design and fabrication in full scale were with less vigor. Two examples that integrated local bamboo construction with digital parametric operations are the Golden Moon (2012)xxvii and ZCB Bamboo Pavilion (2015) xxviii by Prof. Kristof Crolla of CUHK. While Christian Lange and students at HKU has attempted to use robotic 3D printing of terracotta bricks to fabricate twisting tower-like pavilions.
Iordanova Ivanka, CAD Research Group, School of Architecture, University of Montreal, published a paper in the International Journal of Architectural Computing (2007)xxxii, suggested that computational geometry should be learned at the beginning of the undergraduate programme of architecture studies as “much more openness to the use of programming in architecture was observed in the first year students group, compared to the full of preconceptions group of masters’ students.” While in the International Conference on Computer-Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia (2011 CAADRIA), another paper “ Gains, Losses and Limitations in Designing Parametrically – A critical reflection of an architectural design studio in China (Shenzhen University)” was published by Christiane M. Herr (National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan) which examined the outcomes of introducing parametric designing in an architectural design studio setting for mixed undergraduate students (mostly Year 3) in Shenzhen University, China. The paper concluded, “In this Studio, set in a Chinese cultural context and design tradition, working with explicit design rationales and reasoning as required by parametric designing has presented a challenge: Parametric designing in this studio encouraged sculptural form variation but tended to discourage thinking in terms of spatial qualities”. Herr’s paper was based on qualitative analysis of grounded research methodology, it depicted and evaluated that “Students described their use of parametric designing as helping to ‘realise’ their ideas, not as supporting idea development” and in some cases, a constraining parametric model needed to be “broken”, adapts, modified and integrated with other design approaches to achieve the architectural ideas aimed for. These two examples of research, among others revealed current struggles of architectural design education pedagogy within the context of parametric designing might just be a glimpse of the challenge.
Paradigm shift in Architecture Education…? Architecture schools across the globe respond agitatedly to the new trend of design research, mostly in their post-graduate programmes. Numerous “Digital Fabrication Labs” have been launched in most well-established architecture schools. The voracious growth of research studio and laboratories can also be witnessed in the East and seemingly is a beneficial effect after a decade’s precedent exploration in the West. In the oriental scene of tertiary architectural design education, we can find original and innovative parametric experimental designs that were developed upon sensitivity to local materials such as the STIK pavilion, Digital Fabrication Lab University of Tokyo, which was an experimental on aggregating Japanese disposable wooden chopsticks by dispenser devices to form an open-domexxix. The collaboration of KIT ( Germany), Block Research Group, ETH Zurich(Swiss) and Future Cities Laboratory (FCL) of Singapore is developing Mycelium based construction material for the MycoTree installationxxx in Seoul Biennale 2017. Similar establishments in China are the FabLabShanghai of College of Design and Innovation, Tongji University and “Digital Architecture Laboratory” (DAL)xxxi of School of Architecture, Hunan University, amongst others.
In post-graduate or post-professional training, research and education, “diversity” in all aspects of the architectural knowledge should be encouraged and excel in full extent so as to seek for meaningful academic and/or professional practice advancement and contribution to human
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civilization. In fact, across thousands of years’ historical development in architecture, the major leaps or shift in design or construction paradigms never depart from philosophical and scientific evolution or metaphorical shifts. The current evolutionary advancement in computing science, artificial and robotic intelligence must have critical leverage and impact on architecture. Logical research and exploration should be facilitated so as to arrive at constructive advancement within the specific realm of discipline. Same virtue should apply to other topics in architecture, including but not limit to sustainability, conservation, public participatory, amphibian, ephemeral, experiential and spiritual architecture, …etc. Learning from failure of absolute “truism” or “exclusivity” in certain pass movements of design theories, construction and practices, e.g. Modernism in regional countries, it seems that arguing for an “universal” paradigm shift to parametric design and fabrication operations is kind of an ideological departure from the current multi-cultural, democratic and equal rights belief across different regime, culture and geography. Other aspects of political and class struggle as a result of technological and economic inequality in different societal context should also be considered when pledging for “Parametric Utopian”. In that regards, whether contemporary architecture needs a “Paradigm Shift” seems to be a paradox. In fact, the true challenge falls into the curriculum and pedagogical strategy in the foundational or undergraduate education of architecture schools. The question will be “How to dissipate the wide scope of topics in architecture in the digital era to teens who have not much idea on the disciplines of architecture?”
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26 Fig. 24 Wooden Dougou Roof in Yu Yin Shan Fang, Fanyue, Guangdong, PRC © 大WING同學 http://hk.aboluowang. com/2018/0202/1063640.html Fig. 25 Free form finding Ceramic art © Jennifer McCurdy Fig. 26 Traditional wooden builder at Fujian Tulou, China © Carol Leung
Architecture Education in Context - “parametric” way of curriculum design
Reflected in architecture education, the above revelation may inform the discussions on curriculum design of digital era architecture studies in the following learning objectives and initiatives:
Prior to discussing on “How”, an architectural educator may need to ask “What” instead. What fundamental virtue and value lies within the operations of “Parametric Design” and “Fabrication”? What is the meaning and significance of “Analog” and “Digital” making?
• Internalize the process of understanding materiality by conducting self-initiated experimentation • Acquaintance of making, constructing and fabricating • Learning by testing, trial and error • Able to perceive, process, sense, evaluate, narrate and interpret • Enhance critical, analytical processes and establishing logical thinking and “open-mindedness” that would facilitate further studies and manipulation of diversified design operations, either digital or analogue • Advance in level of proficiency of mastering the digital skills and fully integrate with the “form/ solution” seeking instead of “form making” • Cultivate multi-disciplinary and teamwork culture • Non-exclusivity: training of scientific and algorithmic mindset should co-exist with sensational, emotional, empathy to humanity and other qualities in architecture
The answers may lie in architecture itself, which is “ancient” and has always been based on operations of diversified parameters sets, such as environmental, topographical, cultural, historical, and technological as well as sentimental ones. Tracing back to historical artisan practices, say for example Origami paper or fabric art; differentiated geometric niches in vault or dome of Islamic architecture; shifting motifs of Chinese “dougou” to form complex parabolic roof and eaves; free-form sculpting in pottery and sculptural art...etc. All such artisan practices are rooted in the mathematical algorithm and complex geometry that evolved based on empirical methodologies. In “Modern” terminology, these art and architectural forms are being regarded as “vernacular”. Yet, the essence and potentials of these “vernacular” form making are compatible with current trend of parametric designs with the major difference between the ancient and contemporary is “Time and Efficiency”. Expertise and craftsmanship of traditional vernacular artist or builders credited throughout a lifespan were now replaced by digital craftsmanship matured and sophisticated by repeating powerful computer data processing, calibration, and experimentation in a flick of time. One may argue that the openended form-seeking nature of contemporary parametric design outcast the “ancient” ones with pre-determined design and anticipated form. It is true in micro perspective, but if the open-ended form seeking is based upon decades of empirical research on built-objects or architecture, then the difference might not be as substantial as once believed.
Modular Matrix of Architectural Education in HKDI
Portfolio
Project 10
Graduation Project
Project Inception
Research on Project
Portfolio
Project 06 Urban Room
Portfolio
Project 09 Graduation
Professional Practice 2
Portfolio
Collaboration Workshop 4
Cafe/Gallery/Shop
+ Hostel at Tai Ping Shan Street
Project 07 Urban Place
Public Architecture
Asia Cities
Portfolio
Project 08 Urban Place Residential Development
Collaboration Workshop 5
Project 05 Domestic Space 02
Collaboration Workshop 1
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Project 04 Domestic Space 01
Collaboration Workshop 2
Project 03 "Alone"
Collaboration Workshop 3
ES + CW "East meets West" Fabrication
ES + AD Field Trip Modernization & Tradition
ES + AD
ES + AD Field Trip Architecture in Cities
Expanded Studies 5
Steering Projects for Design Competition
Post-Dipolma Study / Top-Up Degree
Industrial Attachment Internship
Architectural Design 5
Professional Practice 1
Architectural Design 4
Architectural Design 3
Architectural Design 1
Architectural Design Curriculum Roadmap
Architectural Design 2
The curriculum structure designed for the Architectural Design Discipline in HKDI, a crossdisciplinary design school in Hong Kong, is based on a system of matrix framework. Similar to most architecture schools’ undergraduate curriculum, the pillars of architectural design studies are Design Studios, History and Theory, Technology and Communication. The pillar modules run along the 3 years’ programme with progressive depth and span of topics, and are synchronized and interweaved to address thematic studies in a matrix way.
Project 02 Swift in Space
POB + ES
Project 01
Re-interpretation
of Modern Houses
Expanded Studies 1
ES + AD
Field Trip Measured Drawing
Environmental/Site Analysis
Local Field Trip Measured Drawings
Vernacular/
Contemporary China
ES + POB
Expanded Studies 2
Urban Study & Intervention Landscape & Art Installation
POB + AD
Expanded Studies 4
Expanded Studies 5
Principles of Building 3
Principles of Building 4
Principles of Building 5
History & Theory 3
History & Theory 4
Expanded Studies 3
Schematic Structure Design
Principles of Building 1
Principles of Building 2
HT + AV
Integrated Project Spatial Analysis Re-invention 3D Rhino Modelling
Formalists History & Theory 1
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Architectural Visualization 1
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(Fig 20 Parametric Studies by Zaha Hadid © designboom Fig 21 Paper Origami Art ©Matthew Shlian Fig. 22 & 23 Glazed Arch and Vaulted Niche in The Istanbul Blue Mosque ©Carol Leung
AV + HT
History & Theory 2 Integrated Project Modren House Analysis Model Making
AV + ES Integrated Project Tai O Twin Bridge Competition
Architectural Visualization 2
Higher Diploma in Architectural Design
History & Theory 5
Conceptualists
Architectural Visualization 3
Beyond the Line
Architectural Visualization 4
Fig 27 HKDI Architectural Design Programme Curriculum Matrix Roadmap © Carol Leung
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Acknowledged the constructive impact of making and hands-on studies, the faculty adjusted the variable matrix of the first year curriculum to bring the module of Principles of Building (POB) upfront and entwined with Architectural Design and Visualization Studio in past two cohorts. Outcomes and findings from experiments on materials and the process of analog construction were cataloged and informing back to the spatial crafting “Alone Space” Design studio with reference and in relation to the material studied. Students in the second year take on complex joinery studies with 1:1 construction of joint details and re-invent ways of fabrication in POB studio which paved the way for further exploration in elective digital parametric Open Studio Units or Summer Fabrication Workshops. BIM introduction in the Spring term of the second year anticipated students to integrate into the Final Year Comprehensive Graduation Projects. This “spline” of modules is strategically orchestrated and weaved alongside with other threads of curriculum matrix in respond and answer to the current and future trend of how architecture can be realized. Instead of shifting the core of architecture studies towards digital and parametric design like some overseas institutions, HKDI adopted the “parametric” way of pedagogical operations based on the originally designed matrix, of which allows flexibility in module synchronization within the framework of the prescribed pillars curriculums of the school. Timely review of academic performance carried out for a few graduate cohorts would then help to generate qualitative parameters that can attribute to the future adaptive manipulation of the curriculum matrix. In such way, disjointed and incoherent pedagogical changes might be avoided when the schools or teaching faculties encountering changes in architectural discourses and technologies.
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Humanity in Future
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“…Yet if we take the really grand view of life, all other problems and developments are overshadowed by three interlinked processes: 1.Science is converging on an all-encompassing dogma, which says that organisms are algorithms and life is data processing. 2.Intelligence is decoupling from consciousness. 3.Non-conscious but highly intelligent algorithms may soon know us better than we know ourselves. These three processes raise three key questions, which I hope will stick in your mind long after you have finished this book: 1.Are organisms really just algorithms, and is life really just data processing? 2.What’s more valuable – intelligence or consciousness? 3.What will happen to society, politics and daily life when non-conscious but highly intelligent algorithms know us better than we know ourselves?”
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Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow
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The ultra-speed and irreversible evolution of digital technologies induced inevitable impacts on the way of thinking and practices in all courses of life, including the education on architecture. No matter which ground one stands for, it is undeniable that all digital gadgets and operations shaped the way knowledge can be attained among all ages. The vast ocean of data and online platforms facilitated knowledge and skill set exchange in swift and “moneyless’ mode for common peoples. It is a time to critically review how the education of all wards of knowledge should evolve with the unprecedented digital era, in a way that “intelligent algorithms” would not cast away empathy, aesthetic, sensory, spiritual and other conscious aspects of humanity.
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Who knows when and where the nature fight back and history repeats itself by a disastrous environmental, economic and technological drawback, and human beings needed to withdraw to hunter-gatherer ways of living?
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Carol Leung is a Registered Architect and AP in Hong Kong and has over 15 years of experience in architectural education and specialised in curriculum reform and design to the undergraduate programmes in HKU and HKDI. Prior to joining the academia, Carol practiced in the private sector as Senior and Associate Architect with a diversified portfolio of design and building works ranging from residential(high-rise and houses), office(high-rise), commercial(mall and cinema), hotel and resort complex, educational, cultural(art galleries and NGO elderly centers). She is the Founder of aehstudio, a non-profit making studio that promotes bottom-up design operations and with horizontal studio structure that enhances mutual development between architects and young designers/students in self-initiated, collaborated design or research projects.
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Parametric Design: Wikipedia D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson (1860-1948 Scottish mathematical biologist), On Growth and Form, Originally published:New ed. Cambridge:Univeirsity Press, 1942 ; Dover Publications, edition 1992 Alan Mathison Turing (1912 –1954) was an English computer scientist, mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist ; extract from Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benoit_Mandelbrot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Falconer_ (mathematician) Mario Carpo, The Digital Turn in Architecture 1992-2012, John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2013 Alastair Townsend, On the Spline: A Brief History of the Computational Curve; International Journal of Interior Architecture + Spatial Design, Applied Geometries (Jonathon Anderson & Meg Jackson, 2014) http://www.alatown.com/spline-history-architecture/#comment-58 http://www.aliasworkbench.com/theoryBuilders/TB1_nurbs1.htm Kolarevic, B., Malkawi, A. M. (2005), Performative Architecture:Beyond Instrumentality, Spon Press, New York 2005. & Rodrigo ; Makert, Gilfranco Alves, Between Designer and Design: Parametric Design and Prototyping Considerations on Gaudí’s Sagrada Familia, Periodica Polytechnica Architecture, 47(2), pp. 89-93, 2016 Creative Commons Attribution https://www.archdaily.com/144092/practice-2-0-why-the-maker-movement-is-good-for-architects Gramazio Kohler Research, ETH Zurich, http://gramaziokohler.arch.ethz.ch/web/e/about/index.html Philip Beesley Architect, Canada, http://philipbeesleyarchitect.com/ Achim Menges Architect BDA, Germany, http://www.achimmenges.net/?page_id=18255 Rael San Fratello Architects, http://www.rael-sanfratello.com/ HygroScope Installation – Permanent collection in Centre Pompidou Paris; HygroSkin – Meteorosensitive Pavilion: Stadtgarten Stuttgart / FRAC Centre Orléans by Achim Menges Architect, Prof. and Founding Director, Institute for Computational Design, University of Stuttgart MycoTree - a collaboration between the Professorship of Sustainable Construction at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and the Block Research Group at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zürich for the centrepiece of the “Beyond Mining – Urban Growth” exhibition at the Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism 2017 in Seoul Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello, California, USA, http://www.emergingobjects.com/portfolio/ Mediated Matter Group, Silk Pavilion: A case study in Fibre-based Digital Fabrication, p.249-255, Fabricate 2014, ETH Zurich; http://matter.media.mit.edu/ Brian Peters (College of Architecture and Environmental Design, Kent State University), Building Bytes: 3D-Printed Bricks, p.112-119 Fabricate 2014, ETH Zurich; https://vimeo.com/52532203 James Steven and Ralph Nelson, Digital Vernacular, Routledge, New York 2015 Suitcase CNC by make-lab™, https://www.materialdriven.com/home/2016/10/23/forging-a-partnership-ofthe-digital-and-vernacular-james-stevens-director-at-makelab 2008 Global financial crisis, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_crisis_of_2007%E2%80%932008 上海創盟國際建築設計, http://www.archi-union.com/Homes/Index/index Ring Dome, Minsuk Cho, Mass Studies Studio, South Korea, https://www.dezeen.com/2014/11/24/massstudies-minsuk-cho-before-after-plateau-gallery-seoul-south-korea/ Studio Symbiosis, http://www.studio-symbiosis.com/ ; https://worldarchitecture.org/architecture-projects/ hhzhm/punjab_kesari_headquarters-project-pages.html Sstudiomm, https://sstudiomm.wordpress.com/ ; https://www.archdaily.com/791588/diy-for-architectsthis-parametric-brick-facade-was-built-using-traditional-craft-techniques ADAPt, https://www.archdaily.com/794947/young-architects-design-and-build-irans-first-free-form-brickstructure; https://cfileonline.org/architecture-brick-adapt-warps-brick-structure-in-imaginative-equilibria/ Kristof Crolla (CUHK), Building Simplexity : Golden Moon, 2012 Mid-Autumn Festival Lantern Wonderland, p60-67 Fabricate 2014, ETH Zurich ZCB Bamboo Pavilion, Kristof Crolla (CUHK), https://www.archdaily.com/tag/zcb-bamboo-pavilion STIK Project by T_ADS Obuchi Lab, University of Tokyo, http://t-ads.org/dfl/stik-smart-tool-integratedkonstruction.html; http://www-ui.is.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~takami/project/stik/index_eng.html ; http://forty-five. com/papers/33 MycoTree, http://block.arch.ethz.ch/brg/project/mycotree-seoul-architecture-biennale-2017 DAL Canopy Design, https://www.archdaily.com/165298/dal-canopy-design-digital-architectural-lab Iordanova, I.: 2007, Teaching Digital Design Exploration: Form Follows, International Journal of Architectural Computing, 5(4), 685-702
An e d ucation o f intui ti on and proce ss Eddie Chan (APID, Hong Kong Design Institute)
rather inconvenient way of communication that requires a good deal of imagination and articulation of thoughts to mentally compose a holistic image of the envisioned architecture. Not until the conceived architecture is realized, most of the envisioned architectural quality is speculative. The interesting thing is, it is unlikely to bring an architecture to reality if the speculative representation of its vision fails to convince the client. Here come the questions: - How can an architect convince a client that s/he can design and construct, for example, a skyscraper, without having built any skyscraper before? - How does an architect ‘know’ the conceived architectural quality of the skyscraper is ‘right’ if s/he has not the relevance experience before? Before Rem Koolhaas (OMA) was commissioned the 230M CCTV headquarters in Beijing, the tallest building he had realized was the Byzantium - a 12-storey residential complex in Amsterdam. As a young architect, how could one know if anything s/he envisioned was right? Logically speaking, we cannot know if something is right if it was unrealized. In many cases, we are making our best assumptions based on a combination of facts, experience, and speculation. Architecture education should, therefore, teach us the factual knowledge about architecture, enrich our architectural experience, and enhance our senses and imagination to transform our knowledge and experience into the speculative vision for new situations. As Juhani Pallasmaa pointed out, acquiring knowledge is an experiential process. If a student is to learn how to design with brick, it is insufficient just by reading books or attending lectures; s/he should be encouraged to gain first-hand experience by visiting a brick factory; going down to a clay pit; seeing how water is pressed out of the clay; learning how to form a brick from the mold; feeling the difference between a dry brick ready to be fired and a brick fresh from the mold; examining the colour variations of bricks from the kiln; breaking a brick with a hammer; soaking a brick; mixing the mortar; building a brick wall; building a brick arch; surveying as many brick architecture as possible.
‘Learning a skill is not primarily founded on verbal teaching but rather on the transference of the skill from the muscles of the teacher directly to the muscles of the apprentice through the act of sensory perception and bodily mimesis. This capacity of mimetic learning is currently attributed to human mirror neurons. The same principle of embodying – or introjecting, to use a notion of psychoanalytic theory – knowledge and skill continues to be the core of artistic learning. The foremost skill of the architect is, likewise, to turn the multi-dimensional essence of the design task into embodied and lived sensations and images; eventually the entire personality and body of the designer becomes the site of the design task, and the task is lived rather than understood.’ Juhani Pallasmaa, The Thinking Hand: Existential and Embodied Wisdom in Architecture
‘My own suspicion of the enormous generative part played by architectural drawing stems from a brief period of teaching in an art college. Bringing with me the conviction that architecture and the visual arts were closely allied, I was soon struck by what seemed at the time the peculiar disadvantage under which architects labour, never working directly with the object of their thought, always working at it through some intervening medium, almost always the drawing, while painters and sculptors, who might spend some time on preliminary sketches and maquettes, all ended up working on the thing itself which, naturally, absorbed most of their attention and effort.’ Robin Evans, Translation from Drawing to Building
‘Precision can be about the tolerances involved in components, while accuracy is an instinctive thing. Precision has to do with the skill of crafting, whereas accuracy is about how fine the instinctive understanding may be. No matter how you hone and tune it, accuracy remains a kind of gut reaction. When people enter a space they should be able to feel it as well. It’s the difference between something learned and a talent.’ Alvin Boyarsky, Peter Salter, Fragments of a Conversation, Intuition & Process
Fig1,2,3,4,5: Bricks Studies: copyright HKDI
Architecture and Architecture Education I have selected the three excerpts above to sum up some of my views on architecture and architecture education in relation to making and physical, ‘hands-on’, experience. To borrow Peter Salter’s interpretation of the two terms, architecture is a practice that demands a high level of precision in its construction and accuracy in its design sensitivity. It is a profession that requires a rational mindset as well as an artistic one. Although architecture is often associated with other artistic practices, unlike the other artists, as Robin Evans observed, architects seldom have the first-hand experience in actualizing their work. We must rely on a large team of builders, craftsmen and technicians to realize our design. At school, we learn architecture through reading, writing, drawing, modeling and visiting exemplar architecture. The design research and proposals are mostly represented in text, scaled drawings, and fragmented models. Through these mediums, we learn to communicate with others the physical construction of the architecture as well as the spatial quality of the spaces we design. Understanding architecture through these text, drawings and models is like reading a piece of music without hearing it. It is a
Even though the student still has no experience in designing brick architecture, one would be convinced that s/he has gathered a good amount of academic knowledge and practical experience about the material and what it can do; and very likely s/he should be able to design in brick. Furthermore, if the student has learnt to make such indepth inquiry on one subject matter, one would expect that the same person can apply a similar methodology to learn about timber architecture, concrete architecture, etc. Introducing the Culture of Making at HKDI ‘We learn how to build by building’, my tutor used to say. There is a fundamental difference between an architect who enjoys making and a professional maker. When an architect makes an object, however beautiful the object might be as a work of art or craft, it always carries a meaning beyond the object itself that feeds back to the architecture discourse. Mario Bellini once said that he enjoyed designing furniture, and out of all types of furniture, he enjoyed designing tables the most because he felt that a table was like a mini building. The truth is, architects rely
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heavily on the making of objects as an ‘intervening medium’ to sharpen our aesthetics and our understanding of space, materiality, human habitation. We observe the world via the objects we make. We test and evaluate the accuracy of our instinctive understanding of the world through materializing our ideas in varies scales and medium. As a part of the architecture education, it is important to encourage students to make; it is more important that the made objects are put to test in real situation so that students can evaluate their design concept and vision against the process and the outcome. The projects featured in this publication covers a variety of scale and design-construction methods – some are designed and fabricated almost entirely by digital tools; some are done almost entirely by manual labour with a ‘construct and improvise’ methodology. Each project has its unique process and each of them informs us something valuable about the teaching and learning of architecture. I have selected five of the projects and summarized the process below: Project (in chronological order)
Schematic Design
Detail Design
Fabrication
Assembly
M
M
M
M
Oil Street Bamboo Installation Halo Modular Unit
D+M
D
D+M
M
Very Hong Kong Installation
D
D
D
M
Tamar Park Installation
D
D
M
M
Meinan Village Bamboo Pavilion
M
M
M
M
Part-to-Whole vs Whole-to-Part
A close comparison between the ‘Manual’ project and the ‘Digital’ project reveals two different ways of design thinking commonly seen, namely the part-to-whole approach and the ‘whole-to-part’ approach. With the Oil Street and Meinan Pavilion bamboo projects, the first thing that needs to be researched on is the construction detail of the bamboo joints. The design process can only begin when students have a clear idea of what they are able to do with the material. With the Very Hong Kong and Tamar Park Installation, although the project briefs require the students to generate the design based on repetition and variation of a ‘3d pattern’ module, the construction and assembly detail of the ‘parts’ was largely an afterthought informed by the formal composition of the overall design. In the beginning, when students were working on the bamboo projects, they had very little idea what the final design might be. The image of the final piece gradually came to light as the making and testing of material went along. In contrast, students who worked on the Very Hong Kong and Tamar project had a rather clear idea about the final design in the early stage, despite that the schemes were not material-specific. Most of the ‘detail design’ came after when the design was finalized with the chosen material.
D – Digital (Computational Design) M – Manual (Non-computational Design)
Fig6: Halo Modular Unit: copyright Author.
What have we learnt from the projects? Parametric Design & Digital Fabrication ≠ Automated Construction
Although automated construction is already widely in practice in smaller scale manufactures, such as cars and electronic products, automated construction in the building industry is yet to be commercialized. The advanced design and fabrication tools are becoming highly affordable and accessible for professionals as well as students; almost anyone can design and fabricate something with complex geometry or patterns at the domestic scale. However, the actual full-scale construction and assembly of architectural elements still largely depends on manual labour, on or off-site. The experience of making these projects have taught the students that in order to realize an architecture design, the understanding of material properties, fabrication and assembly process is crucially important. Had the students of the Tamar project acknowledged the labour intensity required in their project, they would have approached the design very differently. Fig 7,8: Meinan Village Bamboo Pavilion ;Oil Street Bamboo Installation : copyright Author
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Interchangeable Design In our contemporary environment, flexibility and interchangeability are becoming important factors towards how space is functioned and designed. We no longer expect architecture to ‘last forever’, but instead, it will have to accommodate alteration, extension and transformation in order to suit new capacity, purpose and functions. The systematic approach in computational design forces students to clearly identify the variety of parameters in the design, allowing students to exercise more control in the process and evaluate the relationships between the variables and the constants. With a design such as the Very Hong Kong installation, material, scale and the formal composition can be easily changed and modified to adapt different situations. On the other hand, the empirical approach in non-computational design encourages students to design in a more intuitive environment; often there are more surprises towards the end of the project because the design process is still active during the construction stage. However, if we had to reconstruct, for example, the Meinan Pavilions in another material, basically we would have to re-design everything again.
Conclusion Computational design, digital fabrication and automated construction will play a significant role in the architecture industry. The tools will enrich our experience in actualizing our design concepts and enable us to design and construct with ever-increasing possibility, precision and efficiency. Nowadays, the computational tool can help us to generate design options (pattern, composition, form, etc.), to analyze (structural performance, environmental factor, cost, etc.), and to fabricate (3d print in concrete, metal, glass, etc.). Yet, having the most advanced tools in hand does not make us more creative, it is down to our critical thinking and architectural training to utilize these tools creatively for design solutions that response to the infinitely various situations of our world. This short piece of writing serves as an interval summary and review of what the programme has achieved in the first few years since its commencement. In the future, we will continue to enhance the Design-Fabricate-Build experience as an important part of our pedagogy as I believe it is only through this full cycle of actualization that the intimacy between an architect and his/her architecture can grow.
Fig9,10: Very Hong Kong Installation: copyright Author
Interactive Design (Process) As mentioned above, it is critical that students can test and evaluate their design in real situations. When the students are at the same time the fabricators and builders of their own project, the process of testing and evaluation becomes an integral part of the design process. During construction, students are constantly examining the design with their bodies, experiencing the spaces with light, rain and wind. With their own hands, they are in connection with the materiality of the elements that put together the architecture. It is through the physical engagement in building/making that they truly understand man, material and nature. Students would want to modify the design or to resolve a particular detail, not because of an external comment, but the instinctive nature of a designer who works to perfection. Such ‘design, fabricate & build’ experience is not easily provided in a normal studio environment. With the continuous advancement of rapid prototyping technology in recent years, it has opened up many opportunities to make the D-F-B process more accessible and affordable. This will no doubt enable the next-generation architect to acquire a much more comprehensive design knowledge at school. It will also open up new design methodologies that allow a more intuitive approach to computational design.
Fig11,12: Tamar Installation: copyright Author.
Eddie Chan is a Lecturer in Architecture, Interior, and Product Design Department of Hong Kong Design Institute. He is one of the founding faculty members of the newly established Architectural Design Programme since 2013. Eddie currently oversees the curriculum, teaching and management of the Topup Degree of Bachelor of Arts in Architecture in collaboration with the University of Lincoln.
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M a k i ng a n d th e p hysi cal paramete rs of desig n Peter Hasdell (School of Design, Hong Kong PolyU)
Architectural design and making in the age of digital fabrication is a comparatively new field. Computer aided design for instance has only been in wider use in both practice and academia since the 1990s. Even the design for the HSBC bank in Hong Kong in the 1980s did not use CAD extensively. Similarly CAD-CAM only really became commonly used within the past decade or so. Clearly, the emergence of digital design tools and fabrication processes promise new fields of digital prototyping, digital design, and digital fabrication as well as the digital integration of design processes from concept to implementation, all becoming powerful tools in architectural design and constructions. Parametric design is often used to highlight how the digital revolution is leading to the transformation of architecture and design process in ways not dissimilar to how the industrial revolution heralded the development of the Modern Movement in architecture and the rise of industrially produced buildings and components. Parametric design has been therefore been feted as the most significant new tool for the contemporary architect and has widely been presented as a primary tool of design optimisation. Its potentials are clearly high and specific efficiencies are clear, as evident in Mark Burry’s digitisation and parametricisation of Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia in the 1980s and 1990s which allowed the faster completion of the cathedral. However, it can be seen at present that parametric design approaches have resulted in a somewhat technocratic idealisation of the field of architecture, particularly in rhetorical positionings of certain architects that often predicated on issues of technologically driven optimisation. This has resulted in an increase of design sophistry during the past 10 years and to be expected given the comparative adolescence of this field.
available to the architect and the student of architecture. Seeing that allows us to better understand that the medieval cathedrals of Europe in which structural force and load paths, construction processes and resulting spaces are the integrated outcomes of a kind of stone-mason driven design parametricisation. The cathedral column and vaulted ceiling for instance having a fractal relationship to the overall form and structure of the space itself that pushed the limits of stone masonry and structure at the time. This type of approach is evident in the works of Gaudi in both the overall catenary structure of the Sagrada Familia derived from the famous upside down hanging chain and weights model and the slanting columns in Parc Guell where the complex outcome is the derivation of multiple factors which include both the tangible aspects of material embodiment as well as the understanding of spiritual and cultural meanings.
Fig. 1,2 and 3: Upside down chain model for the Sagrada Familia, Parc Guell sloping columns, chain model with weights detail: copyright various.
Fig. 4,5 and 6: Porto Alegre and Atlantida Church structures in brick and concrete: copyright various.
The work of Eladio Dieste in the church in Atlantida or the Porto Alegre warehouse in Montevideo shows the alignment of form, light, construction, and materiality with technical skills of the local bricklayers contribute to the synthetic design and construction with highly appropriate outcomes. We can also add the works of the Lightweight Structures Institute (ILEK, 1964-1990) in Stuttgart of Frei Otto as similar parametric driven (and bio-mimetic) approach that explored through hand-built models and experimentation on some of the limits and opportunities of lightweight structures, manifested, as we well know, in the design and construction of the Munich Olympics Stadium. The ILEK produced an enormous body of research in materials, structures, investigations and speculations, a lot of these based on bio-mimetic investigations but all of them have a strong basis in material and hands on testing and exploration.
During the mid-2000’s the author spent three years as an associate researcher at the Centre for Architecture Structure and Technology (C.A.S.T.), as such this allowed engagement with the approaches for fabric formed concrete developed by Mark West. Of particular interest concerning Mark West’s approach was the understanding and integration into a design and casting process of the complex mesh of parameters that included issues of: the properties of both wet and set concrete, the intricacies of casting processes, the alignments of structural forces within concrete elements, and the wasteful economies and high embodied energy aspects and inefficiencies of conventional concrete construction. In fabric formed concrete, for instance, single-use formwork can be largely reduced to a minimum. Fabric-formed beams can be scalable and constructed very simply and the off-form surface finish from the fabric formwork offers vastly superior weather protection. As well concrete usage can be reduced to less than 60% of its industrialised rectilinear cousins whilst certain beams may perform equally well with no steel reinforcing. The two most significant aspects from this author’s point of view were: Firstly, the processes making fabric formed concrete involving the calculation of forces using graphic statics approaches similar to Gaudi’s inverted chain model, with studies on prototyping and modelling, development of casting processes, the properties of the fabric used, construction techniques and scaling up into full-sized 1:1 prototypes that could be tested as proof of concept. Secondly, the fact that all processes used were non digital but were nonetheless intricately connected to issues of parametric design. Only later were the principles
More specifically, the question of digital design is the promise of greater – if not seamless - integration between concept and realisation has to an extent focused narrowly into either building component systems integration or highly parametricised form generation and the subsequent over specification of these forms. Parametric design perhaps has been most successful in the integration of steel fabrication and steel structure design and fabrication enabling load calculation and controlled fabrication of unique sets of design parameters and their respective structural components. This is most useful in structural steel frame design which has a lot of variation in the structural elements and has resulted in lower use of steel and minimisation of both tolerances of fabrication and waste in fabrication in some cases. Irrespective of how parametric approaches are positioned, the issues of how to choose the right parameters to develop the design remains by and large an issue of judgement. Similarly the issue of iteration of a parametric algorithm - for example in a Grasshopper script- and of knowing at what point the design iterations or limits of the parameters result in the final design, is a wellknown issue termed the stopping problem, but in reality and at a fundamental level is an issue of architectural design judgement or structural limits. It may be more instructive to consider that all architecture can be understood to be parametric; it is the result of the negotiation of material, form, structure, programme, site, construction, technology and many other factors. Further if we accept this separation of parametric architecture and the digital, then it is easier to understand that digital tools and approaches for design are just one of the many tool sets that are
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tested through the development of a digital model that could simulate structural loads in a specific fabric formed beam. Essentially it can be argued that this type of parametric approach could not be done with digital design approaches alone as these could not adequately model the processes of construction and fabrication.
“The first sketchy marks on the canvas may become the foundation of the picture and be buried, or they may be left standing.” The degree of approximation with which one begins a work, the roughing out of a things shape, its structure, connections and details is inherently part of the work. This can be left as a part of the finished work as well, where perhaps the accidental or chance can intervene in the production of the work. Pye offers a critique around issues of craftsmanship. Instead of craftsmanship, Pye prefers to discuss the processes of workmanship: “Things are usually made by a succession of different operations, and there are often alternative ways of carrying any one of them out. We can saw, for instance, with a hand-saw, an electrically driven band-saw, a framesaw, and in other ways. To distinguish between the different ways of carrying out an operation by classifying them as hand- or machine-work is … all but meaningless. ... The source of power is completely irrelevant to the risk. The power tool may need far more care, judgement and dexterity in its use than the hand-driven one.”
To contextualize these issues, it is useful to draw on some conceptual definitions from the past that still hold relevance today. The word “techne” is etymologically derived from the Ancient Greek word τέχνη usually translated as craftsmanship, craft or art implying practical knowledge and application of this knowledge into a crafted object. It is important to note that often techne was regarded as a duplicitous or dangerous skill because the implications were that the craftsperson was imitating nature, an interesting digression proving that bio-mimesis is not a new field of study. Techne is also the origin of both the words and concepts of technique and of technology. Technology, which we commonly regard as rational and at the service of is at its heart a deceptive art.
Unlike crafting which privileges the handmade and the mastery of these techniques in what tends to become a static process, workmanship does not distinguish between the need for tools and the need for techniques that can evolve and develop new outcomes. Workmanship is therefore a process of discovery, and also a construction of skills, material, process and outcomes both intended and unexpected. In recent times, the notion of making through the maker movement has come to be revalued as a positive and creative skill, yet there has generally been a widening separation between the domain of the designer and that of the workman. As Pye tells us, design, in simplistic terms, is described and communicated in models and drawings. Workmanship on the contrary, is a skill that generally cannot be communicated in this way: “The designer gives to the workman the design on paper, and the workman has to interpret it. If he is good he may well produce something very near the designer’s intention. If the workman is himself the designer he almost certainly will.” Therefore a false separation has developed between designing and making, separating the acts of creation from the acts of making and which consequently limits the potentials of both design processes and workmanship development. He also draws a distinction between the industrially made from the crafted design and underscoring the complexities of the crafted object and the importance of the process of translation from design to making. He argues that both designer and maker are essential for this but whether this is made by hand or power tools is irrelevant, it is never purely about technology or technique.
Fabricate and craft extend the duplicities techne refers to in their double meanings. As well as having the same root as the word fabric, fabricate and fabrication refer to the making by art, skill or labor, as meaning to construct by assembling parts or sections into a whole. Additionally, fabricate has the paradoxical meaning to invent a lie, to fake or forge a document or a signature. Similarly the word craft originating in the Germanic language, means strength, virtue, skill and making. Craft is therefore a recognition of the dexterity that is necessary to construct something of value, as we see in the way a craftsperson makes a handicraft and we recognise the craftsman’s skill as an artistic and technical ability. In later uses the word crafty distorts the original meanings of the word craft to refer to the artful, the cunning, and the sly. Craftiness becomes the ability, therefore to disturb the existing order of things through the power of making. This is in part a subversion of the notions of making or design that remains an underappreciated skill, but one that can lead to the unexpected. How can this help us position an issue of craft as a form of parametric design in the digital age?
Fig. 7,8,9,10: ILEK work, investigations and testing, Frei Otto and Munich Olympics Stadium: ILEK.
Fig. 11 and 12: Fabric formed concrete, formwork, result and load calculations: copyright Mark West, C.A.S.T.
David Pye’s seminal book The Nature and Art of Workmanship (1968) elaborates on the need for a ‘workmanship of risk.’ The act of making involves a risk of failure in which the “quality of the result is not predetermined, but depends on the judgment, dexterity and care which the maker exercises as he works.” This is distinct from the ‘workmanship of certainty’ as can be found in industrial production, for instance, which generally guarantees a result by the minimising of risk of difference and error. It also differs from ‘free workmanship’ which deliberately avoids the precise reproduction of a design and ‘highly regulated workmanship’ which aims at precise reproduction or physical copying of a crafted artifact. The workmanship of risk requires a rough work before it can become a ‘perfect work.’ For Pye this is similar to the processes of sketching in which
Similarly, in William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying (1963) there is a tribute to making that embraces many essential facets of the process of a craftsperson. In part description of the making of a coffin, the writing spans between the practical and the mythological and between material process and temporal factors. The making described here is not a simple application of the practical skill of carpentry, nor is it a design process that rationalises outcomes into functional choices. Its meaning is found in the sum of the parts – a recipe and justification that forms a construct of often contradictory values, but one in which each part adds something to the complex whole:
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“ I made it on the bevel. 1. There is more surface for the nails to grip. 2. There is twice the gripping-surface to each seam. 3. The water will have to seep into it on a slant. Water moves easiest up and down or straight across. 4. In a house people are upright two thirds of the time. So the seams and joints are made up-and-down. Because the stress is up-and-down. 5. In a bed where people lie down all the time, the joints and seams are made sideways, because the stress is sideways. 6. Except. 7. A body is not square like a crosstie. 8. Animal magnetism. 9. The animal magnetism of a dead body makes the stress come slanting, so the seams and joints of a coffin are made on the bevel. 10. You can see by an old grave that the earth sinks down on the bevel. 11. While in a natural hole it sinks by the centre, the stress being up-and-down. 12. So I made it on the bevel. 13. It makes a neater job”
onto stone foundation blocks. In this type of through-frame construction, hanging columns and tie beams - rather than the interlocking bracket type dou-gong joints - are used to extend the roof line beyond the walls and column edge. These are laterally connected with rectangular tie beams using mortise and tenon joints to provide lateral stability. Walls are added later as infill but do not form a part of the structural system. The through type house is commonly found in rural areas and offers structural advantages for earthquake prone houses, in Sichuan for example. Such that when an earthquake happens there may be some tilting and damage to tile roofs and walls that occurs laterally in a direction parallel to the tie beams but rarely do structures collapse outright. The master carpenter’s skill in constructing the tolerance for movement in the two main planes is important to the ability of the structure to move in response to ground movements. While the dou-gong style of joint provides a high level of tolerance to movement that is absorbed in the provision of a series of joints and allowing vertical settlement, the through-type house tends to offer this laterally. Significantly this type of house has evolved over many years is highly adaptable to different parameters which include variations in size, scale, form, function, site and region. In two recent constructions in Miaoxia, Sichuan, myself and Kuo Jze Yi explored and extended variations of traditional timber frame construction to not only revitalize declining skills of carpentry and timber building, but as well to explore variation on the through-type structural systems. Understood as a system of variable parameters, this type of construction can be adjusted and developed to encompass a whole range of design possibilities.
In fact, we can make two summary observations from Faulkner’s short text: Firstly that the process of making described is where an inanimate material gains the ability to articulate meaning in the form of the joint of a coffin, the bevel. Articulation in architecture describes the coming together of two or more elements or materials that can express. Further that the text describes a script, a list of instructions and a series of parameters, some of which are tangible and some which are intangible, but together form the interconnected reasons why the bevel is required.
Fig.15,16,17: Miaoxia Community Kitchen : copyright Author.
For example in our community kitchen of 2015 whilst the lower structure remains conventional, the roof structure was formed as a hyperbolic paraboloid a doubly-ruled surface that still allowed straight diagonal lines to form a curved roof form. This draws from Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia School Roof but the Miaoxia community kitchen context provides an opportunity to vary one of the traditional parameters of through-frame construction by the introduction of a series of diagonal ties at the roof level. We also explored a triangular system of through-frame as a test structure in the School of Design with the assistance of students from HKDI and SD.
Fig. 13,14: Chinese wood frame house types, and details of timber construction after Liang Sicheng: copyright various.
We can find some of these nuances in Chinese timber frame construction. Since ancient times this has developed a time tested taxonomy of timber construction approaches and knowledge. As catalogued by the historian Liang Sicheng in his study of the historic books of Yingzao Fashi (Treatise on Architectural Methods) and the Qing Structural Regulations, the “two grammar books of Chinese architecture,” this taxonomy is part knowledge and crafts-persons skill, part material culture but also part belief system that includes social, cultural and religious values. Several types exist with many regional variations, for instance, workers construct the through-type transverse frame from a series of rectangular truss braced frames that are pre-assembled beforehand and lifted
A second building for a Community Guesthouse adapted traditional through-frame construction through the variation of a diagonal line of columns to provide increased longitudinal bracing for additional earthquake resistance. This resulted in each transverse frame being uniquely fabricated and resulted in a canted roofline which maintains a modest profile to the old courtyard but which is more open to the public 16
square. These possibilities in through-frame construction arise through the changing of parameters in the structural system and happen only by negotiation with the master builders who construct them with the knowledge they have. Therefore the active engagement and exchange of knowledge and experience is critical to this process, building channels of communication and links between the designer and craftsperson that enables this in such contexts. Whilst not digital design, all of the three examples can be characterized as parametric design.
Acknowledgements: The Miaoxia projects were conducted by Peter Hasdell and Kuo Jze Yi under the cross disciplinary collaboration between APSS and the School of Design, HK Poly U initiated by Dr Ku Hok Bun and Peter Hasdell. Collaborating partners included 雅安绿耕上里 社工站, Sichuan Agricultural University, Centre for Advancement of Rural-Urban Sustainability, Institute for Disaster Management and Reconstruction Chengdu, with support and help from students from School of Design, HKDI and Shenzhen University. Co-funded by Keswick Foundation and the School of Design.
Fig.18,19: Miaoxia Community Guesthouse: copyright Author.
Fig.20,21: Miaoxia Community Guesthouse: copyright Author.
In conclusion, it is clear to me that we must continuously reinvent the architecture school as a laboratory of exploration. An environment that encourages direct experience, inventiveness and playfulness, in which we can discover and find new directions and approaches for architecture combining the skill of the metis, the techniques and technologies of techne with the will to fabricate. This continues and draws from a long legacy of experimentation and which may combine both the digital and the crafted but never one at the exculsion of the other. Some instances have been sketched out here, and we can find many different strands of this approach in schools including the Open City in Valparaiso Chile, the Rural Studio in Alabama, or Hooke Park which runs the Architectural Association’s hands on laboratory. Like Gaudi, Dieste, Frei Otto, Mark West and many others, the capacity to dream and make and invent is not confined to a particular technology but requires, tacit knowledge, physical and material understanding, skills and capabilities that may not yet be able to become a parameter in a purely digital design approach.
Peter Hasdell is an architect and urbanist. Associate Dean, Associate Professor and programme Leader of the Environment and Interior Dept. in the School of Design, Hong Kong PolyU. A graduate from the University of Sydney and the Architectural Association in London, he has taught architecture schools including the Bartlett School; KTH Stockholm; Berlage Institute; Columbia University; University of Manitoba; The Rural Studio; and HKU. He has worked with and collaborated with Sir Peter Cook, Raoul Bunschoten, Peter Salter, John Hejduk and Mark West and others. Formerly a key researcher for Chora Institute of Architecture and Urbanism London; the Centre for Architecture Structures and Technology (C.A.S.T.) in Manitoba, he initiated and directed the Architecture and Urban Research Lab (A+URL) in Stockholm; and Pneuma in Canada. Recipient of awards including the European Union two times. His research focuses on the metabolic architecture on the scales of the city (city as a life form, urban ecology), and as architecture (interactive and responsive architectures). Books include Border Ecologies (Birkhauser 2016). His practice D+A hq Ltd, HK conducts architecture and planning projects in China since 2008 and includes the award winning Rainbow School in Kunming for Beijing Normal University 2014.
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MATERIAL During the architecture study, it is essential to learn the principal of buildings. By exploring the versatility of commonly seen construction material including but not limited to concrete, fibre or bricks‌etc. Experimental studies like concrete casting, artifical fibre membrane structure casting, etc. were carried out to facilitate the understanding of the structural and material properties. Alternative ways were tested so as to try pushing the limit of the ways working on such materials, in terms of spatial and visual dimensions. The experiments seek for some possible result based on precedent studies and research with self-directed assumptions. However, due to lacking of site work experiences, students have to face in-situ issues and other difficulties during the design and construction process, which may lead to repeated failure. By carrying out 1 to 1 experiments on material and constructions, whether success or not, architecture student can enhance their understanding of the preciseness, methodologies, material properties and other hands-on experience in construction, which in turn helps to encourage student to stay curious to further exploration on materiality and inform their findings to spatial design.
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1. using tent as a mould
2. using tent as a mould
3. tensile structure using rope & fire bundle
4. wipe oil & separator over the fabric
5. put fibre glass on mould
6. put fibre glass on mould
7. polyester resin + hardener
8. polyester resin turn dark, wipe them over tent and firbre glass
9. wait half hour, repeat step 5-8
10. wait until dry
11. de-mould
12. finishing look
Students carried out studies to explore the construction detail and the working methodology of fibre glass shell construction. By trying out the construction sequence, material properties and testing out the performance of each chemical mix (with reference and guidelines from books and online workshops), students managed to construct 1:1 structure based on precedent studies and experimentation process. 20
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layer 6 - PR + Catalysis
layer 4 - separator
Single Tent
Separator
Fabric layer 3 - Vaseline
Vaseline
layer 2 - Fabric
Fiber glass
Finish Product Hardener 6 Layer
membrane structure studies
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Polyester Resin + Catalysis
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In this projects, students initiated the study of how to make a thin and load bearing concrete structure. Referenced to precedent structural case studies, students explored the use of hanging fabric to casting a load bearing thin layer concrete. The concrete study also explores the relationship between body and concrete. By using different parts of body to test out the casted form on concrete, a cushion looked concrete is one of the possibilities.
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Hanging thin layer of concrete Testing concrete stand by itself
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The studies experimented on concrete’s performance as a plaster material, formed relief profiles and forms in relation to human bodies and exploring the design of ergonomic daily objects that fit the body shape.
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Ice block 0
Concrete mold 1
Ice block 1
Concrete mold 1
Concrete mold 2 Ice block 1
Concrete mold 2 Ice block 2
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“Hybrid” Concrete studies encouraged students to test on some of the intrinsic or even atypical effects of concrete mixing and casting. The projects showcased some provoking results of concrete mixing with material in different form, texture and temperature, such as ice, colour paint, soft drinks and milk. The concrete were mixed and casted in foam or bubble wraps and experimented on three ways to see how the concrete meets with ice. The interface texture of the concrete and the mould was also explored in different materiality and conditions. The experiments are not just “FUN”, but stimulating students to think and trying out different parameters in the use of typical construction materials.
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1
2
Testing different possibilities on the concrete surface, such as making cracks, making a hairy surface by hemp rope, mixing various aggregate with concrete, overlay fluorescent Tattoo on the surface, and other creative treatments (e.g. polish and paint lacquer) to the concrete surface. The studies also tested the colour paint with concrete, other parameter included ratio of concrete, dryness of concrete, types of paint, to test out the colour compare to the raw colour and the clearness of pattern.
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1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
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9. 10. 11. 12. 13.
crack pattern hairy surface stone surface wood and concrete fluorescent tattoo blue watercolour circular pattern waterproof hydrophobic coating grinded surface smooth surface protected surface clear lacquer coca cola
AR CHITECT S A S MA KERS / MATERI A L CO N C RETE
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Fanta
Cream Soda
Bubles foam
Leaf
Milk
Sarsae
Towel
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Plastic pieces
AR CHITECTS A S MA KERS / MATERI A L C O N C RETE
Concrete takes time to dry, with a plaster materiality of turning from thick fliud to solid form. The process of cement mixing, casting in mould suggests wide spectrum of potential in manipulation the colour and texture of the substance. Students tested concrete mixed with different colour pigments, casted with multiple pouring to form the sedimented colour profiles in different levels. Students practiced with care to prevent cold joints and get control on colour boundaries in order to achieve sophisticated casts.
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Students cast spatial objects with improved skills, craftsmanship and started to explore the spatial quality of concrete beyond two dimensional relief studies. The space models are inspired by the pattern relief exercise and try to create rhythmic space with architecture elements in mind, such as stairs, spiral staircase and beams. The tasks including making mould, considering the ratio of concrete, prevent cold joint, and making narrative spatial models. The exercise leads to the further studies on fenestration, circulation, solid/void, and lighting qualities.
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concrete architecture form casting
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The concrete model exercise studied diverse spatial design in terms of scale, composition, form, solid and void. By additive making of the casting mould and the reversal negative spatial thinking, students explored how to create and define different qualities of space and human scale experience. Further exploration of the surface texture, lighting qualities, contrasting volumetric and intrigue circulation systems suggested potential functional or programmatic interpretations and narratives. 36
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After acquired knowledge of concrete relief and pattern casting, which depicted and explored the material concrete as ornamentation and experienced the performance and quality of mould making and concrete casting, the studio moves on to spatial studies using the concrete casting, an subtractive process to investigate different texture, volumes, porosity, lighting qualities and scale, bring atmosphere to people, and suggesting a narrative to the architecture. It brings to a further study of using concrete in different surface, form and spatial relationship. By making models of architectural elements, staircase, spiral staircase, fenestrations, students engaged in design and building abstract space with scale via model making, it improves the understanding of void space in solid and start cultivating the design languages and skills.
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SYSTEM & JOINT ‘’Architecture starts when you carefully put two bricks together. There it begins.” Mies van der Rohe By joining the material together, study how the materials fix and relay to others within a system. The following chapter, shows the discovery processes on masonry structure, bamboo jointing structure. Three similated “masonry” block work material are studied, foam cut to miniature bricks, wooden blocks and sugar cubes. The exercises analysed the possibility on compression based structural systems, how blocks laying in traditional and unconventional stacking systems to envision a form and space with corresponding emphermal conditions – dark, bright, narrow, open, fast, station, etc. Bamboo is a sustainable and vernacular construction material. The exercise studied the traditional tie up detail by using hemp rope or plastic tie to join bamboo in stacks or different angle. Tension strength of bamboo was experimented in various systematic fabrication. In some cases, moveable joints were explored to answer for the structural design potentials in different situations and context. Through the joint study, student can understand the basic knowledge of structural design and materials application in architecture, that helps to integrate with their design idea.
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Bricks and block work systems are one of the most traditional and commonly found construction material in all human civilization. The architecure of block works and masonary ranges from magnificent ancient Roman architecture, Gothic Cathedrals or Green Bricks of Chinese architecture‌etc. The studios of the Principle of Building (POB) matrixed with Architectural Design (AD) and Visualisation (AV) to introduce the studies of alternative masonry structure by using 1:5 (or (1:10) scaled modular materials like cut-out blue foam blocks, wood blocks and even sugar cubes, etc. to imagine how the block work and masonary building system evolves based on different ways of stacking detail and joints and arrives to livable spatial structure in dome, vault and complex parabolic surfaces.
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The model studies different block stacking system to generate a pavilion. The pixelized pavilions were design with different orientation, bond, and pattern to provide a sense of enclosure. Various levels of porosity along the surface were experimented and the corresponding lighting and spatial qualities were studied, documented visually with a reasonable narrative. The model was constructed with 90-degree herringbone detail - a way to stack bricks diagonally and interlocking into a walled structural system. Students learned how to use the system to form series of arches which created semi-open shelters. Other cases used stacking and shifting of the blocks in typical honeycomb bond system, a pattern to provide screened effect for the wall. Skilful playing of incremental block works set back helped the building of the parabolic vault.
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The wood blocks studies required students teamed up to construct a self-standing structure construct with the given 37x37x37 wood blocks. It only allowed to use glutinous rice as mortar joint, and masonry joint metal tie are allowed for double layer construct. Given the rules, students can play with the wooden blocks based on the research of precedents, enhancing the fundamental understanding of the system of block works as representated by available wood blocks, and opening up new dimension of design with same materiality. The study involves mostly masonry made curvature ribs, long span, cantilever with nominal stacking or experimental ways to create interesting profiling and structures. By getting hands on experience, student practiced their research, analytical and making skills.
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Various traditional and atypical stacking systems evolved to sturdy structures or provocative installations. The study on meticulously placed wood blocks resulted in graceful joined triangularly pointed arch and double rib vault. The shifting blocks staggered to form a ribbon liked curvilinear wall surface. While some models experimented the structural and aesthetic potentials of the disorderly rotated wooden block pattern.
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“Brick should appear as brick, wood as wood, iron as iron, each according to its own statistical laws.”- Gottfried Semper (German Architect, 1803-1879) Sugar cube study analysed the cubic module stacking system to become architectural representation. It is similar to the wooden blocks masonry study, however, since the sugar cubes are with less compact composition, which allows light to penetrate and generates phenomenal spatial quality. Students explored various possibilities on form, space and order, porosity and lighting…etc. base on the nature and potential of their masonry structure experimental studies.
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The porosity of sugar cube models facilitated detail studies on lighting and shadow pattern. The system of the sugar blocks pattern allows light goes through, which as a consequence created interesting reflection to both interior and exterior. One of the models closely resembled a parabolic-like igloo, which enclosed a tall and narrow corridor leading to a distorted dome space. The other project used directional curve walls with different height to create a sense of direction for leading people to manoeuvre into the semi-open space. Elegant twisted tower like structure with expanding and converging conical form can be achieved with tactic blocking systems.
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Every joint is significant in architecture. The bamboo research encouraged students to play with bamboo in different size and form, carried out a series of bamboo fixing and joint detail studies and experimentation. Apart from typical bamboo joints, metal and movable joints were tested and explored. To investigate architecture in micro way, every joint need to be “understood”. Students required to be analytical on what material pre-treatment and the way bamboo can be cut, trimmed, bend and joined…They studied how to tie the bamboo with rope; make use of the tension strength of bamboo that to cut them; try to burn it, weave it or peeled it. This experience provides opportunity for students to understand the materiality, scale, and fabrication of bamboo. Making culture is cultivated and enhanced in the architecture studio by introducing real building materials to students, aiming to facilitate the study and understanding of the physicality of architecture and explore the various design potentials based on articulated experimentation. The 1 to 1 studies were not only took place in studio, but also carried out on site in Meinan village, which allowed a full and true scale of bamboo experiment and construction.
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movable bamboo sticks joint studies
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The bamboo was splited again but further skive by spliting and paring
The time control on burning the bamboo was tested to make sure it can bend easily but not breaking the texture of bamboo lot.
Different angle of bending was made to know how should the force and method to change when bending different radian.
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AR CHITECTS AS MA KERS / SYSTEM & JO I N T BAMBO O
burn bamboo and weave studies
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AR CHITECTS AS MA KERS / SYSTEM & JO I N T BA MBO O
movable bamboo joint studies
movable bamboo joint studies: preset angle rotation
movable bamboo joint studies: spiral rotation 60
AR CHITECTS AS MAKERS / SYSTEM & JO I N T BA MBO O
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intersect joint in peeled bamboo
strong and thin bamboo studies
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The on-site bamboo study carried out in Meinan village, a village with locals used to product bamboos hand-made daily objects such as table, chair, hat and basket. Some of the villagers are master of bamboo crafting and teach students how to trim, weave and tie bamboo. Students tried to explore other bamboo joints based on the learnt skills such as feasible joint, or interlocking the bamboo in different ways to perform better in bigger scale construction.
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DIGITAL DESIGN & FABRICATION Digital Design and Fabrication is an advanced design and manufacture process, which involves state-of-art digital technologies in the process of analysis, design and construction. This chapter included 4 projects: Multi-Variate House (Halo Mobile Modular Architecture); Parallelograms Installation (World Environment Day at Tamar Park, and Backdrop structure and signage stand for event of Very Hong Kong- Very Aberdeen). The MultiVariate House project is constructed to a 1 to 1 mobile pavilion, staged set at HKDI in June 2014, sponsored and joint manufactured by Halo Creative & Design Ltd. and our students (Horace Yeung and Sharon Tsoi). A competition brief was assigned to HKDI students questing for a mobile, transportable, adaptative digitally fabricated modular small habitable unit. The winning entry studied with 3D modelling with sets of trapezium geometrical variations to generate the possibilities in different folding, self-growth and adaptation based on different material and scale. The Tamar Pavilion upcycled the wood pallet to an outdoor furniture, by using digital data from pattern studies and design, then brings the parametric design model to CNC processing of the recylced wooden pallet planks. Students needed to learn how to work out the detailing of constructing the design and built within budget, which required critical review of the design and fabrication in different design and production stages. The other 2 outdoor pavilions have similar process to the Tamar pavilion, while the design touches on other design concepts on lighitng and shadow patterns, ergonometry of display, viewing, seating, etc.
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AR CHITECTS AS MAKERS / DIGITAL DESIGN & FABRICATION HALO MODULAR UNIT
Mobile Modular Architecture Collaboration with Halo Creative & Design Ltd. Multi-Variate House is the winning scheme of a Mobile Modular Architecture Design Competition specifically set up by Halo Creative & Design Limited and HKDI Architectural Design Programme. The modular studies started by Digital Software, analysis how the form of each module can be combine, transformed, being mobile and portable, create a habitable and adaptative structure. Based on the prefabrication technologies and modular design in 2D and 3D manner, the parametrix studies of patterns and froms resulted in true scale fabrication in Dongguan factory. Detail design and construction drawings were developed together with the Client ( HALO ), our students and China Factory fabricators. The project realised a potential light weight structured modular base living unit pavilion, that can be a prefabricated plug-in system and adaptative to different terrain.
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The modular can be stacked in many ways. The below images show some possible massing development from 2 modules to 10 modules, studying the module relationship in both horizontally and vertically, indoor and outdoor. The modular house aims to maximise the basic geometric system to fabricate transportable and stackable units that can be prefabricated in factories.
modular studies 1 module to 10 module
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foldable panel studies
Nail Connecter
one module
12mm thick plywood 12mm thick joint component
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Components
one module
timber frame
timber cover board
timber joint plates two modules
timber corner cover
mesh with metal triangular frame fix to steel rod bracing & cover board five modules
steel rod 50mm diameter 71
AR CHITECTS AS MAKERS / D IGITAL DESIGN & FABRICATION HALO MODULAR UNIT
plywood hinge
corner metal
corner metal connecting detail
Joint detail Type 2
Joint detail Type 2
Joint detail Type 1
Joint detail Type 1
Joint detail Type 2
oblique connecting tubes Joint detail Type 2
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Joint detail Type 2
AR CHITECTS AS MAKERS / D IGITAL DESIGN & FABRICATION HALO MODULAR UNIT
Color Pattern
Color Pattern
Cover Board (16mm Plywood)
Color Pattern Cover Board (Plywood)
Cover Board (Plywood) Interior: No Cover Board
construction details 2 component elevation
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Window
Facade Frame Window Frame
Wall
Window Frame
Window
Wall Frame Facade
pattern and furniture studies
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AR CHITECTS AS MAKERS / D IGITAL DESIGN & FABRICATION HALO MODULAR UNIT
portable module and contry side temporary structure
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AR CHITECTS AS MAKERS / D IGITAL DESIGN & FABRICATION TAMAR PARK INSTALLATION
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AR CHITECTS AS MAKERS / D IGITAL DESIGN & FABRICATION TAMAR PARK INSTALLATION
World Environment Day at Tamar Park The 1:1 installation created for the theme “Be Climate Ready, Don’t be a Big Waster”, which cohosted by the Environmental Campaign Committee and Environmental Protection Department at Tamar Park on 5 June 2016. Addressing to the environmental protection, the material recycled timber pallets was chosen, which can be commonly found as waste material in the loading docks and dumping grounds. Upcycling the wooden pallet to a digitally pre-fabricated structure, which provide seating, laying space or as exhibition booths for the public. The pavilion designed also generates different visual effects from different perspectives by various parallelograms – the basic modules, that showcased that upcycling can turn ‘waste’ into usable urban hard landscaping with appropriate digital design and fabrication methodologies.
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AR CHITECTS AS MAKERS / D IGITAL DESIGN & FABRICATION TAMAR PARK INSTALLATION regular: adjusting location
regular: adjusting location q=2
q=3
q=2
q=3
q=4 q=4 x=2x 0x
q=2 X=2x 0x Y=2x 0y Z=2x 0z
Y=2x 0y
q=2
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AR CHITECTS AS MAKERS / D IGITAL DESIGN & FABRICATION TAMAR PARK INSTALLATION 1+2
1+3
2+3
1+2+3
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AR CHITECTS AS MAKERS / D IGITAL DESIGN & FABRICATION TAMAR PARK INSTALLATION
Level 1 - Sitting Area Level 2-3 Level 4-7
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AR CHITECTS AS MAKERS / D IGITAL DESIGN & FABRICATION TAMAR PARK INSTALLATION
Signage Design 1 rotate 180
Signage Design 2 mirror
Signage Design 3 rotate 225
Signage Design 4 combine Design 1 + 2
Signage Design 5 rotate 225
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AR CHITECTS AS MAKERS / D IGITAL DESIGN & FABRICATION TAMAR PARK INSTALLATION 1 1
2
5 6 3 4
5
7
8
7 8 6
10 9
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AR CHITECTS AS MAKERS / D IGITAL DESIGN & FABRICATION TAMAR PARK INSTALLATION Joint of Sitting Area 1 2 3 4 1
Joint Steel tube on panel Joint other Steel tube on panel Joint Panel Put the sitting panel on top
4 3 2
Joint of Structure 1 2 3 4
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Joint 2 Panel Twist the screw Joint other panel Twist the screw
5 6 7 8
Joint a Panel on component Twist the screw Joint other panel Twist the screw
AR CHITECTS AS MAKERS / D IGITAL DESIGN & FABRICATION VERY HONG KONG INSTALLATION
Very Hong Kong- Very Aberdeen: Backdrop The structure formed with elongated parallelogram and serves as the backdrop of music performance for the “Very Hong Kong – Very Aberdeen” event on 15 May 2016. The event is a community-based festival inviting local and international Hong Kong art and culture lovers to participate and collaborate in a range of arts, music and food. As a key feature of the event, the backdrop celebrated the movement of people and gives a memorable location for people to take photos. The patterned structure was chosen based on the poetic design concept and also the workability of student production. The stable and aesthetics form provided a safe and energetic backdrop for public participation and allows students to contribute to the city art events.
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AR CHITECTS AS MAKERS / D IGITAL DESIGN & FABRICATION VERY HONG KONG INSTALLATION
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
Combine 2 panels Twist the screw Combine another panel Twist the screw Join the object to a component Combine another component Twist the screw Twist the screw 2 component join 3 component combined
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AR CHITECTS AS MAKERS / D IGITAL DESIGN & FABRICATION VERY HONG KONG INSTALLATION
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AR CHITECTS AS MAKERS / D IGITAL DESIGN & FABRICATION VERY HONG KONG INSTALLATION
Site Area
More Stable
Create stage with back stage area
Break down 3 layers creating different sun light effect
6 Kinds of components
Total 40 columns
7.5 m x 2.5 m
Different height to become “wave“
Use components to built
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AR CHITECTS AS MAKERS / D IGITAL DESIGN & FABRICATION VERY HONG KONG INSTALLATION
A
B D
C
2200
12mm wooden board
250
Iron column
Iron column
Elevation A
2200
12mm wooden board
Elevation B
12mm wooden board
2200
12mm wooden board Existing Railing
Iron column Elevation D
Elevation C
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AR CHITECTS AS MAKERS / D IGITAL DESIGN & FABRICATION VERY HONG KONG INSTALLATION
A1
A2
Connect 1 higher module with 1 fixed stable joint
Connect 2 horizontal module with 12 fixed joint Type A1 nos: 10
combination need support stable
2 point Stand
Fit
weak
weak
need support
2 point Stand
stable
need support
weak
weak
Type B1 nos: 17
A3
A4 Connect 3 vertical module with 2 connecting point and 1 fixed stable joint
Connect 4 vertical module with 1 connecting point
Stable
need support
Fit
Fit
Fit
Fit
Stable
Fit
Fit
Fit
Type C1 nos: 17
4 point Stand
3 point Stand
Column nos: 34
A5
A6
Type D1 nos: 16
Connect 2 vertical module in different direction
Connect 1 vertical module and 1 horizontal module with 1 fixed stable joint below
Weak
2 point Stand
Fit
Weak
Type E1 nos: 13
Fit
Most Weak
2 point Stand
Weak
Weak
Fit
Most Weak
Type F1 nos: 6
Fit
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AR CHITECTS AS MAKERS / D IGITAL DESIGN & FABRICATION VERY HONG KONG INSTALLATION
Very Hong KongVery Aberdeen: Signage The signage structure design for the event for “Very Hong Kong” 2016. The timber interlocking system create 5 signage partition for hanging up the information panel and provide circulation guide to the visitor.
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Component 1 Pros: Flexible Cons: Can’t expand upwards Basic component
Design 2 joint on component
Additional joints for changes in orientation
Joint
Joining 2 components together
Sequence
Component 2
x6 Basic component
Design 2 joint on component
Additional joints for changes in orientation
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Joining 2 components together
x1 Sequence
Pros: Flexible Cons: Can’t expand upwards
AR CHITECTS AS MAKERS / D IGITAL DESIGN & FABRICATION VERY HONG KONG INSTALLATION
Model
370
390
A1 panel
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4
Level 1
Step 5
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AR CHITECTS AS MAKERS / D IGITAL DESIGN & FABRICATION VERY HONG KONG INSTALLATION
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AR CHITECTS AS MAKERS / 1 TO 1 CO N STRU C TI O N MEINAN VI LLAG E PAVI LI O N
1 to 1 Con stru c tio n Practice of making can sharpen studies towards scale, structural properties, spatial aesthetic, materiality, site context and functional aspects of architecture and the making of spaces. Making and construction can also help to motivate architecture students to generate creative ideas in respond to the ever-changing world. However, the opportunity is rare, especially in Hong Kong. The following chapter shows some construction projects that HKDI architecture students actively involved. The valuable experience covered the professional building processes, developing from design inception, scaled study and critique, ‘’Client meeting’’, site documentation and construction. The projects located in both Hong Kong and Mainland China. All aimed at connecting the community via the student-designed structure. The scale of projects are slightly different, the Meinan projects provide 4 temporary pavilions to the villagers in 2-month design research and 2 weeks’ construction. While the Oil Street project involved a design and construction of a portable and transformable hand-made bamboo screen for the North Point neighbourhood. Through the hands-on experience, student are encouraged to understand as much about bamboo construction as possible - material properties, manufacturing process, construction details, etc. Students participated in the Summer Community Design and Built Projects spent extra time and passion beyond credit bearing studies, trying to truly understand the functional and contextual aspects and were provoked to take ownership of their design. 1:1 Communal Design and Fabrication Projects allows students to fully utilize and integrate their knowledge in project management, design coordination, technical construction and communication.
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AR CHITECTS AS MAKERS / 1 TO 1 CO N STRU C TI O N MEINAN VI LLAG E PAVI LI O N
The Meinan pavilion project was started from small scales studies on using different parts of bamboo to create patterns. Consequently, scaled models were built to test on the effects of light and shadows. On site 1:10 scaled material and joint studies were then carried in Meinan. The process revealed the complexity of bamboo joints experimental processes, such as different materials and way of fixing joints together with ways of bamboo cutting.
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AR CHITECTS AS MAKERS / 1 TO 1 CO N STRU C TI O N MEINAN VI LLAG E PAVI LI O N
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AR CHITECTS AS MA KERS / 1 TO 1 CO N STRU C TI O N MEINAN VI LLAG E PAVI LI O N
Take.Off Take Off is an iconic pavilion that provides a rain-shelter area next to the rice field in the village of Meinan, Guangdong PRC. The form referenced from the traditional village housing, the pitch roof providing canopy and safety for Meinan residence, the reversal pitch roof of the project intended to have a dialog with the existing building, yet still being unique. The structure providing leisure community platform that allows villages to stay and take a rest, playing, talking and even dancing under the energetic and dynamic shelter. The designed structure is composed by 5 triangular units, fixing the framework in sequence then using corrugated plastic as roof which let the sunlight get in, but keeps the rain out.
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AR CHITECTS AS MAKERS / 1 TO 1 CO N STRU C TI O N MEINAN VI LLAG E PAVI LI O N
The construction of the whole structure started from the on-site studies of the various way of joining the bamboo after off-site conceptual design stage and scaled modelling. The design of the pavilion took the form of a pair of extended wings, which in detail constructed with triangular components, shifting and create a revised pitch roof structure housing a shelter space under. The construction period took two weeks’ time, by student working in days and nights.
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AR CHITECTS AS MA KERS / 1 TO 1 CO N STRU C TI O N MEINAN VI LLAG E PAVI LI O N
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AR CHITECTS AS MA KERS / 1 TO 1 CO N STRU C TI O N MEINAN VI LLAG E PAVI LI O N
The Meinan Tower Meinan Tower tried to provide a landmark for the village. The three levels are designed to give new perspective of views to the local villagers. The existing buildings in Meinan village is solid and constructed by bricks, concrete, alternatively the bamboo tower can create a light and porous layer to the area and attracts people’s attention and building up their identity. The bottom of the tower provided bigger space to let people sleep and sun bathing, the middle and upper level are viewing decks for people to enjoy the view of green field and mountain.
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AR CHITECTS AS MAKERS / 1 TO 1 CO N STRU C TI O N MEINAN VI LLAG E PAVI LI O N
Firstly, the design was with expanded reversed pyramid top and supported by the main column. However, due to the mass of the upper part is too heavy, the students decided to put it upside down after a few in-situ testing. The final outcome and construction makes more sense in terms of structure with the bigger and heavier part on the bottom which can stabilize the structure. To make the tower more durable and easier for climbing, extra bamboo sticks reinforcement were added.
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AR CHITECTS AS MA KERS / 1 TO 1 CO N STRU C TI O N MEINA N VI LLAG E PAVI LI O N
Meinan Tower intended to be a local landmark, provides a vertical playful pavilion of which can let the villages sit on the upper layer to enjoy the view, or lay down and enjoying sunshine on the lower platform. An intuitive response to the environment, enhancing spatial understanding through experiential human reaction.
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AR CHITECTS AS MAKERS / 1 TO 1 CO N STRU C TI O N MEINAN VI LLAG E PAVI LI O N
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AR CHITECTS AS MAKERS / 1 TO 1 CO N STRU C TI O N MEINAN VI LLAG E PAVI LI O N
The Fishing Boat The Fishing Boat provided a generous canopy to Meinan village. The fabric mesh material can provide shading under the strong sunlight. The design allows villages to enjoy public space in a better micro-climate, with enhanced ventilation and sunshade. The selection of bamboo and mesh fabric is based on its light weight and tenderness, both allows flexibility and easier construction of the structure.
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AR CHITECTS AS MAKERS / 1 TO 1 CO N STRU C TI O N MEINAN VI LLAG E PAVI LI O N
The concept of is a up-sided down haul of a fish-boat, a commonly found object in local village. The module was developed in the early stage based on a pliable diagonal module. Further development of the form took into the consideration of human activities under the canopy, such as the entrance framed with greater headroom, and middle area is with a bigger volume to allow more people to stay inside. The pavilion designed with supporting columns designed to locate on two sides, resembles an overturned fishing boat looking from the green field.
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AR CHITECTS AS MA KERS / 1 TO 1 CO N STRU C TI O N MEINAN VI LLAG E PAVI LI O N
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The Meteor The Meteor investigated the relationship of geometry and spatial quality, and provides a public space for relaxing, observing full spectrum of nature, from sunlight to starry night. Meinan is a small village in Southern China and life is simple. The structure intended to let villages to stay and share in their local humble hub, suggesting a more vibrant area to the site. The structure of Meteor was based on the tetrahedron module and after detailed studies on local natural context. A final multi-layer structure was evolved that invites locals to spend time there, work or relaxing under the expressive roof.
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Student explored the possibilities of form and joint detailing from series of study models. As 1 to 1 construction of the pavilion required a deep understanding of material processing and joinery to construct a sturdy structure, which let people stay and enjoy the public space underneath safely. Student tested out the simulated joints in different tie materials (rope and rubber band) and ways of knotting, tried to find out the most suitable joint in every connecting point. After the hands-on studies, students worked on construction drawings of the finalised design and prepare for the last stage of on-site fabrication.
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AR CHITECTS AS MA KERS / 1 TO 1 CO N STRU C TI O N MEINAN VI LLAG E PAVI LI O N
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AR CHITECTS AS MAKERS / 1 TO 1 CO N STRU C TI O N Oi! STREET I N STA LLATI O N
The project aims to arouse interest in and awareness of urban space in a local community, ‘Connectivity! Urban Arc-tion’ is a series of research-based architectural and art actions co-organized by Oi!, HKDI and the School of Architecture, CUHK. The students learned to tie bamboo stick with Chinese paper from the traditional artisans of Chinese lantern industry. After the completion of the learning workshops, students helped to share the knowledge and skills to the community. The handy and yet versatile bamboo pavilion experiments are the fruitful result of collaboration between traditional artisans, architecture students and Community. The hand-made bamboo screen is designed to be transportable and transformable, which can fit in to outdoor or indoor conditions with different expressive forms.
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AR CHITECTS AS MAKERS / 1 TO 1 CO N STRU C TI O N Oi! STREET I N STA LLATI O N
‑ The design workshop aims to collaborate with Oil Street Community. A flexible bamboo screen was decided to fabricate during the public participatory workshop. The making process of each joint needed to be simple, straightforward and with clearly demarcated instructions so that the public can directly apply the traditional bamboo knotting skills in the workshop and participate in the construction process of the installation. ‑ The bamboo sticks originally are long and organic. For reducing the preparation time on site and easier construction, architecture student made 10cm interval marks along the bamboo slits in advance. The dimension marks help to control the pattern and consistency of the bamboo screen. ‑ Students introduced the bamboo material to the public, and share the way to tie the bamboo slits in a grid pattern by Chinese paper. The workshop encourages the participants to have a hands-on experiential workshop in Oil Street. ‑ Based on the markings, the public can easily know the location of joint and allow them to try knotting the bamboo by Chinese paper. ‑ Using Chinese paper to tie the bamboo stick, the bamboo sticks were weaved to become a soft screen in 100 x 100mm grid. ‑ Painting the bamboo screen with protection oil and dry it indoors to make the bamboo surface water-proofed and suitable for outdoor installation ‑ Bending the bamboo mesh according to human scale, to test and explore the bamboo mesh folding to form the roof, wall, ground, and semi-open enclosure.
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Summer Semester 2014
Connectivity! Urban Action Forum – Oil Street Art Community AR CHITECTS AS MA KERS / 1 TO 1 CO N STRU C TI O N S TREET I NSTA LLATI O N Co-organized by Oi! and the School of Architecture, CUHK, ‘Connectivity! Urban Arc-tion’ isOi! a series of research-based architectural and art actions which aims to arouse interest in and awareness of urban space in a real community. HKDI students and tutor led one of the community workshops in July 2014 to construct a hand-made bamboo screen that was transportable and transformable into various art forms.
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AR CHITECTS AS MAKERS / 1 TO 1 CO N STRU C TI O N Oi! STREET I N STA LLATI O N
Lighting feature at outdoor event
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The whole installation is a flexible screen, the bamboo sticks are tied by sandpaper, the whole structure is a soft grid which encloses human bodies, and forming a passageway. It can also be used as a backdrop installation in the outdoor filming event.
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Design Studio Tutors ( 2013 -2018 ) Carol Yin Ling LEUNG Eddie Kwok Yiu CHAN Jason Yiu Lun TANG Julia Ting Yan MOK Jze Yi KUO Lawrence LEUNG Leo CHU Roy Christian OEI Suzanna WONG Thomas Wai Tong CHAN Tony IP
HKDI Architecture Projects Review #02
Architects as Makers Design . Material & Fabrication Carol Leung Editor Editorial Assistant Jollie Cheung Graphic Design
Carol Leung Jollie Cheung
Material
Sharon TSOI . Kaka . Therodora LI . Box NIP . Marco LEUNG . Kelvin MAN . Joe WONG . Kaming LIU . Kelvin LO . Fabio HEUNG . Kelvin WONG . Dennis LEE . Zana YEUNG . Sritik RAI . Marie JEZA . Andres Bea . Victor LUK . Kristin CHAN . Chilli Li . Leonida LY. Wincy WAN . Owen HO . Candy . Chris . Christopher . Derek . Doris . Yi LEE . Tommy WONG . Sze Man LEUNG . Hin Lou . Lok Lam NG . Sinji Lau . Irving CHEUNG . Yuet Chin WONG . Edward HUANG . Kelly CHUNG . Parco LEE . Kwan Tsz KWAN . Man Hei YEUNG . Cherrie WONG . Chung Ting CHEUNG . Chun Fan HO . Sun Hei AU YEUNG . King Nam HUI . Yu Sam LI . Ka Ho LUI . Nok Him Yau . Gary CHENG . Tim LAU . Holly LAW . Yetta WONG . San Yee CHAN . Ka Lai CHONG . Ho Yang Lam . Shuk Yan LAM . Cho Ting WONG . Oji IP . Alexander UTAMA . Justin . Leon . Sam . Edgar PANG . Yu Hei WONG . Hoi Tung FOAK . Siu Lun Kong . Zong Xiang LI . Aubrey LEUNG . Mike SO . Chun Ming YIM . Chak Ming HU . Wing Mei LEUNG . Yat Kin PAT . Yin Lam NG . Tsz KIt LAI . Ka Ho LEE
System & Joint
Alex LUI . Sun Hei AU YEUNG . King Nam HUI . Gary CHENG . Jaxon YAU . Samaon LI . Cho Ting WONG . Cherrie WONG . Justin AU . Kiffany KWAN . San CHAN . Mandy YEUNG . Tse Ki SO . Chun Ming YIM . Chak Ming HU . Yin Nam NG . Chun Ho NG . Chi Hun HO . Edgar PANG . Yu Hei WONG . Hoi Tung FOAK . Siu Lun KONG . Zong Xiang LI . Aubrey LEUNG . John HO . Jimmy CHEUNG . Wing Mei LEUNG . Anson LAM . Leon LAI . Yat Kiu PAT . Chi Shing CHO . Wing Fung SO . Ka Lok FUNG . Cheryl TSANG . Gundam TAM . Emma HUANG . Ice CHONG . Larry TSE . Leo WONG
Digital Design & Fabrication
Sharon TSOI . Horace YEUNG . HY Ho . AJ Lamsen . CY Li . HK Wong . SW Wong . TH Wong . TY Wong . KW Yeung . CW Chan . ZX Cheuk . CF Ho . NK Lee . KL Leung . NF Leung . XW Liu . CY Lo . CY Man . Hon Man . WM Poon . KK Wong . CK Heung . KO Leung . SF Leung . KM Liu . YH Tang . CW Wong . HY Wong . PK Wong . NT Chan . WS Chan . CP Cheng . NT Fung . CW Wong . KC Chan . TH Choy . CL Chu . WH Man . CK Sin . KT So . PH Tang
1 to 1 Construction
Eric WONG . Louis CHAN . Shervan CHAN . Teresa TIN . Vince LAI . Jodie LI . Samson CHAN . Ryan CHAN . Chuk Ming WONG . Dicky CHU . Rahel NG . Parco Lee . Aaron CHEUNG . John CHAN . Ngai Tung CHAN . Tsz Him WONG . Ice CHONG . Michael CHONG . Kelvin CHEUNG . Tom Li . Tommy WONG . CM LAM . Chelffy NG . Edmund YIP . Gundam TAM . Kinson LAW . Eleanor FU . Ian HUI . Jollie CHEUNG . Chi Ho CHUNG
Architectural Design Programme Department of Architecture, Interior and Product Design
Hong Kong Design Institute (HKDI) hkdi@vtc.edu.hk www.hkdi.edu.hk
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