Architectural Theory Spring 2010 Final Manifesto Jeremy Goucher
Cutaneous Technology and Architecture
Using nature as reference for design, contemporary architecture is another step in the evolutionary process of the relationship between the case and what it contains. Architecture began with the primitive hut made of stick and stone, referencing nature as the means of construction. The Greeks used carving technologies to sculpt stone from the nostalgia for nature, resulting in the relationship between sculpture and architecture.1 In the Modern era Le Corbusier advocated carving as a means of surface vitalization as long as the voids produced are in accordance with the generating geometries to accentuate the complete form.2 As the next step in the evolution, contemporary architecture is relying heavily on computer sciences as a means of design conception and construction. A prime example of computer technologies establishing a relationship between surface and structure is the Contemporary Art Museum by Nieto and Sobejaño. Basing the project on the basic unit of representation in the computer, the pixel, Nieto and Sobejaño’s resulting structure was of tessellated polygons. The façade pieces together the individual ‘pixels’ to create computer based images. Just as the hexagonal units in a honeycomb combine to form the hive, the pixel bowls combine to form the surface of the museum and the underlying structure.3 This step displays how computer science technologies are being combined with design conceptions rooted in our affinity with nature. New technologies have led to new methods of building construction. Building wall systems of today are designed to do more than protect from the elements. These envelope systems act as mechanical ecosystems that wrap the building: providing protection from precipitation, regulating ventilation, solar gain and lighting.
To continue with the approach that architecture is referencing nature, animal skins can be used as examples for building envelopes. Exactly like modern envelope systems, animal skins and furs can be used as insightful resources for new design technologies. Animal skins act as the perfect natural envelope: providing evaporative cooling, absorbing nutrients, regulating heat loss and gain, and act as a membrane for moisture protection. Citing references from patterns on animal skins like those of zebras and leopards, Greg Lynn defends the use of ornament in regards to the sense that it “corresponds in some way to the armature of bones and muscles beneath, so that the pattern will vary at points of performative intensity, as at hip or shoulder joints.”4 With these animals provided as examples one can analyze their patterns to gain some knowledge of the relationship between their skins (as membranes) and their skeleton, organs, and muscles (all as structure and mechanics). The patterns reference the skeletal layout, highlight keys organs like the brain and intestines, and provide visual patterning differences between appendages that provide mobility (legs) and those that do not (tails). One can also look to the processes of nature through the medium of environmental weathering to imagine new ways of construction and design. Project 3 uses a limestone rain screen as the protective membrane and a tool of establishing pattern on a normative structure.5 The goal of this design was to create depth and variety of shade through ‘removal’ on a micro to macro scale, mimicking the natural process that nature uses to erode stone. The section of the façade represents a range of erosion and process of construction the exterior to the interior. Though not structural, the façade alludes to the location of the structure by way of vertical massing and horizontal banding. The most exterior surfaces are those that appear rough, beaten and damaged. These surfaces are rough hewn limestone panels that give way to smooth limestone panels. This change represents a refinement in craft by displaying the added effort and time placed into creating the smooth surface (smoothing caused by erosion). Carving deeper into the façade and displaying a more precise level of technique, the metal sandwich panel is introduced. These metal panels represent the final layer of which the stone has been
worn enough to reveal other mineral and artifacts that It may contain. A pattern of dominant verticals with layered horizontal subordinates is established. The old paradigms of architecture are giving way to a new- that of digital morphogenesis.6 This new methodology describes an architecture in which aesthetics and function, ornament and structure are not divorced. This new paradigmatic shift in architecture is one that emphasizes the marriage between the idea and the built, the skin and the armature. Equality between issues like form and function does not become an issue: function dominates, form and pattern reference.
Notes
1. Carving as a form of mimicking leaves, wood grain, trees, etc. Eugene-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, “Decorating Appropriately: Historical Principles of Embellishment,” in The Architectural Theory of Viollet-le-Duc (Cambridge: MIT, 1990), 205-214, first publish ca. 1870 2. Le Corbusier, “Three Reminders to Architects: Surface,” in Towards a New Architecture (New York: Dover, 1985), 33-42, first publish in 1927 3. Example: Buckminster Fuller rooted his designs and construction processes in those of nature with tetrahedrons, triangles and cylinders-“justified in terms of natural precedents.” Fil Hearn, “Honest Structure as the Framework of Design,” in Ideas that Shaped Buildings (Cambridge: MIT, 2003), 223-253 4. Leach, Turnbull, Williams (eds.), Digital Tectonics, op.cit., 65 5. Project 3 is a project assigned to the Design 6 class at the Fay Jones School of Architecture at the University of Arkansas in spring 2010. The goal of the project is to create an envelope system by studying and understanding different types of cladding systems that can be manipulated to accommodate distinct operations within the envelope that encompasses a 5 level building located in Kansas City Missouri. Project 3 consists of a Limestone rain screen envelope system with CMU backup attached to a concrete one-way joist structural system. 6. Leach, Neil. "Digital Morphogenesis". Archithese April 2006: 44-49.
Bibliography
Eco, Umberto, “Function and Sign: The Semiotics of Architecture,” in Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory (London: Routledge, 1997), 182-201. Hearn, Fil, “Honest Structure as the Framework of Design,” in Ideas that Shaped Buildings (Cambridge: MIT, 2003), 223-253 Kinney, Leila, “Fashion and Fabrication in Modern Architecture,” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, vol. 58, No. 3, September 1999, 472-481. Leach, Neil. "Digital Morphogenesis," Archithese April 2006: 44-49. Leach, Turnbull, Williams (eds.), Digital Tectonics, London: Wiley-Academy, 2004. Le Corbusier, “Three Reminders to Architects: Surface,” in Towards a New Architecture (New York: Dover, 1985), 33-42, first publish in 1927 Schumacher, Thomas, “The Skull and the Mask, The Modern Movement and Dilemma of the Facade,” The Cornell Architectural Journal, Fall 1987, pg 4. Viollet-le-Duc, Eugene-Emmanuel, “Decorating Appropriately: Historical Principles of Embellishment,” in The Architectural Theory of Viollet-le-Duc (Cambridge: MIT, 1990), 205-214, first publish ca. 1870 Wachsmann, Konrad, “Seven Theses,’ in Programs and Manifestoes on 20th-Century Architecture (Cambridge: MIT, 1964) 156.
Zebra
Stripe pattern contort around the sensory organs
Stripe pattern shifts direction around major joints of movement
Stripe pattern compresses around smaller joints
Stripe pattern offers slight shift in orientation to divide forequarter from hindquarter
Clouded Leopard
Spot pattern represents location of vertebrae
Spot pattern changes from torso of animal (black outline with lighter infill) to limbs of animal (smaller solid spots)
Spot pattern becomes more intricate around face acting as a mask
Spot pattern offers slight shift in geometry to display forequarter from hindquarter
Project 3
Smooth Limestone Panels
Metal Sandwich Panels
Rough Hewn Limestone Panels
Location of Actual Structure
Horizontal Banding Represents Floor Slabs Vertical Massing Alludes to Structure