AIR JOURNAL PART A SUBMISSION_Jiexin

STUDIO AIR 2018, SEMESTER 1 TUTOR: JACK MANSFIELD-HUNG JIEXIN WANG 825924

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TABLE OF CONTENTS A.0 INTRODUCTION A.1 DESIGN FUTURING A1.1 Case Study 1 A1.2 Case Study 2 A.2 DESIGN COMPUTATION A2.1 Case Study 1 A2.2 Case Study 2 A.3 COMPOSITION/GENERATION A3.1 Case Study 1 A3.2 Case Study 2 A.4 CONCLUSION A.5 LEARNING OUTCOMES A.6 APPENDIX

Studio Water: Studley Park Boathouse

Studio Earth: “Something like a Pavilion”

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Digital Design Fabrication: Phalanx

A.0 INTRODUCTION

My name is Jiexin Wang and I’m in my last year

at the University of Melbourne. I was born and raised in Ningbo, China. My interest in architecture was initially fostered by media via browsing building images and watching videos of introducing architectures. I was very much amazed by the spatial qualities of architectures and liked to imagine involving in those environments. The reason why I chose to major in architecture is how architects are capable of creating optimal architectures that could influence the existing environment, hence witnessing and carrying people’s activity, life and emotion for a long period.

During my two years of study, I quite enjoyed playing around with tectonics in Studio earth and learning master’s style and theories from studio water, which gave me the opportunity to learn about designing spaces and fabricating models. My first engagement with digital design was in a subject called digital design fabrication to design and fabricate a wearable architecture digitally, which offered me a chance to follow up with the whole process of designing and fabricating objects digitally. At the moment I’m really looking forward to exploring computational design and fabrication in the study of studio air.

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“Not taking things for granted, being skeptical, and always questioning what is given.” [1] - Anthony Dunne & Fiona Raby

[1] Anthony Dunne & Fiona Raby, Speculative Everything: Design Fiction, And Social Dreaming (MIT Press, 2013), pp. 35 6

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A.1 DESIGN FUTURING Humankind is currently in an era of design futuring.

Since the industrial revolution and subsequently the rapid development of science and technology, people have been living in an anthropocentric world. In the perspective of human-centeredness, people treat the planet as if it were eternal and consume natural resources with insatiable appetite. Inevitably, the shortage of resources comes to surface and has caused conflicts due to its distribution among countries. Design as an ability to prefigure what we create before the act of creation[2], weighs significantly in our process of finding the balance between the development of the society and the sustainability of environment.

In my opinion, instead of pursuing good-looking and operative objects for humankind, a designer should take the responsibility to create some natural-responsible and optimal design to make some real difference within the appropriate approach of technologies in a right scale.

Therefore, design futuring is a really good period for designers to get away from mass production, like rapid prototyping, rendering programs and digital graphs.

Designers are currently at a turning point, experiencing an examination for them to redefine their design process and re-decide the design expectations. I believe what we wish to contribute to our future will light up our enthusiasm to redirect living way from a profit-oriented mode into a far more sustainable future.

[2] Tony Fry, Design Futuring: Sustainability, Ethics and New Practice (Oxford: Berg Publishers Ltd, 2008), pp.2 CONCEPTUALISATION 7

A1.1 CASE STUDY 1 PROJECT: ARCHITECT: PROJECT YEAR:

MONTREAL BIOSPHERE BUCKMINISTER FULLER 1954

An inventive design is able to navigate the complex

relationships between society, technology, and environment through inputting the designer’s moral value.

More specifically, in the consideration of material efficiency, structural integrity, and easy-replicable design quality, the result could be very influential to the societal value towards the technology even design futuring.

For instance, the Montreal Biosphere is created in a backdrop of postwar modernism, which remarks ethical positivity and a uniquely moral blueprint for Fuller’s revolutionary designs[1]. The project was intended to reveal the close contact between mankind and nature, elevating the state of humanity and promoting its responsible stewardship of the environment. Considering the material efficiency, the lightweight dome offers the least surface area to hold the largest number of people. Meanwhile, functioning as a shelter, the geodesic dome could be placed anywhere and its lattice structure allows the maximum connection between humankind and nature. Therefore, this form really leads to a change of societal value towards the relationship between human and the planet and it has been deployed everywhere, from the display as a United States pavilion in

Figure 1

the exposition to the later daily use in camping and military facilities.

Likewise, Saving Venice, the designer tries to visualize the merging of architecture and nature in a macro way, thus he transferred the urban context into the universe, moving human activities out of our planet. He utilised metabolic materials for the practice of spaceship and enabled the building to get its independent life cycle and growth, which could make people who live in the spaceship to see our planet in an objective way, reflecting on what we have done to the earth during the rapid technology development and transformation of the industry.

The project of the geodesic dome is a case of doing much more with much less, which remains profound impacts on people’s societal values towards the design and natural environment both morally and technologically. As Tony Fry’s argued in ‘Design futuring’: “Design takes on a determinate life of its own – designed things go on designing[2]”,

Image source: https://www.tripsavvy.com/montreal-biosphere-2391694

[1] “Montreal Biosphere / Buckminister Fuller,” ArchDaily, 25 November, 2014, < https://www.archdaily.com/572135/ad-classics-montreal-biosphere-buckminster-fuller > [accessed 12 March 2018] (para. 1 of 8) [2] Fry, Design Futuring, p3 8

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Figure 2

Image source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Biosph%C3%A8re#/media/File:17-08-islcanus-RalfR-DSC_3883.jpg

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A1.2 CASE STUDY 2 PROJECT:

DOLPHIN EMBASSY

ARCHITECT:

ANT FARM

PROJECT YEAR:

1974

In the design futuring, to rethink design in a critical way and

be willing to challenge the preoccupied cognition are very significant. As Dunne and Raby asserted, “Not taking things for granted, being sceptical, and always questioning what is given[2].” The possible alternatives could be changing the aiming clients of design, transforming the centeredness from human beings into our planetary habitation, which could be very much effective to facilitate the natural environment.

The dolphin embassy is a totally new proposal that attempts to build communication between the humankind and the dolphins which make them live in the same environment. The design proposal is super special at the start. The default aiming client is converted to people and dolphin rather than centralise human as in the conventional design. The design brief begins to prioritise the dolphin’s comforts and living habits in order to build their relationship with highly ethical and ecological values. Meanwhile, the designer also critically comes up with a completely new living way that animals can live with human beings to learn more about each other. Although it was never built, as Dunne and Raby argued in the “Speculative everything, “conceptual design exists as a form of critique looks for a sustainable way of living and building, questioning and challenging the preoccupied way of thinking and utilising

[1] Anthony & Fiona, Speculative Everything, P34.

[2] Anthony & Fiona, Speculative Everything, P34.

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that technologies placed on us, to break the rules that set up everything what is mean to be[1].”

Likewise, the Mediated Matter group abandons traditional materials like plastic and redirects to explore biodegradable materiality and computational fabrication in effective customization and versatility. Their design regards the design and natural environment in the same height, which is composed of Nature-inspired Design and Designinspired Nature. Their critical design not only proves the high achievement that sustainable materials could have done but provides us with a new perspective of material ecology and presents the ways that could never be done without computerisation, which challenges and breaks our normal ways of thinking. They disapprove the prevailing materiality and production process but offer a way that solves weakness with existing normality[2].

Both of the projects challenge the conventional design by considering design in a human-equal-nature level, one thinks for an ecological living way and the other researches in biological materiality, both breaking people’s inherent value and broaden the ways of achieving sustainable inhabitant from critical perspectives.

Figure 3

Image source: http://www.hiddenarchitecture.net/2016/02/dolphin-embassy.html

Figure 1 CONCEPTUALISATION 11

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Designers should become the facilitators of flow, rather thant the originors of maintainable things such as discrete products or imagesâ&#x20AC;? [1] - Wood John

[1] Wood John (2007). Design for Micro-Utopias: Making the unthinkable possible (Aldershot: Gower).

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A.2 DESIGN COMPUTATION A super expanding relationship between computer and

architecture has been built, thus architects become much closer to engineers and they are pushing designs into a more logical and precise way. As we are gradually shifted from computerisation (utilise computers to visualise form) and computation (utilise a computer to conceptualise and generate form) at the moment. Computerisation has witnessed a digital continuum from design to computation, from form generation to fabrication design[2]. In previous decades, CAD programs can simply just represent and visualise ideas that already conceptualised in architect’s mind[3]. Nonetheless, computation emphasises algorithms with parameters and designer’s logical thinking instead of eye-catching free-form geometry, which requires the designers high engagement and close connection to the engineers, as Wood asserted, “Designers should become the facilitators of flow, rather than the originators of maintainable things such as discrete products or images[4].”

As far I’m concerned, design computation provides designers with a platform to cooperate with engineers and enables them to explore potentials regarding materiality and more certain controls in building’s spatial quality through parametric algorithms. It encourages research-based and experimenting design, tectonically expressed as a “poetics of construction” and engineering, which demonstrates the current relationship among the architects, constructing manager and structural engineers. This allows perfomative design exploring a broader range of materiality, as well as working in more accurate simulation and formalising in a higher level of complexity and variability, Developing from the basis relationship between logical structures and formal expression.

[2] T Oxman, Yehuda E. (2004). Architecture’s new media: Principles, theories, and methods of computer-aided Design (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press), pp.5-25 [3] Terzidis, Kostas (2006). Algorithmic Architecture (Boston, MA: Elsevier), p.xi.

[4] John, Design for Micro-Utopias.

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A2.1 CASE STUDY 1 PROJECT:

LIQUID HUMAN DANCING

ARCHITECT:

THE WONDERLAB

PROJECT YEAR:

/

Robotics and algorithms play quite important roles in

broadening researching realms and types. The project of the form-finding evolution of liquid, this orientational porous structure is gotten from the liquid digital simulation and fabricated by robots via a series of algorithmic calculation. In the beginning, in order to govern the design of such an uncertain system like a liquid membrane, the wonder lab decided to work it out by designing modern concept by moving decisively away from certainty and linearity. More specifically, the classic mechanical model explains the domination of traditional design giving away to computational method. This is one of the most dramatic shifts in expression technique since the vest development of computer hardware and progression in numerical method. The platform of Reat Flow has provided a possible solution to capture the nonlinearity. Some regular fluid behaviour generated by structure, such as splash. Flow and vertex are listed by the tests from roboticsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; hours of weaving and 3d printing work. This emerging behaviour can create special structures, which is the same as the liquid structure in real life. Later on, they used the robots to do some tests, which were aiming to test the feasibility

of weavings, their tolerance, and cooperation to robots, as well as testing the possibility of weaving multiple layers and also trying to test out the maximum working efficiency. The whole test is divided into two sections of each layer and achieved by robots that following the series of grasshopper scripting algorithms. The whole process only takes 28 minutes, which is very efficient.

How computation unpacks and explores the hard-control structure in high complexity has been perfectly represented in this project. Analysing and simulating liquid structure via 3d modelling and diagrams, test and fabricate it via robotic techniques finally obtain two ways of representation. Each of the steps is in high accuracy and certain control, which cannot be achieved at all without computation. The formfinding evolution of liquid has perfectly represented how deep research and experimentation computational design can make, which shows us the potentials and prosperous future of computation design.

Figure 4 14

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Image source: Image source: http://www.w-o-n-d-e-r-l-a-b.com/portfolio/fluid/

Figure 5

Image source: Image source: http://www.w-o-n-d-e-r-l-a-b.com/portfolio/fluid/

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A2.2 CASE STUDY 2 PROJECT:

DAEDALUS PAVILION

ARCHITECT:

AI BUILD & ARUP

PROJECT YEAR:

2016

Smart technology is improving with leaps and bound, 3D

printing technique with robotics can lead a cost-effective or applicable way on a very large scale. The utilisation of computational design to lower the cost of efficient construction and the significance of artificial intelligence are emphasised and envisioned. For instance, the designer of Daedalus Pavilion, Ai Build is seeking to change that and sees construction 3D printing as a possible key technology to create a new type of smart house with affordable price.

This pavilion is one of his tests, which is fabricated by robotic 3D printing and is consisted of 48 separate pieces in a rapid construction speed with accurate achievement.

The hyperbolic paraboloid structure is calculated by setting up control points of the curves and perfectly constructed

Figure 6&7 Image source: Image source: http://www.w-o-n-d-e-r-l-a-b.com/portfolio/fluid/

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by robots in a super precision, which can impossibly be done manually. Environmental-friendly, robotics applies a biodegradable filament material to the pavilion that helps to sustain our planetary inhabitant.

Meanwhile, this project is also a successful cooperation between architect and structural engineer. During construction, the structural engineering expertise Arup was mostly focused on creating a structurally sound pavilion, combined with the latest scale 3D printing technology, enabled the pavilion to be an elegant and structurally efficient form with an optimized distribution of material.

Figure 8

Image source: Image source: http://www.w-o-n-d-e-r-l-a-b.com/portfolio/fluid/

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Computational design linked to computationally driven manufacturing requires a new interpretation of the design and construction process.

- Peter Brady

[1] Peters, Brady. (2013). Computation Works: The Building of Algorithmic Thought (Architecture Design, 83,2), P14 18

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A.3 COMPOSITION / GENERATION Computational design is currently in a transformation

that brings the focus from foreground formal principals towards functional principles to adjust societal opinion such as material efficiency and sustainability[2]. Therefore, it leads to a generation of bottom-up design changed from a form-driven top style. In a way, the new custom digital tools extend the architects’ ability to create a more responsive design and deal with a highly complex situation, allowing them to make more comprehensive design decisions and able to analyse them to make more performative designs[3].

The adequate algorithmic database with multiple iterations gives rise to a trend of experimenting morphology and biological designs, which demonstrate how generative computational design can be.

However, it seems that architecture gradually becomes more like an automatic product by a series of algorithms, and design is so flexible that can be easily changed by adjusting of parameters. Although artificial intelligence is created by human, still, the computational design seems to replace lots of designer’s role and kind of restricting designer’s creativity and logical thinking. In the computational design, the shape of the design is decided by

those algorithms and changing parameters that take place in scripting the series of codes, but not architect’s thinking follow. As a result, architects are becoming more technical and straightforward, as well as designing becomes a very definite and effective logic thing that shows in a virtual drafting board. Seemingly, the design process is shifting into a highly customised, logical and precise way, however, at the same time, the designers nowadays rely more on those digital tools and kind of enjoy the convenience, customisation, and automation they brought. The current design process is more approaching to coming up with a design proposal and then computerising it, use digital tools to deal with those complex situations instead of dig into the real environment to explore and design, then creating more interesting things during the researching time.

All in all, although computerisation could cause some constraints in human’s creativity, I believe it is leading to a more intelligent and efficient future that is able to make more effective responses to the building environment and biodiversity of materialisation. Also, the design quality can usually be optimal, sustainable and biological. And I consider it will be significant to find a balance between computational automation and designers with their own creativity and critical thinking.

[2] Block, P. (2016), Parametricism’s Structural Congeniality. Archit Design, 86: 68-75. Dol: 10.1002/ad.2026 [3] Brady. Computation Works, P13 CONCEPTUALISATION 19

Figure 9

A3.1 CASE STUDY 1 PROJECT:

SILK PAVILION

ARCHITECT:

MIT MEDIA LAB

PROJECT YEAR:

2013

The generative design helps build the goal of imitating

complex biological activities of animals in architectural scale with the algorithmic application of fabrication means like robotics, 3d printing and so on. Meanwhile, not only computation can mimic biological activities, animals are also likely to “compute” material organization based on external performance criteria. For instance, MIT Media Lab make a project that explores the relationship between digital and biological fabrication on product and architectural scale in a generative way. The team programmed the robotic arm and silkworm working together to make a 3D cocoon out of a single multi-property silk thread. The generation working principal is to translate the motion-capture data into a 3D printer that connected to a robotic arm for studying the biological structure in larger scales. The silkworms’ own density variation is deployed as a biological printer, which decides the overall geometry of the pavilion via using an algorithm that assigns a single continuous thread across patches providing various degrees of density.

Figure 9, 10 & 11 Image source: https://www.archdaily.com/384271/silk-pavilion-mit-media-lab

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For the imitation of environmental and spatial qualities, the geometrical density as well as variation in natural light and heat are considered. Hence, a season-specific mapping of solar trajectories dictated the location, size and density of apertures within the structure to lock-in rays of natural light entering the pavilion. This reveals digital fabrication’s another significant role as an environmental supervisor.

Meanwhile, for the other basically parallel research, it explored the use of silkworms as entities that can “compute” material organization in some way. Specifically, the formation of non-woven fiber structures generated by the silkworms as a computational schema for determining shape and material optimization of fiber-based surface structures are digitally explored in combining design thinking of generation and composition.

Figure 12 & 13

Image source: https://www.archdaily.com/384271/silk-pavilion-mit-media-lab

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A3.2 CASE STUDY 2 PROJECT:

BUDIDESA ART PARK

ARCHITECT:

ARANDA LASCH

PROJECT YEAR:

2015

The

generative design is a process of form-finding, moreover, it could be applied into cultural combination of architectures in the same way. Aiming to get a balance regarding living way between different nations of residence, the challenge can be putting various culture into a sensitive ecological and cultural area. The design way of combining generation and composition can logically help that to compromise artistically. In this project called Budidesa Art Park, it utilises the combination of generative and compositional design to satisfy the various types of residences here. In this park, each room is a separate small building arranged dynamically across the site, and it is highly compromised among different vernacular architecture and make them involve into surrounding environments through a strategy of creating a Balinese Subak Cultural Landscape.

The landscape applies compositional design, which owns a continuous circuit to the nature in portions of the UNESCO World Heritage Site. Obviously, the landscape symbolises

Figure 14, 15 & 16 Image source: h http://arandalasch.com/works/budidesa-art-park/

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cultural attractions, featuring artwork and pavilions from East Asian and Western contemporary artists, which is close to the prevalent art island of Naoshima in Japan and Inhotim in Brazil. The ancient locally cultural elements are also demonstrated with the help of generative design.

The surrounding rice paddies are watered through an ancient system called Subak which is the place for annual rhythm of water distribution tuned through a collective, decision-making process. This project has illustrated how architectural and landscape design can help maintain the cultural identity of the Subak system while supporting a framework for the display of contemporary art and other cultural identities. Generative design with part of composition help the project capable of constructing an evolving system in sustaining new forms of culture when itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s facing through the rising pressure from a growing population and increasing tourism.

Figure 16 & 17

Image source: h http://arandalasch.com/works/budidesa-art-park/

Image source: Image source: http://www.w-o-n-d-e-r-l-a-b.com/portfolio/fluid/

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A.4 CONCLUSION As weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re living in a highly digitalised and technological

era, the majority are experiencing a transition being computerised and to be computational. Architects, as a group of people who are capable of exerting impacts to the existing environment, keep sensible to the trending of the world, and could be those who take the lead in making innovative or revolutionary changes. With the rapid development of digital technology, the design means including the design options, designing process, researching fields and ways of fabrication have been changed a lot. Design decision have been more and more approaching to sustainability, cost-efficiency, optimise environments instead of profit-orient pursue of goodlooking design in the previous decades.

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Meanwhile, architects are simultaneously involving in an examining period, instead of merely taking a role as designer, they are required to be in close touches with computation, construction and engineering. However, when embracing the total convenience brought by customized digital tools with large data base of algorithms, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s important for architects to remember keeping critical thinking and creativity all the time and realise the significance to make appropriate design decisions that can really do some difference to the situation.

A.5 LEARNING OUTCOMES The part a – conceptualisation makes us have a general understanding of the fluctuation as well as revolutionary transformation that digital age is experiencing. The writing improves our critical thinking and capacity of addressing arguments a lot. Meanwhile, from doing those case studies, by learning about architects’ design decisions to different projects and their utilisation of customised computational means, I was getting to know the entirely new ways of design which is so different from conventional design. Simultaneously, I realise the cost-effective and highly intelligent fabricating ways such as 3d printing, CNC

machine and robotics arm might weight so importantly in the transformation of constructing means. They might be able to replace the traditional construction men and contribute to evolve into an ecological and cost-effective constructing environment in a more efficient and accurate way. The prospect of exploring a much larger range of materiality and more complex design proposals can be envisioned in the close future. In addition, for myself, I was getting to know what studio air hopes us to do and I’m really looking forward to the later study of computational design.

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A.6 APPENDIX

EDGE SURFACE by 4 curves

LOFT SURFACE by 2 parallel curves

SWEEP 1 RAIL by 2 adjacent curves

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PSEUDO ALGORITHM

Get a Curve in Golden Ratio

Divide ponts on the curve

GRASSHOPPER SHELL

Interpolate + Perp Frames on Golden Ratio

Rendered Shell

POPULATED 2D & DELAUNAY WITH VORONOI

POPULATED 2D WITH DELAUNAY CONNECTIVITY

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POPULATED 2D WITH VORONOI

Set Frames on Each point

Get Sphere to Connect Those Frames and Fulfill the Shell

Rendered Shell

HEXGRID WITH DELAUNAY CONNECTIVITY

HEXGRID WITH VORONOI

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MORPH BOX FAMILY CELL

ITERATION 1

HEXAGON: POROUS; TUNNEL-LIKE

CUBOID: FLEXIBLE; LARGE SURFACE AREA; UNIT

CUBOID: BRIDGE-LIKE; MULTI-SCALE; MULT-ANGLE; CAN BOTH BE DARK AND BRIGHT

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ITERATION 2

ITERATION 3

ITERATION 4

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Block, P. (2016), Parametricism’s Structural Congeniality. Archit Design, 86: 68-75. Dol: 10.1002/ ad.2026/ad. 2029 Dunne, Anthony & Raby, Fiona (2013), Speculative Everything: Design Fiction, and Social Dreaming (MIT Press) pp. 1-9, 33-45.

Fry, Tony (2008), Design Futuring: Sustainability, Ethics and New Practice (Oxford: Berg), pp.

1–16.

“Montreal Biosphere / Buckminister Fuller,” ArchDaily, 25 November, 2014, < https://www.archdaily. com/572135/ad-classics-montreal-biosphere-buckminster-fuller > [accessed 12 March 2018] , para.

1 of 8.

Oxman, Rivka and Robert Oxman, eds (2014). Theories of the Digital in Architecture (London; New York: Routledge), pp. 1–10 Peters, Brady. (2013). Computation Works: The Building of Algorithmic Thought , Architecture Design, 83,2, pp. 08-15 Terzidis, Kostas (2006). Algorithmic Architecture (Boston, MA: Elsevier), pp. xi.

Wood John (2007). Design for Micro-Utopias: Making the unthinkable possible (Aldershot: Gower), PP

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