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GROWING ARCHITECTURE Portfolio Li Ce

Apply to UPenn MSD B.Arch From Southeast University licearch@outlook.com

Content PART I

BIONT-EVOLUTION

Cube Evolution Self-Renovation and Selection Academic: Parametric Design/2014 Group Work Rooms for Creator Functions and Combination Academic: Student Center Design/2013 Individual Work

PART II

POPULATION-ADAPTABLITY

Home above Cloud Industrialization and Diversity Academic: Residential Area Design/2015 Individual Work Wind Island Environment and Adaptability Academic: Urban Design/2015 Individual Work With the development of biology, we have known that simple chains of DNA containing only four basic groups actually describe almost all of creatures in the world. Would that be possible for people to create a similar system to describe architecture whose number is much smaller than creatures on the earth? I think yes. To prove my argument, I turned to computational design of architecture, which is more logical than traditional ways. Any people with basic knowledge of math and programming could completely understand the whole architecture generated by a program. I believe this change will make our methods of design more honest and democratic.

PART III

OTHER WORKS

Other Works Digital Reappearance of Beauty Personal: Independent study/2015 Individual Work

CUBE EVOLUSION

SELF-RENOVATION AND SELECTION Academic/2014 Tutor: Michael Hansmeyer Group work Role: programmer of permutation and selection part Partner: Yao Sheng,Li Pingyuan,Wang Junmei, Qiao Jiongchen,Zhang Xingyi,Wu Mingxuan

Classification

Iteration.1

Mesh Refiner Mesh refiner is a program designed for making complex 3D objects that still can be understand.

The main part of this program is subdivision which is similar to fractal. Simple subdivision would only transform a cube into a sphere which is not what we want. However, when we use the attributes of the object itself to control the degree of transformation, we get a huge number of complex shapes. The number of them are so big that artificial selection is impossible to achieve.

Finally, we find a way to select the object we want by computer.

Another program is designed to divide shapes into groups by calculating some values of features belong to the shape.

1) Choose Attributes

Iteration.2

Iteration.3

3) Activator I

Iteration.4

different attributes types

2) Value Analysis

extrution along vector normals

expansion / contraction in the plane

4) Activator II

Iteration.5

value distribution and deformation

subdivision

lock nodes

flip faces

Iteration.6

PERMUTATION

All shapes listed above are generated by mesh refiner.

In order to choose the shape we need, I made the permutation and selection part of the whole program.

EVOLUTION

SELECTION

The first step is looking for shapes that have tiny features. As every shape is formed by faces, the area of every single faces varies. By testing some possible mathematical parameters, the ratio of the upper limit and the lower limit of faces' area is my choice to decide whether a shape have enough details.

When we export the shape that should have the most number of details, the export actually do not meet our requirement. It do have details but still like a sphere, which we want to avoid.

After analyzing the examples, I chose two special points, one is the farthest point from the center, the other is the nearest. The ratio between the distances from center to these two points could easily distinguish shapes we need from huge numbers.

By improving the program, we get an object that has details and is no longer like a sphere. What we did next is to add function requirement.

In this group, we try to generate a shape that is easy to be held in hand, which could be regarded as the most basic requirement of all things with similar function. As the size of our object is limited, it need to be like a handle. We replace the center with axis to calculate the distance.

The final export is named hourglass. When we made it out, it can be held in hand comfortably. As we only made the shell of the shape, the object could be used as a real hourglass, which is beyond my expectation.

Rendering

hour glass No.6678 selected by computer in generation.6 group

ball pedestal No.6455 selected by computer in generation.6 group

fireplace No.6001 selected by human in generation.8 group

Fabrication layers accumulation

original mesh

intersections

contours

optimize position

sheet layout

accumulate layers

photos of half-making

During 8 weeks we explored a very different method of design by programming. Different from other partners, I found that I like to design with program and values much more than the traditional way which regards beauty and feelings are much more important than parameters. In my opinion, beauty is only one of the values that the object has. Even though beauty could be the most important standard, other things like whether it is easy to be used should also be considered. I think that at a age that computer could recognize feelings of people by analyzing human faces, buildings could be possibly evaluated in the same way. Programming may be the next necessary tool for architects like CAD or Rhino.

In other side, the process of design this time is much like biological evolution, especially the permutation and selection part. It interest me about using rules of biology into architectural design. All the following projects are about my own explorations.

ROOMS FOR CREATOR

FUNCTIONS AND COMBINATION Academic/2013 Tutor: Liu Jie Student center design Individual work

Lecture It is a pity that all lectures for students are arranged far from where they study and work daily. What's more, students are not permitted to give lecture at that place.

However, many of us want to share our thinking publicly.

Road Facing one of the busiest roads in the city, the design keep distance from the road to avoid the noise from vehicles.

School The east part of the site is regarded as the main street for students because lots of buildings that serve students locate there.

Residential Area According to the survey, local residents express their willing to take part in and enjoy students' activity.

Shops Shops which provide material for making models locate outside the school, which is not convenient for students.

Model Making When students want to make something by laser cut or 3D-printing, they need to walk about one kilometer from where they design.

Communication Communication means a lot to those who want to create new things. However, we students mostly communicate at restaurant according to the survey, which means we do need a certain space especially for communication

Circulatory System

Lecture/Thinking Input: curiosity Output: idea

Studio/Chat Input: idea Output: blueprint

Model/Practice Input: blueprint Output: product

Exhibiton/Show Input: product Output: curiosity

Functions and Combination

multiple working table

discussion and debate space

reading space

lecture room

model making room

exhibition places

As the size of the building is limited by the site, how to arrange all given functions into the building is the main problem that I want to solve in the design. After analyzing the connection between functions, I found that imitating the development of biological organ works. Stream of students connects all spaces like circulatory system do in human body.

Inspiration and ideas According to the survey I did, students get creative ideas during lectures and exhibitions most often, especially ones about new technology and art forms.

Communication and design As ideas could not be perfect at the very beginning, students always turn to their friends to get some suggestions. After that, specific design is prepared to be printed out.

Practice and fabrication Only when ideas become true, they create value. This space is designed for students with great plan to bring their creative thinking to reality.

Exhibition Works could be set in special space for expressing what creators' thinking. What's more, students may get inspiration from such exhibition then make it true as circulation.

HOME ABOVE CLOUD

INDUSTRIALIZATION AND DIVERSITY Academic/2015 Tutor: Ma Jin Residental area design Individual work

To meet the mixed requirement of design. The whole residential area is separated in two parts by a designed platform. This platform provides place for people lived here playing and communicating with each other without being bothered by business activities.

atrium that designed for leisure activity core access

core access shops under the cloud

center of the single platform offers place for sports

core access access to the platform share the common space

The facade of every single building is calculating by program which is specially designed for this site. I select the condition of sunshine and sight-seeing as the most important parameter to control the generetion of facade. After hundreds generations of program running, The last version could meet the complex needs of the building.

main business routine

main business street

This residential area is designed for low-income people to live in at first and transformed into normal house afterwards. SI system, a kind of Block-based design, seems a reasonable method to meet this requirement.

Besides prefabricated toilet and kitchen, every furniture that is accord with fixed module could fit the room well. The cushion under the wall make it easier to transform the house type.

Block-based Toilet

Block-based Kitchen

Mesh Standard

Function

Unit A

Unit B

Unit C

Unit D

Unit E

Skeleton

Unit E+B

Unit B+E+B

Unit D*

TYPE A

The balcony in type A is designed for two families with different requirement of space. The left side is for people who need more space of storing while the other side is designed for people to plant.

TYPE B

The balcony in typeB is designed for two families which both need more space to store objects, as this residental area is provided to low-income people, this kind of requirement has about one-third ratio.

TYPE C

This type of balcony is similar to the type A. The difference is the function of the open part. In this type, the open part is for people to enjoy sunshine, especially dor some elders.

The whole facade consists of these three basic elements which is shown below, type A, type B, type C. It is easy to combine these three elements into a whole graphic with the size of certain building randomly, the main part of the program is try to evaluate all the possibilities, The position and the size of every single building is decided before. According to the local low of residential area and the data of local climate, it is possible for me to make the digital model of the residential area and evaluate the sunshine condition of every single family.

However, single parameter could not judge all things. Sight is the another thing that is important. As different balcony is designed for different families and our policy is to break the generation gap of all people lived here, three kinds of balconies need to be balanced.

Here we have two main parameters, by collecting the data of these two things, I finally build the model for evaluating every possibilities of facade.

DATA ANALYSIS

SUNSHINE ADAPTION

Distribution of Values of All Possibilities

Score.type

9.0/9.0

HOUSE TYPE ADAPTION

8.0/9.0

TYPE A

A

A AA A A

x3

A A/B

TYPE B

B

B B B B B B B

7.0/9.0

x3

B/C C

TYPE C

C

C C C CCC

x3

C A C B B A

C

B

B B C A A B Focade.G Score.type Score.light Score.sum

C

A B B

B

C

B

C

C

B

B

C B

Gene.A 8.8 5.8 14.6 B

B

B C

A Focade.A Score.type Score.light Score.sum

B

B C C B B C

B

A B B B C

A

C

B

C

C

Gene.B 8.8 6.4 15.2 C C

C

C C

A A

B

C

B

B

A A

B

B C

A

A A

B Focade.H Score.type Score.light Score.sum

Focade.C Score.type Score.light Score.sum

C

A

A

C

C

A

A

A

A

B

A

B

B

C

C

A

B

C

C

C B B B B B

C Focade.I Score.type Score.light Score.sum

C

A

B C

C

C

B A

C

A

B A

B

Gene.I 7.2 7.4 14.6

B

C

C

C

C

A B A B

C

A

A C

C

C

C

A

A

Gene.C 8.2 6.2 14.4 C

A

Gene.H 6.5 7.3 13.8

C

B A

A Focade.B Score.type Score.light Score.sum

C

Gene.G 7.6 7.5 15.1

B B C

Focade.D Score.type Score.light Score.sum

Gene.D 8.5 7.0 15.5

Focade.E Score.type Score.light Score.sum

A

C C B B B A

B

B

A

B

B

B

B

C

A

C

C

C

A Focade.J Score.type Score.light Score.sum

Gene.J 6.8 7.8 14.6

B

B

B

B

C

C

C

C

A

A

A

B Focade.K Score.type Score.light Score.sum

C A B C A B

B A C C

A

B

C

B

C

A

A

C

B A

C

B C

A

Gene.E 8.2 7.0 15.2 B

6.0/9.0

C

A Focade.F Score.type Score.light Score.sum

C B A C A

C

C

A

C

B

A

B

A

A

C

B

A

Gene.K 6.3 7.8 14.1

B

Focade.L Score.type Score.light Score.sum

A B B

5.0/9.0

C B

Gene.F 7.8 6.8 14.6

A C

A

A

A C C A C

4.0/9.0

B A A

3.0/9.0

A A C

C

Gene.L 5.2 7.9 13.1

3.0/8.0

4.0/8.0

Points which Represent possibilities

5.0/8.0 Requirement of Certain Building

6.0/8.0

7.0/8.0

Score.light

8.0/8.0

Score.light

Score.type

WIND ISLAND

ENVIRONMENT AND ADAPTABLITY Academic/2015 Tutor: Xu Xiaodong Urban design Individual work

I - ROAD 1. All main roads are defined by intersections.

II - DIVERSITY 1.The number of seeds of blocks depends on the area of district that is to be separated. All seeds are on the inner contour of district.

IV - REALITY

III - CONNECTION 1. A block is defined by several attributes

2. Intersections on the edge divide the edge into parts with various length which need to be limited.

1. The data of similar urban area in the same city is collected for judging the exact parameters refered before. The graph above is the nearest one which is regarded as the most important reference.

Limits The length of a single line must be in the range from X meters to Y meters. (The specific data is from local law.)

The initiate angle of the new road is limited to meet the traffic requirement.

Attributes the size of the block thickness of buildings position of entrances size of entrances The size is defined by the roads created before, the depth of buildings need to be integral multiple of standard column spacings.When the size of an entrance reach 0, it means that this entrance does not exist. seed of block Parameters

2.Secondary road system is created by voronoi diagram. The length of a single line is limited as the main road system.

The width of roads Permitted angle of crossroads Appropriate size of blocks The mathematic connection between function and depth

2. New intersections are under the same angle limit as old ones.

Besides main parameters listed above, there are much more other detail parameters used for control the urban pattern.

center park entertainment

3. Main road system is created by the points defined on the edges of any given graphic.

hotel area residental area

3.By giving each center of blocks special weighting in voronoi, the whole system become relatively flexible. This feature play an important role in the adaptability of this digital model.

2.The connective access of blocks are defined as ellipses whose long axis is judged by the distance between the center of blocks. The minor axis of the ellipse is in relation to functions of certain pair.

2.When calculating parameters used to define the ellipse, the output suit the mathmetic model well, which confirm that this method of modification works.

V - EVOLUTION road structure

block defination

block expandation

traffic optimazation

block connection

final plan Final choice Every step of generating the final plan can be separate into smaller steps. To be simple, I summarize four main parts of generation. Besides generation of plans, selection or optimization of the plan play important role, too. Actually, comparison between parallel plans uses some parameters used for generating. Other standards of evaluating considered sunshine, wind condition, human activity which will be shown on the last page.

The site is located on an artificial island which is near the edge of a lake. It is easy to analyze such simple environment without much buildings around. As the data of climate and the model of this part of the city is free to get, I decide to generate a digital model of my design.

This model need to be flexible and have the ability of adapting environment like a creature. As it has shown in the masterplan above, the final design imitate the near district without directly artificial revising. Using rules defined before, it is possible for me to use the same model in other site, which means that the potential value of this model is larger than a single design.

Site Adaptation

Before Adaptation

After Adaptation

Form Diversity

Sktlines in different direction judges the main trend of every single bulding pixel's height. For instance, curves shown above represent varies possibilities of skylines that the site would have in the direction which placed at the bottom.

By taking similar district in the same city as references, I finally chose a shape which suits all 3 main sight lines towards the site. The data is from the analysis of local traffic condition.

Wind Adjustability

I created a particle system to simulate the wind environment. Colors represented wind with different temperature. The drawing shows the wind condition before the model shifting. It can be seen that the center park is too cold for outdoor activities.

After running the program designed for wind-adapting, the wind condition of central park is improved much. The North part of area become taller to avoid the cold wind and the southeast part did the opposite change to let the warm air in.

Main road Noise comes from main roads. To avoid the negative effect from vehcles, medium size trees are set as walls.

Entertainment Street The street that covers the middle block is defined as the main space for people to walk or sight-seeing. It imitates alameda.

Grass and Pool The combination of plants and water is designed for outdoor activities , which need shadows offered by large size trees.

Type A

10.0+m

Type B

5.0~9.0m

Type C

3.0~5.0m

Type D

2.0~3.0m

Type E

0.5~1.0m

Sunshine Besides the requirement of human activities, the distribution of plants depends on sunshine condition.

Other works .Cellular Automata

5) transform grey scale into depth

1) basic growth of 1 and 0

I create graphics by using basic rules of cellular automata. Standard pixels could transform to another condition due to the condition of neighbour pixels. Every pixels could be black or white.

2) 3D version of basic growth

Height of single pixel depends on its grey scale.

Rules in 2-dimension could be transformed into 3-dimension.

3) turing - float

I use turing foemula to modify the generation of animal patterns like leopard or zebra.

Position of seeds control the form.

4) Turing - skin

I use this kind of pattern to cover an object like cube. Actually, it can cover any closed surface that can be diveded into mesh.

Number of pixels control the amount of details.

6) Fabrication

Other works .Traditional Pattern Renovation

CNC machine is used as the main method of fabrication. I transform the grey scale of certain image into G-Code in order to make them out.

Traditional Pattern

Photos listed below show a traditional Chinese pattern named "Gong Shi", which is always used to fill the central part of traditional window, door and railing. Craftsman take the standard pattern from the guidebook got from their teachers. However, several simple standard pattern could not fit modern requirement, which is much more flexible.

Generation Analysis

Pattern Regeneration

By typing in all rules got from traditional pattern, I finally got a program that can fill rectangles with any size. What's more, it's easy to transform such rules up to 3-dimensions. The cube, which shares the same attributes as traditional pattern but never appears, is now possibly generated by program.