Design Studio: Air
Rocialles, Benjamin Dillenburger
“Conceptulaization begins to determine WHAT is to be built [...] and HOW it will be built.” Cf. AIA National and AIA California Council, Integrated Project Delivery: A Guide (AIA, 2007 [cited 28 February 2013]); available from http:// www.aia.org/groups/aia/documents/pdf/alab083423.pdf.
PART A. CONCEPTUALISATION
Architecture as public art
Architecture as a human collaborating practice to modify environments, it is indeed an act of producing public art that expresses ideas of a social context. Architecture provides people with a carefully articulated space to explore. The typical visual and spatial sensations evoked by architecture will stimulate subconscious interpretation of the environments and culture. Finally new ideas can be invoked, and new behavior code is shaped. Hence in architecture, there is the potential of opening new dialogues for a healthy public debate on the ongoing or upcoming discourse. Architecture as public art can draw public attention and contribute ideas to the generation of new discourse and facilitate
the transformation of cultural landscape. As an architectural design erected as a piece of public artwork, the façade of Brisbane’s Domestic Terminal Car Park is one those cases that can struck an strong emotional chord in the visitors and stimulate new readings into the power of nature, and in the meantime, anchor the features of local culture and community spirits. Designed by American artist Ned Kahn and Urban Art Projects (UAP) in cooperation with Hassell Architecture, the car park of Brisbane’s Domestic Terminal is transformed into an eight-storey kinetic public artwork to evoke a spectacular and welcoming experience for millions of arrivals at the gate-
way to Queensland. The façade, as a piece of public artwork demonstrates an innovative combination of art and architecture. With 250,000 swinging shimmering panels covering the entire eastern façade of the car park, this evocative piece of art captures the dynamic movement of the wind and light on the site, therefore produces an ever-changing pattern that responds to the natural environment all the time. An artist’s desire in encouraging a direct dialogue between human and nature, invoking wonder and admiration towards the power of nature is achieved by revealing natural invisible forces with an immense animate façade.
At the same time, appearing as public art, the façade in fact is also an integrated part of the architectural design for the whole car park, which is aiming at high level of environmental performance. The permeable panels provide shading to the interior with intricate light patterns and modify the wind for natural ventilation for the roofed car park space. Therefore the façade converges into the architectural design intents for a synthesizing solution to a high sustainability agenda. Against the backdrop of a global concern over unsustainability, this piece of public art presented in an architectural form reveals the community’s willingness in taking responsibility in the
process of green transition. Moreover, the artistic intention turns out to be a successful attempt in promoting local culture while transforming a generally monotonous structure for simple public functions into a thrilling monument of the community spirit. It offers a strong statement of the community’s identity with its site-specific reference inscribed in the dynamic façade responding to the local environmental elements. The impressive image of the skyhigh canvas fulfills the community’s dedication in ensuring an impressive experience for the millions of passengers arrived at the terminal each year. “This art will complement the cultural renaissance shift throughout
Brisbane” and it “significantly improved the international passenger experience and this new car park and art feature is the first step in improving the experience for domestic passengers”, BAC Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, Julieanne Alroeas said. Architecture as public art offers evocative visual and spatial experience, it can raise the public awareness towards the modified environments and embark on the reflections on our surrounding environments. It is also a powerful instrument for the expression of local culture and celebration of community spirits as it manifests the local features and communal ideas.
Architecture as a statement of green transition
Since architecture as public art has the capacity of giving expressions to ideas which contributes to the generation or elaboration of new discourse and cultural transformation, architecture can be a instrumental vehicle for the pursuit of green transition. Green transition now is of global concern as we are confronted with issues such as global warming, climate change, limited resources, etc. The urge for green transition to ensure a sustainable life cycle for human race is the fundamental drive for many world-leading innovative design. One of the most prominent instances that have been put forward is the winning architectural plan by Adrian
Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture for the EXPO 2017 that will be held in Astana, Kazakhstan. The theme of EXPO 2017 is “Future Energy”. Based on this concept, AS+GG develops an ambitious design as to establish the first Third Industrial Revolution city. By making buildings themselves a power generator, the energy consumed in the new city will be all from renewable resources. “The forms and language of the buildings are designed to reduce their energy needs and operate as “power plants” that harness energy from the sun and wind, says AS+GG Partner Gordon Gill, FAIA. “The buildings will use this power directly or supply it to
the district-wide smart grid for storage or use.” Following the principle as form follows performance, all the buildings are designed in a way that can maximize its energy performance and increase comfort levels. Studies on initiatives such as reducing energy consumption, increasing energy harvesting are taken to develop suitable forms in respect to the conditions of each site. For example, the iconic structure, the Kazakhstan Pavilion is an integrated set of power generating systems such as photovolatics that produce energy. Its skin is transformative so as to control thermal loss and interior glare.
A significant aspect that this project presents is the innovative design thinking enabled by advancing technologies during the design process. The design process is obviously an integrated one that synthesizes performance, construction, materials, aesthetics, culture and so on with the assistance of computation technologies so as to guarantee the performance of the building after its construction. An extensive collaborative network including different areas of expertise such as energy, electricity, construction, etc. is involved so as to ensure an informed design outcome. Such an innovative design process also considers the lifespan of the project, hence establishes a “legacy mode”
that assists the city to keep on function after the event of EXPO. The typical feature that gives this design extra credits to win the competition is its foresight in the future of the city after the exposition. “The advantages of the project is that all of the objects after the exhibition can be changed, disassembled or converted, that is, the demolition of the buildings is not required,” as is claimed by the EXPO jury. Hence in this masterplan for a new city of Kazakhstan, we can see a dedication in producing a statement of green transition. Changing the building itself into a power generator using renewable energy technologies makes the building itself a signature of a sustainable
future. Moreover, the design process involving an interdisciplinary cooperation to foresee the performance of a design outcome also declares a major revolution in the design thinking towards a green future and predicts the future of architecture as a design practice embodying the green transition. It is a holistic, integrated design approach that explores symbiotic relationships with the natural environment. “The expressive architectural language of the EXPO-2017 object is unique, it carries a colossal advantage to Kazakhstan, but more importantly the project will create a legacy, for our country and for the world,” says the host of the exposition.
PART A. CONCEPTUALISATION A.2. Design Computation
A.2. Design Computation
Guggenheim Museum, 1997 Bilbao Spain Frank Gehry http://www.guggenheim.org/bilbao
A New Design Thinking: Internal Logic Architecture has long been seen as a significant medium to capture the zeitgeist and distribute new discourses. With Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace in London and Gustave Eiffel’s Tower in Paris, the arrival of the Industrial Age was announced and followed by a century of soaring glass and concrete towers erected all over the world in a wave of massive metropolitan expansion. With the establishment and speeding development of digital technologies, we are now in an Information Age. However, the integration of computation technologies into the domain of architectural design is stagnant. It was not until the end of the 20th century, the first monument to capture the zeitgeist of the Information Age was constructed and it was Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. With a massive dynamic volume warped up by the spectacular curvilinear surface, this structure reveals the power of computer in terms of presenting complex organic form that can never be fully conceived simply by human mind. But on the other hand, this proj-
ect also suggests the limits of the dominating architectural design thinking as computer as only used as a medium for the reproduction of a pre-conceptualized form rather than as a form generator. This is a result of a design thinking that is articulated from a perspective of form and geometries, which has been developed for centuries with the practices of 2-D presentation skills as it is hard for human brains to incorporate multiple streams of information at the same time without visually or spatially conceiving. However, through out the architectural history, architects have been trying their best to explore the internal logic of forms rather than formal presentations. For example, Le Corbusier’s Dom-ino structure provided the prototype for basic framework for concrete construction while achieving the free plan and free façade. It also layed the foundation for prefabrication in mass production process in the architectural production industry. Hence, by investigating the internal logic of forms,
it is the opportunity of innovation of joining construction and architecture to produce poetic outcomes that represent the zeitgeist and distribute new discourse. And today, with the computation technologies, we have a ever powerful capacity to explore this internal logic of forms and the new generation of architectural design is particularly showing this instrumental power of computation design. Computation technologies allow us to explore the relationship between forms via morphogenesis process. Architectural design as the inherent mutations of matter in which geometry and production are in an integrated process of variable actualization. Morphogenetic processes provide conditions of “multiple singularities” in a “continuum in perpetual evolution.” In effect, formation precedes form, and design becomes the thinking of architectural generation through the logic of algorithm. This is truly the shift towards a topological logic independent from the formal and linguistic models of form representation.
Constructed in 2002, more than a decade ago, the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion is one of the earliest precedents that utilize the computation technology in the exploration of internal relationships and develop the form. It is designed by AGU (Advanced Geometry Unit), which was founded with the dedication to investigate complex structural geometry for new architectural solutions. AGU is a multidisciplinary group constituted with architects, engineers and scientists and they derive forms from “interior dynamics that grow their own logic�. In the case of the Serpen-
tine Gallery Pavilion, they start with an experiment on the geometric algorithms to examine the internal logic for structure and spatial organization. The initial aim is to generate a rich and complex pattern that is evolved from a simple rule and realize a structure that can be constructed within fourteen weeks. By modifying the logic in the organization of cutting lines on a simple square plan and continuously subdivide the surface following the same logic, they gradually reached a complex pattern that is evolved from the same internal logic. While deriving an internal
logic for the organization of the elements, a structural hierarchy is developed at the same time. With the assistance of computation technologies, they can even test out the tension and compression for each of the structural member so as to adjust them to match its construction performance. Furthermore, the joining details for each of the member were also envisioned in the design process. The final production turns out to be a structure in the form of a ziggurat and an intrinsic aesthetic effect was evoked out of the sheer structure.
A New Design Thinking: Evidence- and Performance-oriented Design The form derived from an analysis of the internal logic of relationships enabled by computation technologies leads to a future architectural design that is oriented by evidence and performance. One of the successful examples that integrate the performance exploration during the design stages is the London City Hall designed by Norman Foster. The initial design idea of the city hall was simply a formal response to the landscape of the site and the brief of the project. However, as the design goes further, performance became the driving force for the transformation of the form, hence the resulted outcome embodies a series of rationalized logics based on the performance aspects. The initial idea was to absorb the views over the river into the building, but somehow became a formal analogy as pebble. Then starting from the “pebble”, they build up parametric sphere and with a set of algorithm, they can control the proportional relationships of
the sphere. Hence they oriented the main axis towards the midday sun and alter the curves of side elevations so as to minimize the surface for solar gain. Hence a rationale of the internal logic gradually evolves and finds its expression in the way of a form. Following detailed studies on paneling, solar gain, and acoustic analysis, the form keeps evolving in the striving for the best environmental and functional performance, and at the same time, aesthetic effect. The process of these studies involves an intensive network between the architects, engineers, manufacturer and so on since every time, when a new form is derived, it will be sent to the expertise to test its performance and the form will be transformed accordingly again and again. As it continues, the form gradually becomes stable. The designers progress to the details of construction by studying the construction components and construction procedure. During this
“post-rationalization” process, further studies on the geometry and detailed component elements were taken, which ensures the design intent was communicated to the contractors clearly and in a constructable manmer. Hence, in the case of London City Hall, the incredible power of computation in architectural design process is revealed. It enabled the study of internal logics, so that evidence or performance driven design is achievable. Moreover, it presents us with a chance to come up with a holistic solution due to an integrated design process. With digitized Interdisciplinary communication facilitates the cooperation between expertise specializing in different domains. Hence a radical change in the design thinking and making will take place. We are to discover aesthetics that is derived in the course of evolving the internal logics rather than simply from a presentation point of view.
PART A. CONCEPTUALISATION A.2. Composition/Generation
As is discussed in the previous chapter, integrating computing into the architectural design process presents us with a unique opportunity in producing innovative design with inspirational form and advanced performance. Especially, by utilizing the computation technique in conceptual generation, a major shift in design thinking from composition to generation is around the corner. Existing architectural literature and practice are both responding to this revolutional force actively with diverse attitudes. “Computation is redefining the practice of architecture”, written by Brady Peter in the introduction to The Building
of Algorithmic Thought . Many of most forward architectural entities around the world have computation integrated into their design process to different degrees while producing major projects. For instance, as one of the most influential architectural design firms, Foster + Partners has established the Specialist Modeling Group (SMG) as early as 1998, and in just one and half decades, SMG today has evolved into a team of expertise from different disciplines such as architects, structural and environmental engineers, all of whom contribute their disciplinary knowledge in the process of formulating an integrated design solution .
Such an extensive network of interdisciplinary cooperation is enabled by the adoption of algorithmic thinking instead of the representational mode of thinking as the foundation of design thinking. An algorithm is a set of instructions written in a coded language understood by computer . This suggests architects are “taking on an interpretive role” in generating forms rather than simply composing forms from a representational point of view, as it provide architects the tools to utilize data regarding structural, material and environmental performance as a set of fundamental parameter during the creation of architectural conception .
Guangzhou Opera House, 2010, Guangzhou Zaha Hadid Architectcts
Images from http://www.zaha-hadid.com/architecture/guangzhou-opera-house/
One of the most powerful manifestations of algorithmic thinking in architectural design industry is the integration of parametric modeling software. Nowadays, heaps of thrilling projects with avant-garde forms can be found and many of them are the testaments of power of parametric modeling in achieving complex forms. The popularity of Zaha Hadid’s evocative and somewhat bizarre form is impossible to achieve without parametric modeling tools. Patrik Schumacher, as a partner of Zaha Hadid Architects, is obviously fond of parametric design and declares Parametricism as a new style . However, be Parametricism a style a not, the design technique Zaha utilizing still falls into the conventional realm of composition and computing is only used as a tool for representing a pre-conceptualized form. As is discussed in the chapter of
Design Futuring, though innovative and thrilling as it is, “Zaha Hadid Style� fails to recognize the most instrumental capability of parametric design as it fails to incorporate constructional information in conceptual generation stage. But the works of Zaha Hadid Architects still prove the unimaginable ability of parametric modeling in the achievement of innovative complex forms. Parametric modeling as a design tool, its most significant competence of is that it expands the reservoir of experimental architecture by enabling architects to explore potential forms while simulating their performance . In the working space of parametric modeling tools, forms are generating by formulae that defines relationships between geometries. Hence both the generation and modification of the form in response to the performance
feedback can be made at various stages during the design process by sketching or manipulating with algorithm . However conventional design method with compositional thinking derives architects with such ability because it would be almost impossible to change an established form considering the incredible workload of manually remodeling each individual component in a complex entity. Hence algorithmic thinking presents us with a unique opportunity of producing responsive architecture with integrated design decision . And works of world leading design entities such as Foster + Partners, ICD (Institute for Computational Design), and so on all demonstrate this exciting innovational trend that algorithmic thinking brings to us.
ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion, 2012 Inst. for Computational Design (Prof. Menges) Inst. of Building Structures & Structural Design (Prof. Knippers) Competence Network Biomimetics Baden-Württemberg
http://icd.uni-stuttgart.de/?p=8807
Another powerful aspect of algorithmic thinking is that it brings scripting culture into architectural design and frees architects’ creativity from the pre-conditioned design software. Creativity of designers is always limited by designing tools. It is the same case for traditional computing techniques. But
algorithmic design thinking enables designers to write programs with scripting languages, hence architects can “customize their design environments in their existing architectural design software”, in other words, create their own set of designing tools . Moreover, Brady further asserts, as architects writ-
ing and modifying algorithms, they are not only making digital tools, but they also have the creation of these custom tools integrated into the whole picture of the design . This again shows us the incredible power of algorithmic thinking in the conceptual generation of an integrated architectural design.
Base Surface
Applying the definition of Case Study 2.0 to different types of base surface
Variation in uv parameters
Applying the culling pattern abstracted from images to the arrays of cells
End Notes 1 Oxman, Rivka and Robert Oxman, eds (2014). Theories of the Digital in Architecture (London; New York: Routledge), pp. 1-10. 2 Kolarevic, Branko, (2003). Architecture in the Digital Age: Design and Manufacturing (New York; London: Spon Press), pp. 1-62. 3 Institute of Computational Design, (2012). ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion 2012 http://icd.uni-stuttgart.de/?p=8807.