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STUDIO AIR 2016, SEMESTER 2, TUTORS Hoi Man (Priscilla) Kwok

Table of Contents Introduction A. Conceptualisation A1  Design futuring A2 Design computation A3 Composition/ Generation A4 Conclusion A5 Learning outcomes A6 Appendix Algorithmic Sketches

Introduction

About myself I am Priscilla who is in my second year majoring in architecture. I started doing year 9 in a high school in Geelong in 2011 and completed VCE in 2014. I am not especially passionate about architecture, nor do I have a clear definition of it. I would say architecture to me is the creation of space and experience for people who enter it. It is the combination of aesthetics, practicality and habitation which does not merely provide shelter.

Having completed a number of studios and architecture subjects, there are some ideas that I was introduced to and concepts that I found useful. First of all, I appreciate the importance of CAD (computer-aided design) and technology that help in producing 3-dimensional sketches and prototypes that not only illustrate the proposed design in a clear and accurate way, but also allow us to produce the result with better quality and efficiency.

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CONCEPTUALISATION

This is a sleeping pod designed by myself with was created through the exploration of the system behind a given object, analysis of the system and prototyping in testing the effects, followed by digital fabrication with the aid of 2- and 3-dimensional programs and techniques in order to produce the physical sleeping pod in actual scale, aiming to provide privacy and sense of security to users.

Being portable and wearable is believed to be the biggest success of the project as where and when the sleeping pod can perform is no longer a limitation. Despite this is not a built architectual project that presents the creation of space, it does to an extent allows users to experient the sense of protection and security when it is in use. The spiky pyramid structures projecting outwards effectively creates certain amount of personal space which seperates individuals and allows a distinct atmosphere to be built. In spite of its scale and simplicity, it achieves similar effect and outcome as large scale architectural constructions do.

FIG.1: (EXPLAIN HERE & REFERENCE AT THE END OF YOUR DOCUMENT)

CONCEPTUALISATION 5

DESIGN FUTURING

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CONCEPTUALISATION

CONCEPTUALISATION 7

1.1 THE WALKING CITY

1.3 Walking city

HTTP://WWW.SEASTEADING.ORG/2011/03/ WALKING-CITY-ARCHIGRAM/

Ron Herron is a British architect who proposed the idea of the walking city in 1964. His idea was to build giant walking robots that could move freely in search for resources and fuels needed so that the supply of materials will not longer be limited by different locations of people. These ‘robots’ could connect with one another to form larger ‘walking metropolises’ that collaborate and share resources if needed1, and disconnect when unnecessary.

This idea is strongly associated with new perspective and unusual way of design. Having noticed the limitation, Herron bravely and innovatively proposed the idea of a walking city, which is ‘an exploration of how things come into beng and act beyond their mere function’2. Clearly These moving cities perform more than hosting citizens and allowing for economic acivities to take place; they are created with the ‘realization of design intelligence” in order to settle the unevenly distributed resources and resolve shortage and excess of supplyments in various places.

1.4 Model of the walking city

Often designers are limited by radial designs that are mostly successful and act as an indication of the ‘right’ way of design. This project of a walking city extend beyond the deisgn boundary to ‘embrace the extreme, the imaginative, and the inspiring’3 as it suggests possibilites and encourages the making of future that is not imaginable.

As absurd and almost impossible as it sounds, it is the impossibility within this design that appeals to imagination and engage the intellect. Although this is only a proposed idea that has yet to be built, Homo Faber’s prototypes effectively turns this idea from plausible to possible. It shows how it can be more than just a proposed idea that it stimulates people in believing that it would work.

1.5a

1.5b Prototype of walking city by Homo Faber that shows the scale and structure of the proposed idea.

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CONCEPTUALISATION

1.6 An actual walking city by Manuel Dominguez

Spanish architect, Manuel Dominguez, was inspired

by Herron’s idea and proposed an actual walking city. His “Very large Structure“ can move on caterillar tracks to where resources are abundant. 4 This structure mainly consists of colossal steel frame and caterpillar tracks. It is proposed to encourage reforestation of the cities that it replaces and manages the surrounding ecosystem. It also incorporate on-board energy generation as well as to provide enormous possibilities of jobs for unemployed citizens. This is an entire system within this single structure that not only allows for but to strongly encourage flow as it move around and extract resources from static cities. It allows for exchange and supplyment between different individual systems which are now interconnected with each other.

1. n.d., Walking City, from Archigram (2011), http://www. seasteading.org/2011/03/walking-city-archigram/

2. Fry, Tony (2008). Design Futuring: Sustainability, Ethics and New Practice (Oxford: Berg), pp. 1–16

3. Dunne, Anthony & Raby, Fiona (2013) Speculative Everything: Design Fiction, and Social Dreaming (MIT Press) pp. 1-9, 33-45

4. https://steampunkopera.wordpress.com/2014/09/19/ an-actual-real-life-walking-city/ CONCEPTUALISATION 11

1.2 ROLLING BRIDGE 12

CONCEPTUALISATION

1.7 The rolling bridge CONCEPTUALISATION 13

1.8 The operation of rolling bridge

A series of hydraulic rams are intergrated into the balustrade in opening up the bridge. 5 Each of the eight segments lifts and results in the bridge rolling up until both ends meet and form a circle.

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CONCEPTUALISATION

Breaking the stereotype of a bridge, the Heatherwick studio designed a pedestrain bridge at Paddington Basin, London. 5 Its main function is to provide access for residents and at the same time allow access for the boats in the inlets. It critically challenges the radical design of a bridge being rigid and static, and took it to a whole new level which incorperated mechanical engineering and algorithm into the structure.

This creation opens up new persepctives and encorages alterntive way of thinking. Opening bridges are commonly designed with a ‘single rigid element that fractiures and lifts out of the way’. 5 However, this bridge opens smoothly by transforming from a straight structure into a curled up scuplture.

‘Design ... is about problem solving.’ The rolling bridge allows for pedestrians to pass through while not obstructing the existing path for boats. It allows for the coexistence of access for both humans and trasnportations It can be understood as part of a system that encourages flow and mobility when it connects the two banks of the canal. This structure performs beyond its primary function; pedestrians do not merely use the bridge as it is initially designed, but also appreciate it as a sculpture which is a sub-function led by its flexibility and aesthetics.

5. http://www.heatherwick.com/rolling-bridge/

1.10 The bridge as a sculpture as it curls up

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CONCEPTUALISATION

A.2 DESIGN COMPUTATION CONCEPTUALISATION 17

http://www.serpentinegalleries.org/ exhibitions-events/serpentine-gallery-pavilion2002-toyo-ito-and-cecil-balmond-arup

https://au.pinterest.com/pin/91549804900855208/

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CONCEPTUALISATION

Parametric design gives ‘new form of logic’ to digital design thinking. The Serpentine Gallery pavilion by Toyo Ito successfully demonstrated the ‘aesthetic and tectonic possibiites of the algorithmic’ by shattering the solid structrue into geometric pieces that are treated as both openings and structural elements.

Computation is mainly used to set geometry to the form. Instead of cutting the structure into random components, algorithm is created as constraints, which reduce the size of the solution space and therefore result in a more desirable outcome. Not only has it incorporated logic into providing aesthetic quality, it also effectively minimised uncertainties and possible errors that could occur in the fabrication process by providing rules as planned.

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This parametric pavilion is created by a group of 11 undergrad students in Mexico with the use of NURBS and intergrated parametric modeler (rhino and grasshopper).

It started off with an single pyramidal component that was panelled across the vaulted surface, which chnages the scale and shape of the pyramidal component as its height varies. Computation here is not ‘just a tool’ but in fact, part of what creates the form and performance of the pavilion. It used technology to redefine the associative relationship between the design itself and its material, which has been unfolded digitally in order to cut laser cut and folded to form the varies projections on the surface.

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CONCEPTUALISATION

It was argued that computation has led to fake creativity by setting algorithm that limits the creation of variaitons.

In fact, I would argue that designers who are able to think algorithmically can ‘understand, execute, evaluate and create algorithm’ themselves; they are who create algorithms that guide their design rather than bein limited.

http://www.evolo.us/architecture/ parametric-pavilion-in-monterrey-mexico/

Frazer, John H. (2006). ‘The Generation of Virtual Prototypes for Performance Optimization’, in GameSetAndMatch II: The Architecture CoLaboratory on Computer Games, Advanced Geometries and Digital Technologies, ed. by Kas Oosterhuis and Lukas Feireiss (Rotterdam: Episode Publishers), pp. 208-212

Terzidis, Kostas (2006). AlgorithmicArchitecture (Boston, MA: Elsevier), p. xi

Wayne Brown, Introduction to Algorithmic Thinking

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A.6 APPENDIX ALGORITHMIC SKETCHBOOK

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CONCEPTUALISATION

CONCEPTUALISATION 23

OCTREE

OcTree is mainly used in creating solid components within the given boundary. I experienced using planar surface, solid and lofted forms as the bases, which give varies outcomes when connected to the OcTree.

They are all started off by populating 2D/3D to set a number of ‘points’ within the set boundary.

By varing the seeds it changes the density of the ‘points’ which directly affects the results.

Voronoi 3D is also used in one of the five figures created in order to give variation to the form of the components instead of solid cubes.

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CONCEPTUALISATION

CONCEPTUALISATION 25

CONTOURING

Curve line are created in rhino which are then lofted to form an undulating surface. This surface is then set as a brep in grasshopper which is connect to ‘contour’ in order to show the sections of the surface and its contours.

The distance between each contours is set at 0.25 which shows a reasonable amount of details.

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CONCEPTUALISATION

The same undulating surface is used here with another slightly flatter plane that cuts through it.

The plane on top is offset with a range of 0-7 to result in sections that demonstrate the contour.

CONCEPTUALISATION 27

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CONCEPTUALISATION

Image reference: 1.3_Archigram, Walking city, 1964, drawing, https://archstjeann. wordpress.com/2013/09/07/architectural-visuals/ 1.5_https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4EuFYqA2DI 1.6_ https://steampunkopera.wordpress.com/2014/09/19/an-actual-real-life-walking-city/ 1.7

1.8 http://www.heatherwick.com/rolling-bridge/

1.9 http://www.heatherwick.com/rolling-bridge/

1.10 http://www.dezeen.com/2015/12/18/dezeen-a-z-advent-calendar-rolling-bridge-thomas-heatherwick-london/

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