Conceptual Structure: Woodbury 2008

WA/SA [waldrip architects/ s.a.] [architecture- los angeles]

Working 9-5, at...

Alberti, Sandro ‘Conceptual Structure: Woodbury 2008’; 2 May, 2008 [text46]

‘WA/SA’, ‘Aloha8’, and ‘Working 9 to 5, at...’

Today I returned to review school projects at Woodbury, after a long time away. In my ‘sort-a’self-imposed sabbatical in San Diego, I have had little time to even visit the LA area in the last couple of years. Enough time has passed, fortunately, to surprise me pleasantly, with new buildings for Design/Architecture at the university campus. It’s nice Spring and Main, downtown LA. to have a place, for a program that focuses on place and space. The day was warm, the kind I specially enjoy

in inland Burbank, and dozens of student project filled a large upstairs area. So, what is happening at Woodbury these days? Lots, of course, of which I will only highlight topics of particular impact (for there would be little reason to write this otherwise). A Museum of the Land, it was, sited at the bifurcation of Main and Spring (Downtown LA), and straddling 2 lots across the street from each other. So, yes, it was about urban scale, and bridging, and traffic/pedestrian experience, and views. But for me, well… I was fixated on the underlying theoretical framework (after all, the course’s assigned readings included Stan Allen’s recommended ‘material theory’)… Möbius strips, Voronoi patterns, intersection joints.1 In my mind: Whereas good examples of conceptual development carry concepts all the way through the design process, this no longer tends to be done in a direct, symbolic manner (the application of concept-theory is now quite ‘indexical’2). Because ‘indexes’ are indirect, one might not notice that they are being employed throughout a design process (and not only upon initial, obvious, definition). Once upon a time, Dagmar Richter developed a super-urban concept based on the initial interplay of ‘hair’ and ‘crystal’3. In her analysis, she moved away from these direct references once they had been deployed to generate a driving mechanism for the rest of the project (the final project, in other words, was not physically made of hair fibers and encrusted crystals; however, the essential characteristics of these were extracted and reapplied into architecture: long/ fluid/ tensile, or facetted/ iconic/ crystalline, and, specially, the formal relationships between these 2 sets). At a glance it might appear that the driving concepts were only applied at initial stages. However, although not symbolically apparent, the final proposal was all ‘hairy crystal’. It is important to reiterate fundamental concept-theory through all stages of the project (after all, this is

are fictions of fen-om: [www.fen-om.com]

New Architecture school- Woodbury.

Museum of the land?

Museum of the land?

what we take from Stan Allen: “Practice… will discover new uses for theory only as it moves closer to the complex and problematic character of the real itself.”4).

Beyond this particular issue, not all concepts are applicable in the same way. As a matter of fact, they sometimes are misleading in their apparent utility. While some appear to be strongly formal/ programmatic, they are actually fundamentally structural. And vice-versa. And some are just tricky to implement effectively at all. Such is the case even when the driving concept is structured and mathematical (what could be more directly definable than math, after all?).

Möbius.

And so we move on, to the range of conceptual prototypes on display: Möbius strips here and there, potentially blended with Klein bottles (although no one openly alluded to this second mathematical prototype). In typical fashion, the driving interest in these was a privileging of circulation (tackling both ‘view’ and ‘park’, in a promenade). It would seem like a straightforward concept to apply, until one considers the essential details. Why is it that, time and time again, students would represent their structures as objects to be observed from afar and above? (after all, the driving motivation for the convolutions of inside-out waves is the direct experience visitors, physically-haptic). One might dismiss this as merely escaping the impediment of representing internal, close-up spaces (with their hyper-expanded perspectives and close-up detailing). However, there is something inherent to the mathematical-formal characteristics of this particular object (transitioning, through rotation, from ‘inside’ to ‘outside’ over distance). At least in the case of the Möbius, the scale necessary to represent this transition has to span a relative distance (otherwise, you cannot notice that one thing is transitioning into another). And thus the Möbius as a form is best understood at a distance, while the internal experience is purely about seamless transitions in a grand environment that involves you with little room for ‘distancing’. For purposes of direct representation, the Klein bottle is a better candidate, for it is a mathematical prototype that is focused on the more manageable ‘intersection’ (where the object penetrates itself, rather than ambiguous transition through rotation).

Voronoi patterns were also popular at the presentation5 (was that 10 years ago that I thought of them last?, or more, maybe back when I used to cut Möbius strips into interlinked rings, in my childhood magic shows?). While Voronoi geometry appears to be ideally structural, it is more directly applicable to form and program (and material conservation), in situations where the tightest envelope around any ‘center’ point needs to be defined, in relationship to other points in a field (to create a tight-packed building program, for example). One is able to define maximum sizes for areas in a building (based on square footage, or walking distance, or range of emitted light or sound), and then manipulate the positions of center points to yield the ideal configuration of cells. Aiming for a general logic of integral connectivity, this can be carried through to structural applications and further design stages, but not without snags. It would seem that ‘tight-packing’ of spaces would yield both the greatest material savings AND provide the most solid super-structure. But this is not the case.

The greatest surface savings and structural integrity are actually obtained from regular honeycombs (specifically, 20-sided ‘truncated octahedrons’). As published over 10 years ago in the International Journal of Mechanical Science: “Our results indicate that the non-periodic arrangement of cell walls in random Voronoi honeycombs results in higher strains in a small number of cell walls compared to periodic, hexagonal honeycombs. Consequently, the Voronoi honeycombs were approximately 3O% weaker than periodic honeycombs of the same density.”6 The effectiveness of Voronoi cells

Klein.

Inside-outside.

Voronoi.

is often confused with that of their ‘close cousin’: the ‘minimal surface’, a form that is so closely tied to structural matters, that any use other than purely structural tends to appear as overbearing decoration. Dip a wire cube into a soap solution and you’ll get a minimal soap surface inside of it7.

Even though the Voronoi cell manages a minimal volume, its surfaces are not minimal8. This is an important distinction, for minimal surfaces are those that, having a mean curvature of zero, transfer structural forces directly along their surface (a traditional example of such a curve is the catenary— the ideal curve for an arch which supports only its own weight; such an arch endures almost pure compression, with no significant bending moment-- The Gateway Arch in Saint Louis follows the form of an inverted catenary). So it might be in combination with minimal surfaces that Voronoi cells could proceed down the project timeline. And at some point a secondary structural system tends to be necessary, since minimal surfaces are only functionally efficient when oriented with their apexes facing incoming force (secondary structural members could leverage these point positions of every curve, at every angle). Arriving at this point is can be problematic, if one looks nostalgically at the wall/surface as nothing more than the hanging fabric that lined the primitive hut9. Surfaces can cover structure, but they can also support it.

Interestingly, when more ‘traditional’ structural units are implemented as initial concepts, there seems to be no hesitation in proceeding through design and into construction. This is because they don’t tend to be seen as theoretical concept-constructs. Such is the case of a star-shaped connector that was reviewed early on in the day. Understood initially as pure structure, it filled the space and was then covered up with surfacing. It was at this point that there was a conflict, for the ‘structure’, for lack of concept, did not have a logic for its surface. And the problem was grave enough that further development managed only to further the disconnection, delving into pure, fluid, surfaceform. Indeed, anyone could tell that the match was doomed (unlike Gehry’s ‘Fred / Ginger’, where skeleton and envelope are [re]connected through mutual deformation). Like anything else, the most common structural joint, when developed as a starting point, has the capacity to drive future steps in the project, just like hair, and crystal. As a matter of fact, it is here, where materiality can benefit from theory, that we can best benefit from the concept of ‘material theory’ proposed by Stan Allen: “There is no theory, there is no practice. There are only practices (agency and action)”.

Minimal surfaces.

Catenary structures.

‘Wand’.

So here it is. 1-2-3. What, no moiré?

A traditional joint.

Surface-to-structure.

FOOTNOTES 1. For a review of discrete and algebraic geometry, see: www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geometry 2. An ‘index’ is a sign related to its origin through effect, such as in the case of fingerprints relating to fingers.

3. Urban renewal project for the city of Waterford, Ireland. Published in ‘Armed Surfaces’ (2005).

Extended summary available free through ‘fen-om Theory’: www.fen-om.com/theory/theory153.pdf 4. ‘Practice: Architecture, Technique, and Representation’ (Stan Allen; 2000). Extended summary available free through ‘fen-om Theory’: www.fen-om.com/theory/theory150.pdf 5. Around the world, universities showcase ‘Voronoi forms’, as in the case of a recent studio at ETH Zurich: www.m-any.org 6. ‘International Journal of Mechanical Science’- pp 549-563 (M.J. Silva; 1997) 7. In physics and mathematics, minimal surfaces are understood thanks to the study of foams. A good review of this can be found in American Scientist Online (March-April 2000).

8. Just because a form has the smallest volume does not mean it has the least surface mean curvature (spheres have the least volume, but have a positive mean curvature).

9. In his treatise ‘The Four Elements of. Architecture’ (1851), Gottfried Semper redefined the wall as a spatial enclosure, or ‘wand’ (screen-like woven fabric), rather than a structural element (‘mauer’: massive fortification).

Surface made of joints.