SENSORY RE-CONFIGURATION Tools and their hierarchy in Architecture Scott Duillet
PRATT INSTITUTE, SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE Graduate Architecture & Urban Design (GAUD) David Erdman, Chairperson MASTERS OF SCIENCE AND ARCHITECTURE (MS.ARCH) Ariane Lourie Harrison, Coordinator Ariane Lourie Harrison, Editor Jeffrey Anderson, Book Design 2018-2019
Introduction Manifesto
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Research Strange Figures
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Concrescence
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Stacks
38 - 45
Excogitation
48 - 51
Parallels
54 - 59
Culmination Project Sensorial Re-Configuration
60 - 69
Bibliography
70 - 71
References & Image Citations
72 - 73
Your Project Title
Introduction Tools have evolved and changed the act of creation, and never more so than at the end of the 20th century. As we enter the new millennium, progress has accelerated transcending the hierarchical structure linking creator, means of creation, and creation. Automation brought feedback and feedback brought dialogue. The tool is no longer simply guided; it has an input of its own.
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MANIFESTO
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MANIFESTO A C O M M E N T A R Y O N T O O L S I N A R C H I T E C T U R E
Your Project Title MANIFESTO
FROM THE COMPASS TO THE HADRON COLLIDER
In every form of art or creation, a common form of critique can be found.
This same critique will appear, regardless of the period, at almost every single novel adaptation of a tool or, more generally speaking, a mean of creation. This phenomenon is ever so present in architecture, perhaps due to the three-dimensional aspects of its output, as well as the multiple layers of design, from core structural components to countertop finishes. This complexity invites the use and appropriation of a great variety of tools, each of them needing to be adopted a first time and hence giving birth to the very critique we’re introducing right now. This critique cannot be reduced to mere fear of novelty or a lack of understanding. Architects and architecture have a tendency to accuse these new tools of stripping away the one thing they claim to have never lost before: control. One can wonder how was the initial reaction to the use of the compass. If the pencil, the ruler, even the T-square probably came before, the compass introduced a new kind of tool: one that had a design output of its own. The user sets the angle; then the device takes over. It is impossible for the user to precisely understand the result of the tool without using it and analysing its feedback. As poetic as it sounds, it is the first tool the user doesn’t need two hands to operate. As a matter of fact, it works worse if one tries to dominate it further and use both of his primate, non-task-specific-optimized appendages to gain what he thinks is control. One must wonder, did the first architect to use a compass hear his peers state, after a few years of formal admiration, that the “problem” with this new trend of the compass is that the tool does the work for the user. “Anybody could do it”, “The tool is the designer”, “These bizarre new shapes claim to enhance architecture, while they are but cheap ways to amaze the untrained eye, actually reducing the profession’s design potential by letting technology take control.” It seems exaggerated, especially now that the compass has been part of the profession for centuries, however, replace it with Artifical Intelligence or the CERN Hadron
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A Commentary on Tools in Architecture
Collider (the most advanced tools of the digital and physical realm respectively), and we will soon hear and read, if not already, this age-old critique. It was the case with coding as a form of design, and after a century-old struggle, we’re barely getting out of the superficial digital commentary that, by the way, shoves everything computer related in a bag labelled Parametric Design when in fact it constitutes but a fraction of Computational Aided Design (CAD). We are finally starting the era of the post-digital, in which the hierarchy between the user and the tool is blurred if not annihilated, embracing the feedback the machine offers instead of pretending it all comes from, the greatest tool of them all, the human brain.
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Your Project Title
Research MAN, MEANS & MATTER Opening the design process to better account for machine and material intelligence. unleashes a tidal wave of smart computer-based design and rich material-based proposals. Giving more and more control to tool and matter, having them design as much, if not more than the designer himself
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THE OBJECT
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STRANGE FIGURES– O B J E C T H O O D & M AT E R I A L I T Y A S AN INITIAL DESIGN APPROACH
Your STRANGE ProjectFIGURES Title
ESTRANGEMENT AS AN INVITATION
“Lastly, estrangement does not reveal the true essence of an object or con-
dition. It alters and intensifies an aesthetic relationship between things, but does not by necessity reveal a deeper or more essential truth.”¹ As stated in the extract, one of the critical characteristics of estrangement that was redefined is its ability to reveal a certain hidden truth behind its subject. The following paragraph will start by stating what can be held as true before diving into its shortcomings and arguing that as a matter of fact, estrangement does lead to a better understanding of its subject, whether it is an object or condition. The potency of estrangement lies within the viewer’s eyes as they not only notice it but start untangling the composition. One may call it curiosity, the other, methodic analysis of the representation, but the fact is the “What ?” estrangement ignites, is almost always followed by a “Why?”. It is through this questioning that the viewer can start cataloguing what makes sense and what doesn’t, in order to outline, or at least try to, the elements that are responsible for the effect he/she is witnessing. It is hard to refute that this process will certainly not lead to the discovery of essential truths or the understanding of the core meaning of one or any of the subjects. Not only would the viewer have to be uniquely skilled and have an acute sense of observation, one could even wonder if there is one if any artist capable of laying out the material necessary for the viewer to transcend his or her understanding of the subject. We can then start to understand how the term refers to a diversity of theoretical bodies analyzing and probing the idea of a future where there is no user interface or conscient activation needed to connect man, machine, and environment. It is this continuity of constant interconnectivity, and futuristic nullification of hierarchy, where humanity, as an independent entity, could cease to be. - (1) Information on the Reading Vidler, Anthony. The Architectural Uncanny. Massachusets : MIT Press, 1992. Print. Pages : 14
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Objecthood & Materiality as an initial design approach
Image 1: Digital Estrangement Fall Studio, Pratt GAUD, taught by Jonas Coersmeier with Brian Ringley
Image 2: Digital Estrangement Fall Studio, Pratt GAUD, taught by Jonas Coersmeier with Brian Ringley
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Your STRANGE ProjectFIGURES Title
REALITY CAN ONLY BE IMAGINED Following the lecture of Graham Harman’s The Third Table, and after seeing how the author takes apart the notions and characteristics of Eddington’s two tables, before introducing his own third table, one can only notice how often the concept of reality is used to prove the author’s convictions. Reality is, according to Harman’s, something that can’t be reduced in any way. It’s specifically this reduction of it that makes the natural and cultural table so unreal. The first one tends to reduce downwards to it’s atomic and sub-atomic composition. (the fact that the author chose to specify whether a table is reducing downwards or upwards could also be a sign of a slight bias towards a specified table). This view shifts from reality due to its neglect of the part-to-whole relationship of the atoms and electric charges of the table and the table itself. The second reduces the table to its effects on the user, and possibly other objects around it. This view shifts from reality due to its neglect of the table as an individual object and the characteristics it has outside of relational effects on us or others. Graham stipulates that reality can’t be reduced and so the only real table, would be one that wouldn’t fall into the reductionism of the other two. He then specifies that this table could only be speculated upon due to our weak grasp over reality and our small understanding of it can only lead us to some form of reduction in whatever direction it may be. This is an important concept, that reality can only be imagined but never truly grasped or understood.
- Information on the Reading Harman, Graham. The Third Table. Stuttgart : Hatje Cantz, 2012. Print. Pages : 4-12
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Chapter Title
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Your STRANGE ProjectFIGURES Title
SHAPES & FORMS From soft and free-flowing to sharp and constrained, forms have a multitude of languages and the variety of effects they produce can be read and classified in an almost infinite kind of way. However, these can all be traced back to the fundamentals of Euclidean geometry: The Arc and the Line. One is found in nature; the other is man’s first effort to constrain and rationalize geometry. For the purpose of this study, these new masses would change, grow into, and collide with other objects of a similar morphogenetic process. The clashing of such complex forms offers new instances, where one object would carve into the other. Mixing and breeding attribute in order to delete or enhance specific features, straying further away from the beaten path of “hard vs. soft” geometry. Throughout these matches and clashes, new forms would emerge, often carrying surprisingly minimalist figural vestiges: The Arc and the Line
Image 1: From Shapes to Forms, Euclidean Geometry Study Summer Studio, Pratt GAUD, taught by Nate Hume with Olivia Vien
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Objecthood & Materiality as an initial design approach
Image 2: Axonometric Render of the Object, Patterns Studies Fall Studio, Pratt GAUD, taught by Nate Hume with Olivia Vien
Image 3: Axonometric Render of the Object, Patterns Studies Fall Studio, Pratt GAUD, taught by Nate Hume with Olivia Vien
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CONCRESCENCE– MACHINE INTELLIGENCE AS AN A P P R O A C H T O T H E P O S T- D I G I TA L
Your CONCRESCENCE Project Title
MATERIAL AND MACHINE GUIDED DESIGN The focus expanded from shape to materiality, and how different attributes could be passed on through fabrication. As wax would give softness to a sharp edge, concrete would delete all inherent malleability from a curve. As we assigned materiality to these objects, they gained, grain, texture, thickness, adding a new level of depth to the design process as well as the lecture of shapes and forms that would ensue. Materiality would also allow the emergence of secondary boundaries, distinct from those inherent to shape and formal language in general. Thus, the object gained context, by getting embedded in a similarly designed cluster of forms each having materiality, in order to see further the design process by playing with embeds, overlays and juxtaposition of mass and texture. These effects were both tested in a digital, and physical space, in order to mix and match the results and define which effects would be inherent to which method. Hence the concrescence of not only shape and materiality, but also method and process, which lead to rich, complex, and varied final object studies.
Image 1: Render exploring reflectivity, roughness, and transparency Summer Studio, Pratt GAUD, taught by Nate Hume with Olivia Vien
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Machine Inteligence as an approach to the Post-Digital
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Your CONCRESCENCE Project Title
HIERARCHICAL ANNIHILATION Let us start by a singular critique. I am naturally suspicious of texts, books or essays who’s title is an extremely vague term encompassing a vast multitude of things, so vast even that they can start with sentences such as: “If you start looking for them, “stacks” are everywhere.” as if it was supposed to add legitimacy to their thought and principles. It isn’t new that everything around us affects and is affected by everything else around us. (everything here encompasses not only physical objects as well as social constructs and other metaphysical elements). Hence one can quickly conclude that it is almost always possible to link objects together in some hierarchical structure, whether it be linear, concentric or otherwise; in other words: Stacks. This initial resistance to the work is what highlighted a significant section as I read through it: 13. Stacks that Were and Might have been. Where the author compares two socio-economical “Stacks” and the way they’re used to govern two countries that couldn’t be more different: Chile and Japan. These “Stacks” are fascinating in the way they the subvert the fundamental notion of hierarchy we’ve talked about earlier and deal with notions of time, with technological progress being both their main driver, context and pre-existing structures. In my opinion, this is where the notion of “Stacks” start to gain traction. The first, Cybersin, is designed for the shifting socio-political landscape of Chile and has the ambitious “tabula rasa” approach of re-organising everything into 12 distinct yet concentric “Stacks” scaling from the single being to the country as a whole. This image of concentric disks all equally levelled, each one drawing information from its neighbours is drawn out for us. The second, TRON, is implemented in the complex high functioning society of Japan and is intended to weave into the pre-existing socio-economical fabric to enhance it. Drawing a more web-like feature of neurons sharing information and feedback not one level outward like the precedent, but back and forth to maximise optimisation rather than control.
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Machine Inteligence as an approach to the Post-Digital
These two forms of “Stacks� are more convincing not only because of the considerations they take into account, but the very similar goal they share linking these two completely different form of de-hierarchisation.
Image 1: Axonometric Line Drawing of similar elements growing into each other blurring the distinction between generator and generated Fall Studio, Pratt GAUD, taught by Nate Hume with Olivia Vien - Information on the Reading Bratton H. Benjamin. The Stack. Massachusets : MIT Press, 2016. Print. Pages : 52-58
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Your CONCRESCENCE Project Title
SECTION AS A SPECULATIVE TOOL A well known architectural composition is the “jewel in the jewellery box”, where an object serves as a design catalyst for the rest of the building, often programmatically relevant, this object has a distinctive geometry that other pieces will adapt to. Hence the design process isn’t just about the “jewel” but also the boundary conditions it produces as well as the space between it and the outer skin of the building aka, the “jewellery box.” Jean Nouvel’s Kuncert Husset is not only a clear example of this approach but a successful one at that. The spatial relationships between the building envelop, and the object’s skin varies and offers multiples programmatic opportunities, all the while enhancing and showcasing its uniqueness. In my approach to concrescence, the intent was to nullify the hierarchy between the jewel and its box and have them share geometrical strategies and grow into one another. No longer is there a clear distinction between a unique element, and it’s immediate context, the context becomes the object, and the object becomes the context. Hence blurring their hierarchy all the while preserving the interesting spacial oddities that come with this “Object first, context second” design strategy.
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Machine Inteligence as an approach to the Post-Digital
Image 1: From Shapes to Forms, Euclidean Geometry Study Fall Class, Pratt GAUD, taught by Ariane Lourie Harrison with Jeffrey Anderson & Jason VigneriBeane
Image 2: Detailed Speculative Section Cut Summer Studio, Pratt GAUD, taught by Nate Hume with Olivia Vien
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Your Project Title
Image 1: Speculative Render Exploring Field Conditions and Scale Summer Studio, Pratt GAUD, taught by Nate Hume with Olivia Vien
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Your Project Title
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Image 1: Photography of Material Study, exploring texture, roughness and transparency Summer Studio, Pratt GAUD, taught by Nate Hume with Olivia Vien
Your Project Title
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Image 1: Photography of Powder Printed Models Exploring Texture Mapping Fall Studio, Pratt GAUD, taught by Jonas Coersmeier with Brian Ringley
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Heterarchisation of Man, Machine & Matter
Image 2: Section Drawing of the generative process, understanding spatial co-existence Fall Studio, Pratt GAUD, taught by Jonas Coersmeier with Brian Ringley
Your STACKS Project Title
Image 1: Tehnical Drawing breaking down the morpho-genetic steps of the project Fall Studio, Pratt GAUD, taught by Jonas Coersmeier with Brian Ringley
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Heterarchisation of Man, Machine & Matter
METHOD & PROCESS The artefact was initially designed without any idea of scale, context or even program. The scientific method prescribed by the studio allowed for a series of precise drawings as well as, without setting a specific scale, quantifying and measuring the number of gestures, their position, and the impact they had on the overall object. Resulting
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Image 2: Tehnical Drawings bringing a sense of scale and method to the morphogenital process in order to further spatial understandings and reproduce the effects generated at will Fall Studio, Pratt GAUD, taught by Jonas Coersmeier with Brian Ringley 36
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Your STACKS Project Title
USING MACHINE INTELLIGENCE FOR SPECULATIVE PURPOSES The studio that takes a material approach to the post-digital project in current architectural discourse. However, it ascribes design intelligence to both the material itself and the digital machine that acts upon it. Robots and computers are not reduced to mere manufacturing labourers, but they, along with their evolving programs and codes, are invited to enter into a ‘creative’ dialogue with the human and material. Conceptually, the studio takes a non-anthropocentric approach and suggests that we can entirely move on from the digital project only by dissolving the deep-seated idea that human-machine-material interactions are always hierarchical. This creates a dialogue loop going back and forth not only between physical and digital, but between tool, designer, and product. These back and forths offer astonishing new outputs that no designer alone could envision or predict.
Image 1: Using a physical scanned texture as Wrap Map on a digital Fall Studio, Pratt GAUD, taught by Jonas Coersmeier with Brian Ringley Image 2: From Physical Model to Dense and Rich Digital Scanned Mesh Fall Studio, Pratt GAUD, taught by Jonas Coersmeier with Brian Ringley
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Your Project Title
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Your Project Title
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THE OBJECT
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E XCO G I TAT I O N– FROM M AT E R I A L & FORMAL TO S PAT I A L & P R O G R A M M AT I C
Your EXCOGITATION Project Title
TOOLS, MATERIALS & DESIGNER No longer reducing robots to mere manufacturing labourers, we looked into redefining our relationship to them, as designers, working with them, enhancing the opportunities they offer, and taking into account the limitations they might have. The outputs below, are produced by their evolving programs and codes, and rather than overwritten entirely by the designer, invited to enter into a ‘creative’ dialogue with the material to create to the artefact.. This investigates the notions of structure and composition in post-digital times. We are interested in the collaborative nature of the surrealist routine, and we further the idea by including non-human actors; we distribute agency among designer, tooling and material.
Image 1: These toolpaths exhibit the sequence of milling operations necessary to go from a full block of material to the final artefact. Fall Studio, Pratt GAUD, taught by Jonas Coersmeier with Brian Ringley
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From Material & Formal to Spatial & Programmatic
Image 2: Sum of all toolpaths participating in an almost dance-like sequence giving birth to the artefact Fall Studio, Pratt GAUD, taught by Jonas Coersmeier with Brian Ringley
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Your Project Title
Image 1: Model of the final artefact, a product of man, machine and material Fall Studio, Pratt GAUD, taught by Jonas Coersmeier with Brian Ringley
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Image 1: Model of the site intervention Fall Studio, Pratt GAUD, taught by Jonas Coersmeier with Brian Ringley
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Your Project Title
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THE OBJECT
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P A R A L L E L S– FORM, STRUCTURE & COMPOSITE
Your PARALLELS Project Title
BUILDING ELEMENT FORM & SCALE
FORM & STRUCTURE
For the purpose of this study the morphogenetic process was split into two parts. First a sculptural form would be generated and refined as to be a single surface continuous object, studying skin and double surface relationships as well as thickness and void. Secondly, an internal structure was designed and optimized not only to support but aslo to link and attach the monolithic pieces together. The merging Image 1: Various patterns and geometric logics were tested for the arches support system Fall Class, Pratt GAUD, taught by Robert CervelS N SE EC C TT II O Olione N S E C T I O N SECTIONA A LL S SE EQ QU UE EN NC CE E
of these two typologies blurs the line between structure and finish, mixing and breeding attributes in order to delete or enhance specific features, straying further away from the beaten path of “visible vs. discrete” geometry. Void of scale, this study allows for speculation regarding it’s use and potential program. Nonetheless what remains
regardless of size and material is this idea of designed structure and structural design that carries the exploration and celebrates all of it’s components. This is showcased by the models on the right, where the structure is proudly exhibited and integral part of the design designer, tooling and material. Image 1: In order to choose where to carve the reveals to exhibits the internal structure, a series of closed sections were necessary Fall Class, Pratt GAUD, taught by Robert Cervellione
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Your PARALLELS Project Title
DISTRIBUTED AGENCY : MAN, MEANS & MATTER The common idea is that, as humans, the most “advanced” species on the planet, created or not in the image of a higher entity, the purest and most advanced level of creation resides in our mind. When we write, draw or enunciate these thoughts, the simple act of tethering them to reality and making them concrete, in order to share and/or rationalize them, a variable loss in quality occurs. The struggle of translating these ephemeral ideas to a medium with minimal distortion is a skill we tend to appreciate, and some of us spend carriers honing. The direct conclusion that we have long taken for granted is that our mind is sacred and should be, and always be, the director of creation. This same ideology governs the steps of production, from our intentions to our hand, from our hand to the pen, and from the pen to the paper, hierarchising each level as if they could only take us further away from our initial, “pure”, idea. Only a few musicians would let the instrument play them as much as they played it, and the same goes for the artists who rarely give leeway to the brush as much as dictate it’s movement. However, this has never occurred so infrequently than in architecture. It is in our human nature to desire control and full authorship of our creation, never more so, than in this profession. Tools have evolved and changed the act of design, and never more so than at the end of the 20th century. As we entered the new millennium, progress accelerated bringing more and more computational power into our schools and offices. Technology has made the notion of tool-driven feedback impossible to ignore. The simple act of clicking on a button, and waiting in front of a loading screen before seeing the result is a drastic shift in the way we design and perceive our means to do so. Automation and computer interfaces have brought feedback and feedback brought dialogue, (to whoever is listening that is) between the creator and his means of creation.¹ This shift hasn’t gone unnoticed, on the contrary, it was the source of fascination. This unleashed a tidal wave of computer-based design, giving more and more control to the tool, having it design as much, if not more than the designer. As technology and computation power exponentially grew, designers saw an increas- (1) It is essential to understand that all analog tools give feedback, the immediacy and perceptibility of it changes, but there is feedback nonetheless.
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Distributed Agency : Man, Means and Matter
ing amount of layers put up between them and their output, resulting in a deification of these mysterious black boxes that would spit out unusual new forms never seen before, created seemingly out of nowhere from lines of code and inputs. This was the infancy of the idea that the tool had an input of its own, and a more prominent role in the creative process. As the first decade of the millennium reached its end, this awe for computer-aided design came to an end and designers have started concerning themselves and speculating on where the field of architecture could go after half a century of a purely digital era. Part of the discourse is to believe in the integration of these tools as part of a heterarchical system.² No longer mystifying them, nor reducing them to mere manufacturing laborers. Computational power has its own specific set of outputs and can, and should be, allowed to participate in the design process as well as the output itself as a fully fledged author. HIERARCHY
HETERARCHY
This revaluation process spreads not only to us and our role as designers, challenging the per-conceived notions of our mind being “above” everything else, but also to the material, the physical output and parts used to bring our designs into the concrete world. Much like the naval woodworkers during centuries, who knew that if they used oak for the hull of a ship, its shape had to be different from one using pine or cedar³, to gain the most out of the material’s strengths, we are to re-evaluate our relationship to materials and bring them into the creative dialog. This horizontal system would hence - (2) Comparative diagram between a hierarchical system and a heterarchical system and the degrees of connectivity they provide. - (3) Comparison between naval woodworkers and architects from Mario Carpo’s talk on The Second Digital Turn.
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Your PARALLELS Project Title
have, the man, the designer, the means of creation, his tools, and matter, the medium they affect set as equals. Each participating in the design process and output, going back and forth multiple times, informing one another, each entitled to authorship. This idea of Man being as real, living and worthy as seemingly inert material isn’t new and is one of the reasons why 17th-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza has been relevant in the architectural discourse in the last couple of years. Not only did his theories “kill God” demystifying Man and reducing him to being a part of nature, on the same continuum as everything else, but he also erased the boundary between what is often seen as living and not, making no distinction between the life contained in Matter and in Man. Hence, by following his mindset there would be no possible justification for a hierarchical structure.
The idea of technology as part of the final output, with its own authorship, isn’t foreign to architecture. It’s an idea that Cedric Price explored in his influential 1964 Fun Palace. Cranes would always be on site to shift panels and spaces, working with materials and prefab building technology (The innovative materials and structure systems used provided a model for the Center George Pompidou in Paris) to orchestrate a dance between means and matter. Of course at the time, technology wasn’t advanced enough to not be constantly guided by Man, but the project was the catalyst for a great number of contemporary discourses and discussions about technology, notably regarding cybernetics, and how they could be used as part of a “living building” and be part not only of the creative process but a designer for the building long after the architect. Image 1: Diagram of the Heterarchical Plane on which all reside Fall Class, Pratt GAUD, taught by Sandford Kwinter with Gokhan Kodalak
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Distributed Agency : Man, Means and Matter
There is no doubt that the digital era shook the world of architecture and design as a whole. It not only increased our production capacity but gave us the tools to translate shapes and forms we could, till then, only hold in our minds. We need to look into redefining our relationship with these tools, as designers, working with them, not trusting them blindly, but acknowledging their unique strengths. The outputs produced by their evolving programs and codes need to be given their own merit, not established as an absolute truth, nor hidden behind collages and other “pre-digital� means of representation. The same revaluation needs to be done to matter, not using it as an inert last piece of the puzzle that simply anchors our designs into reality, but as part of the process as well, testing and giving it some leeway, working with it as an observer, looking for effects and moments, that nor our tools, nor our minds, could even imagine. Rather than overwriting these specifics outputs, we are to celebrate them and continue the iterative dialogue process. We are to distribute agency among man, matter and means.
Image 2: Sectional drawing of the Fun Palace by Cedric Price. c. 1964(berilderensimsek) Fall Class, Pratt GAUD, taught by Sandford Kwinter with Gokhan Kodalak
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Your Project Title
Cumulation Project SENSORY RE-CONFIGURATION As the first decade of the millennium reached its end, this awe for computerbased design came to an end and creators have started speculating on what could be the key to a post-digital era. This final project proposes to level the playing field between our digital tools, the matter we interact with, and ouselves, the designer.
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Your Project Title
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Your SENSORY ProjectRE-CONFIGURATION Title
FIELDS : REGULAR ENCOUNTERS IRREGULAR The design approach was to create a building for man and machine, weaving their respective infrastructures in order to generate spaces that would benefit both. A study of the existing site and office layout revealed a series of orthogonal fields, from desk placement to sprinkler systems, optimized to use each square feet of the building. Our vision was to design and implement a project that would consist of its own field, disrupting the existing ones and offering more variety and opportunities for unique settings as it encounters the otherwise stale grid of its corporate surrounding. With this re-configuration comes a change in circulation as well, breaking away from the strict hierarchical order of spaces, going from a public core to a private rim. Without negating WeWork’s effort to optimize and maximize, the addition of a new non-orthogonal field reshuffles spaces and their relationship to each other, hopefully generating a sense of wonder and discovery throughout the entire building.
Image 1: Section Cut Revealing the field of glaciers re-shaping their environment Spring Studio, Pratt GAUD, taught by Nate Hume with Jeffrey Anderson & Brian Ringley
Image 2: Axonometric Cut Away show casing field interactions Spring Studio, Pratt GAUD, taught by Nate Hume with Jeffrey Anderson & Brian Ringley
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Your SENSORY ProjectRE-CONFIGURATION Title
MATTER AND SENSES A substantial amount of time was spent, parallel to the planning of the various types of offices and infrastructures necessary to the design, looking into materiality and what would be the physical, tangible signature of the project. The goal was to stay away from the too often uninspired vegetal and mineral layouts we see in offices today and seek to enrich and enhance their natural attributes, creating an oversaturated surreal environment. The arctic-inspired palette, a reminder of the primary “cooling” purposes of the ponds and what would soon be known as the field of “glaciers”, offered a variety of materials varying in reflectivity, roughness and transparency.
Image 1: Model Render / Digital Proposal for the casting purposes Spring Studio, Pratt GAUD, taught by Nate Hume with Jeffrey Anderson & Brian Ringley
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Data Coolers
Image 2: Model Photo / Understanding Tactility and Light Spring Studio, Pratt GAUD, taught by Nate Hume with Jeffrey Anderson & Brian Ringley
Image 3: Model Photo / Mineral and Vegetal Symbiosis Spring Studio, Pratt GAUD, taught by Nate Hume with Jeffrey Anderson & Brian Ringley
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Your SENSORY ProjectRE-CONFIGURATION Title
Image 1: Model Photo / Day Scene Spring Studio, Pratt GAUD, taught by Nate Hume with Jeffrey Anderson & Brian Ringley
Image 2: Model Photo / Night Scene Spring Studio, Pratt GAUD, taught by Nate Hume with Jeffrey Anderson & Brian Ringley
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Data Coolers
DESIGNING WITH INTAGIBLES Data, and the flow of information are usually intangibles hard to accurately measure or get a sense of in a classic human-centric environment. We saw the opportunity to change that as we were designing the pond system that would cool down the hot water coming out from the servers. The heat of said water, and hence the amount of steam it would produce would be directly proportional to the computational load born by the building’s servers. The steam generated would drastically change the immediate environment surrounding the pools and give a sense of the amount of information and computational power used at a given time. It would vary along with time and the flow of people entering and leaving the office, giving a sense of occupancy as well.
Image 3: Plan of a the disruption caused by the field of glaciers Spring Studio, Pratt GAUD, taught by Nate Hume with Jeffrey Anderson & Brian Ringley
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Your Project Title
Kissing Architecture Lavin, Sylvia. Kissing Architecture. New York : Princeton University Press, 2011. Print. Pages : 8 Architectural Theories of the Environment : Post Human Territory Harrisson, Ariane. Architectural Theories of the Environment : Post Human Territory. New York : Routledge, 2013. Print. Pages : 3-33 Manual of Section Lewis, Tsurumaki, Lewis. Manual of Section. New York : Princeton Architectural Press, 2016. Print. Pages : 6-39 The Stack Bratton H. Benjamin. The Stack. Massachusets : MIT Press, 2016. Print. Pages : 52-58 Atlas of Novel Tectonics Reiser, Jesse. Umemoto, Nanako. Atlas of Novel Tectonics. New York : Princeton Architectural Press, 2006. Print. Pages : 218 The Ecologies of the Building Envelope Zaera Polo, Alejandro. Anderson, Jeffrey S. The Ecologies of the Building Envelope. Print : N/A, Date : N/A. Pages : 14, Pages : 246 The Second Digital Turn Carpo, Mario. The Second Digital Turn. Massachusets : MIT Press, 2017. Print. + Mario Carpo: “The Second Digital Turn” | Talks at Google : _https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVerq5DSdKU
Spinoza, heterarchical ontology and affective architecture Kodalak, Gökhan. Spinoza, heterarchical ontology and affective architecture. Print : N/A, Date : N/A.
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Bibliography
The Fun Palace: Cedric Price’s experiment in architecture and technology. Matthews, Stanle. Hobart and William Smith Colleges. Print : Intellect Ltd. Date : 2005.
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Your Project Title
Manifesto Cover :
The Future of the Body: Phenomenology, Medicine and the (Post)human Conference Poster. Trinity College Dublin. June 2014.
Fall Class, Pratt GAUD, taught by Ariane Lourie Harrison with Jeffrey Anderson & Jason Vigneri-Beane
Research Cover:
Fall Studio, Pratt GAUD, taught by Jonas Coersmeier with Brian Ringley
Strange Figures : Summer Studio, Pratt GAUD, taught by Nate Hume with Olivia Vien Fall Studio, Pratt GAUD, taught by Jonas Coersmeier with Brian Ringley Concrescence :
Summer Studio, Pratt GAUD, taught by Nate Hume with Olivia Vien Fall Class, Pratt GAUD, taught by Ariane Lourie Harrison with Jeffrey Anderson & Jason Vigneri-Beane
Stacks :
Fall Studio, Pratt GAUD, taught by Jonas Coersmeier with Brian Ringley
Excogitation :
Fall Studio, Pratt GAUD, taught by Jonas Coersmeier with Brian Ringley
Parallels : Fall Class, Pratt GAUD, taught by Robert Cervellione Fall Class, Pratt GAUD, taught by Sandford Kwinter with Gokhan Kodalak Culmination Project Cover:
Spring Studio, Pratt GAUD, taught by Nate Hume with Jeffrey Anderson & Brian Ringley
Sensorial Re-configuration :
Spring Studio, Pratt GAUD, taught by Nate Hume with Jeffrey Anderson & Brian Ringley
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References and Image Citations
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