Manifesto_Di_860315 by Di Wu

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nsf

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Manifesto | Architectural Transformers | Di Wu | I D : 8 6 0 3 1 5

The University of Melbourne

Architectural Transformers by

Di Wu (860315)

Tutor Dr. Natalie Chiodo Twenty-first Century Architecture ABPL90117_2021_SM2 Word Count: 1864

Manifesto | Architectural Transformers | Di Wu | I D : 8 6 0 3 1 5

Forward

Site is graveyard Structure is tombstone Function is epitaph. Stasis means death Architecture is alive that can metamorphose, that can wander around the city.

Manifesto | Architectural Transformers | Di Wu | I D : 8 6 0 3 1 5

Contents

Introduction

Parameter I Tectonic: Membrane skin, Kinetic Structure, and Skin and Bone System

Parameter II Mobility and Liberation

Parameter III Interactive Metamorphosis

Conclusion

Bibliograghy Figure List

Introduction | Architectural Transformers | Di Wu | I D : 8 6 0 3 1 5

Introduction

Contemporary architecture has always been a static presence, with fixed form, structure, and function, once defined, are rarely likely to change. Nonetheless, we live in a rapidly changing era and the world of information. A sudden outbreak of an epidemic interrupts large-scale offline interactions around the world, while online virtual interactions grow more active and popular. Furthermore, the impact of today’s virtual reality and fragmented access to information has greatly surpassed physical reality. As a result of such a fragmented era, human experience and wants are likewise changing fast. The continuous changes in the environment have rendered architecture as a static location more obsolete. The significance of the site, the street and the environment for the architecture fades away. Therefore, it is critical that architecture escapes its context and permits fast change through metamorphoses. Externally, the building should be in motion, without a fixed form, detached from the site. Meanwhile, intrinsically, the kinetic structure and tensile skin allow fundamentally allow individuals to modify architecture in real-time using interactive technology.

Introduction | Architectural Transformers | Di Wu | I D : 8 6 0 3 1 5

Figure 1. Pivoting escalators and moveable wall panels would permit endless variation and flexibility. Cedric Price, Fun Palace, section, 1964, in Technoetic Arts a Journal of Speculative Research 3, no. 2 (2005): 75.

Introduction | Architectural Transformers | Di Wu | I D : 8 6 0 3 1 5

1. “New Mobility,” Hybrid Space Lab, published January 24, 2002. https:// hybridspacelab.net/new-mobility/. 2. Stanley Mathews, “The Fun Palace: Cedric Price’s experiment in architecture and technology,” Technoetic Arts a Journal of Speculative Research 3, no. 2 (2005): 73, doi: 10.1386/tear.3.2.73/1. 3. Wpengine. “ Walking City, from Archigram.” SEASTEADING INSTITUTE. Published March 14, 2011. https://www.seasteading.org/walking-city-archigram/. 4. Charles Jencks and Karl Kropf, Theories and Manifestoes of Contemporary Architecture. Chichester (West Sussex : Academy Editions, 1997), 109.

Since the twentieth century, many architects have seen the possibilities of giving architecture a new dynamism owing to the revolution in mechanical mobility. Architects expected to invent a new, mobile form of modern architecture.1 With Joan Littlewood and Cedric Price’s idea of the Fun Palace in the 1960s (Figure 1), the true questioning of the fixed and static nature of contemporary architecture and thinking about change started. It incorporated the emerging science of automation, cybernetics, game theory, information technology and situationism with architectural theory to create an entertainment ‘machine’.2 Then there were Ron Herron’s walking city and the Blur building, which envisage mobility and interactivity in architecture.3 The world is now connected by information and data. Only an epidemic demonstrates that static architecture is entirely incapable of adapting to major changes in the environment and demands. People connect and engage through virtual software when faced with city closures, vacant streets, and deserted public buildings and sites. The static design creates a prison that restricts interaction and communication. Rethinking of new architecture from the inside out had to be launched as soon as possible. This reawakens our desire and longing for dynamism and movement. Many architects are preoccupied with interpreting architecture as static, solid and timeless. Steven Holl, for instance, was obsessed with the idea of “Anchoring” in the 1980s: Architecture should be rooted and integrated into the context of the place.4 Staticness resulted in an overemphasis on architectural form and a response to a single site. Nonetheless, an indoor carnival created by epidemic lockdown and virtual technology swayed people’s minds and senses through leaps of thought and fragmented information. People with numb minds can no longer recognize or appreciate fixed patterns of spatial experience or fixed forms of architecture. Architecture will no longer be fixed and timeless. Try to think beyond the box and allow individuals to define and alter the space they desire.

Parameter I | Architectural Transformers | Di Wu | I D : 8 6 0 3 1 5

Figure 2. Tectonics: Kinetic Structures. Sander Huisman, Walking strandbeest dynamics, 2016, Wolfram Community, https:// community.wolfram.com/groups/-/m/t/863933.

Parameter I | Architectural Transformers | Di Wu | I D : 8 6 0 3 1 5

Parameter I Tectonic: Membrane Skin, Kinetic Structure, and Skin and Bone System

Parameter I | Architectural Transformers | Di Wu | I D : 8 6 0 3 1 5

Figure 3. Strandbeest by Theo Janson. Loek van der Klis, Animaris Rhinoceros, 2004, photograph, STIR Design Private Limited, https://www.stirworld.com/inspire-people-theo-jansen-on-his-passion-for-developing-strandbeests-into-ever-evolving-creatures.

Parameter I | Architectural Transformers | Di Wu | I D : 8 6 0 3 1 5

I. Tectonic: Membrane skin, Kinetic Structure, and Skin and Bone System

5. Mathews, “The Fun Palace: Cedric Price’s experiment in architecture and technology,” 75.

A moving architecture should have a flexible structure, a light appearance, and a novel system. Architecture, on the other hand, is not a machine, and it should not be overburdened with load-bearing concrete, bricks, or timber. Architecture should have less of a cold metal exterior and harsh industrial products than Walking City, which develops huge artificial-intelligent mobile machines. Instead, there are sophisticated kinematic skeletons and drives, with thin membrane skins that wrap closely around the kinetic structures and change with them. This creates a unique dynamic interaction between structure and skin, challenging traditional architectural notions about the extremely rigorous study of form. It is not constrained by the restrictions of rational Euclidean geometry or the conventional orthogonal structural rule. In Cedric Price’s Fun Palace (Figure 1), movement architecture is defined as a skeleton structure, “a scaffolding or frame that encloses a machine of social interaction - a virtual building that combines art and technology”5. Theo Janson’s walking installation is a perfect demonstration of the possibilities of large kinetic structures for architectural metamorphosis and movement (Figure 2,3). The framework is a skeletal frame. Because frames and membranes greatly weaken the materiality of the building. The simple, efficient, and homogeneous effect allows the building to be buried inside the dynamic environment’s interaction.

Parameter I | Architectural Transformers | Di Wu | I D : 8 6 0 3 1 5

Figure 4. Prada Transformer by OMA. OMA, Prada Transformer, 2009, photograph, OMA, https://library.unimelb.edu.au/recite/ referencing-styles/chicago-a/image/online-imageartwork.

Figure 5. The four configurations of Prada Transformer. OMA, THE FOUR CONFIGURATIONS, 2021, Prada Group, https:// www.pradagroup.com/en/perspectives/stories/sezione-progetti-speciali/prada-transformer.html.

Parameter I | Architectural Transformers | Di Wu | I D : 8 6 0 3 1 5

6. “SPECIAL PROJECTS PRADA TRANSFORMER,” Prada Group, p u b l i s h e d 2 0 2 1 , h t t p s : / / w w w. pradagroup.com/en/perspectives/ stories/sezione-progetti-speciali/prada-transformer.html.

However, the moveable structure of Fun Palace is a machine built up of separate blocks that are not attached to one other. Conversely, the kinetic structure is interconnected where the membrane is dependent on. The kinetic structure is a response, the flexible and tensile membrane is an expression. The flexibility and lightweight of the design completely liberate it, allowing it to act on its own initiative. The new system’s integrity confers biological qualities on architecture, which is one of the most significant differences between kinetic and mechanical architecture. The architecture evolved into a rapid realization process. People’s architectural ideas may be swiftly displayed in a virtual environment with the aid of virtual technology. Although not a kinetic structure, OMA’s Prada Transformer (Figure 4) used a similar system that can be rotated to form four configurations, providing four different spaces for different activities, which demonstrated the efficiency and flexibility of this system.6 Rapid metamorphosis in reality may be accomplished with the aid of kinetic structure and elastic skin under a quickly changing environment and demand, building a connection from virtual to reality. The new kinetic structure and system, and the membrane skin therefore a prerequisite for the building to move and generate interactive possibilities.