2013 Tutorial 10 - 11 _ Daniel & Adam Xinrui Yan 390916
Air Studio
Table of Contents Part A. EOI I: CASE FOR INNOVATION A.0 Introduction Previous Work
2 3
A.1 Architecture as A Discourse Personal Favorites: Oslo Opera House Personal Favorites: Notre-Dame Du Haut
5 6 9
A.2 Computational Architecture
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A.3 Parametric Modeling BMW Welt ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion 2012
16 18 20
A.4 Algorithmic Explorations
22
A.5 Conclusion
24
A.6 Learning Outcomes
25
A.7 References
26
Introduction Hello everyone, I’m Xinrui, or you can call me Vicki much easier. I’m currently at the third year as an environments student major in Architcture. I have learnt a little bit Rhinao 4.0 in the previous subject, just some basic stuff. I am kind of worried about using Rhino5.0 with Grasshopper plugin cos’ I haven’t touched them before. Most of my work was done by hand. I thought hand-drawing is much easier to express yourself when inspiration comes up, with one pen and a piece of paper then you can write down all your thoughts whenever or wherever you are. However after I experienced some of the grasshopper this week, I find that it is really effective by using digital tools. It speeds up your process of innovating and improving your idea at the very start. I am really excited about this and I know I will learn a lot from this studio and thus improving my skills in my architecture study.
Previous Work Learning From Masters ---- Rem KoolHass
This is my work from water studio last year. All my work were using hand drawing. My mainly concepts are: 1. FUNCTION SEPERATION --- PRIVATE VS PUBLIC Like Rem’s design of Netherlands Embassy 2003, private and public areas were analyzed and separated in a plan of rectangle shape. Therefore during my design for the boathouse, I first analyzed which are used privately, e.g., office, kitchen, boat storage room, toilets specifically for staffs. Staffs normally use these places only. And then to analyze which are for public. It is obvious that the restaurant, café and kiosk and public toilets. There are also some areas used for both private and public such as ramps which is used to link between different function rooms, like the one between office and kiosk, and the other one between kitchen and café. Secondly I separate into two main groups one for private and one for public. And arrange the circulation between each function.
2.
RAMPS & TRANSPARENCY
Many designs of Koolhaas show his favor of RAMPS like the ones in Embassy and Educatorium in Netherlands 1997 and Casa Da Musica 2005 and so on. Thus I also choose ramps to be my main connection between each function room. Besides, staircases are also used. Furthermore, one of Rem’s Buildings features is Transparency and in this way, people inside can see views outside and people outside can also see through and be attracted that they want to know what is going on inside the building. Therefore, I use glass as the main material for the ramps framing and also part of the main building body. 3. LIGHTNESS OF SOLIDITY --GEOMETRIC PATTERN & COLUMNS Another strategy used by Rem is the lightness of solidity. For example, the Villa Dall’ Ava 1991. The upper floor is extended longer than the downside and use columns in a random pattern to create interesting lightness. So I also extended my second floor and put columns under its extended areas. As a result, lightness of solidity is created and they also support the weight of the extended part to make the structure stronger.
Architecture As A Discourse
Oslo Opera House
The Oslo Opera House is the home of The Norwegian National Opera and Ballet, and the
national opera theatre in Norway. The building is situated in the Bjørvika neighborhood of central Oslo, at the head of the Oslofjord. It is designed by Norwegian architects Snøhetta. Most of the buildings in the city and in neighbouring communities are low in height with only the Plaza, Postgirobygget and the highrises at Bjørvika considerably taller.
Opera and ballet are young artforms in Norway. These artforms evolve in an international setting . The Bjørvika peninsula is part of a harbour city, which is historically the meeting point with the rest of the world. The dividing line between the ground ‘here’ and the water ‘there’ is both a real and a symbolic threshold. This threshold is realised as a large wall on the line of the meeting between land and sea, Norway and the world, art and everyday life. This is the threshold where the public meet the art.
The whole structure sits near the water and bring the feeling of ‘floating’. The downside and upper level uses glass as the main material to give the sense of transparency. Not only bring the outside views to insiders, but also shows outsiders what is happen inside the building.
The roof of the building angles to ground level creating a large plaza inviting pedestrians to walk up and enjoy the panoramic views of Oslo. The angles and paving materials are also skateboard-friendly allowing skateboarders to use some areas. Skateboarders are discouraged from areas closer to performance spaces by the use of steps and paving not conducive to skateboarding.
Notre-Dame Du Haut
When Le Corbusier returned to active practice in Paris at the end of the Second World War he was in his late fifties and had not built foe over a decade. In this period he became increasingly concerned with buildings that would reflect the full range of his ideas and principals. The great Utopian vision of the 1920s and 30s, of a society transformed by modernism, was overshadowed by his desire to find a fraternity with nature. The finest example of this change of heart is his pilgrimage chapel on a magnificent hilltop near Besancon, Eastern France. He accommodate a huge array of sources including Istrian huts, aeroplane wing sections and a crab’s shell.
The result was a structure with a huge curved concrete roof supported by convex and concave rubble walls punched to the south by a huge array of different sized openings. The building’s plan is ordered by light cowls inspired Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli and numbering three to reflect the Trinity. The building had a mixed critical reception, being instantly popular with the general public but enormously unpopular with fellow advocates of the modern movements. The weighty roof runs at an angle and meets the south wall leaving a slight gap so that what seems monumentally heavy outsider appear to be a thin surface inside. It gives an impression of great lightness. The ‘windows’ of the south wall are of varying sizes and depth, and are filled with colour glasses.
Computational
Architecture stands at an inflection point. The confluence of advances in computation technologies offers architects the possibility of designing and creating unimaginable forms. With increase in processing, the roughly triangulated geometries and simple blobs of the early 2000s have given way to the possibility of complex geometries at multiple scales with details approaching the threshold of human visibility . In traditional ways, we draw things by hands. Somehow it is convenient to express when inspiration comes up, what you need is only one pen with one piece of paper. However, when it comes to renovate your idea, if you use the traditional way to do it, it would take ages to go through it one by one, even though using the programs of AutoCAD. A single object with millions of unique facets would take years to draw. To truly exploit the possibilities, what we need is a more abstract and open-ended method: a computational approach. Parameters control the operations of a time-based, predefined process that is itself transforming or generating geometrics, instead of controlling the geometry directly in the process. As a result, a form with a few million surfaces is as easy to print as a form with a few dozen. With the computational technology, you can refine designs in the balance between expected and unexpected, control and relinquishments. Sometime in the computational design, the outcome will surprise you as it turns out a much more amazing form based on what you expect for. However, the design processes are deterministic, it does not come out randomly, but not necessarily entirely predictable. That’s why most architects get excited about it, it is not only a language that expressing themselves, but also bring out uncountable possibilities to create new designs. By using computational methods, it is not to design an object but generating objects throughout a series of computations. It is not like the traditional ways that you can only work on the design once, if you want to amend it you have to erase it and restart over again. In computational design process, you can apply changes again and again. You can bake your design whenever you like during the process and keep renovating. At the end, you can choose from the works you’ve made by comparing with each other and discussing questions such as which one is more feasible in the modern world, what is more functional and so on.
Architecture
The pictures show the work done by Michael Hansmeyer. He is an architect and programmer who explores the use of algorithms and computation to generate architectural form. Instead of the traditional drawings, he created columns with incredible surfaces by using a complex algorithm. He achieved this by layering thousands of 1mm thin sheets of cardboard around a wooden core . By looking at the complex outlook of the columns, it is hard to image that how long it would take if we use AutoCAD or even hand drawing. However by using computational technology, it makes the impossibility come true in the real world. And in my opinion, I believe that the final object is not the one he thought of at the very start. By using algorithms, he created new forms on the basic modeling. A computational method enable architecture walk towards a new expression in forms of series of geometries. It speeds up the design process and explores endless possibilities of objects could be. It surprise people by the variations it could achieve, which goes far beyond what one could have traditionally conceived.
Parametric A parametric was initially defined as a mathematical formula that required values to be substituted for a few parameters in order to generate variations from within a family of entities. Nowadays parametric modeling implies a way to design objects that are active and constantly changeable without affecting the nature of them. It is very useful for subjecting uncertain situations to the rigors of a pre-defined and proven mathematical model. What’s more, it also embodies a great deal of prior experience and is less biased than human thought processes alone.
Modeling Parametric modeling separates the entire structure in independent pieces, which in good communications with each other. Rates vary, proportions change, and the whole configuration alters accordingly. It is an easier way to renovate the original idea by changing specific parts of it. However, it needs to be noticed that when making the parametric modeling in the real life, we need to consider the feasibility and especially how each parts connect to each other. As the shape of each piece may very different from each other, the connection in between seems quite significant. One fail will destroy the whole structure. Also, the construction cost may also be higher than the normal building. It needs to be considered during budgeting.
BMW Welt The BMW Welt is one of the first buildings representing a new generation of communication buildings for the 21st century. BMW Welt’s muscular, stainless-steel-clad body, designed by Coop Himmelb(l)au, rises with the energy and force of a giant version of Umberto Boccioni’s Unique Forms of Continuity in Space. The ‘twist hall’ is made of glass with steels as the main structure frame. From the original concept of the design, there is no twist effect shown. It was possibly developed during the parametric modeling period. The surface is separated into numbers of geometries. Instead of smooth surface finish, designers changed the order of original geometry arrangement, as well as the size at the particular rows and the rates they should turn. As a result, the amazing shape was created. To match with material of glass, steel cladding is selected. It holds the whole structure of the hall and supports the weight of glass and does not ruin the aesthetics of lightness that glass brings. The Hall’s roof system also has special significance for the complex made up of heat, cold and air. A 3D simulation of thermal currents and air streams was conducted in order to investigate the spread of exhaust fumes from the cars driven on the Premiere level. It helps in energy saving.
ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion 2012
In November 2012 the Institute for Computational Design (ICD) and the Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design (ITKE) at the University of Stuttgart have completed a research pavilion that is entirely robotically fabricated from carbon and glass fiber composites. This is an impressive example when you look at it; thousands of lines just pop up to your eyes. The main structure of the pavilion is 5-pointed star, as well as the pattern on the surface. Shown in the pictures on the left, the designers create the incredible pattern by changing the fiber orientations. Setting the corner point as the origin, the fiber lines are spread out radially. I think this is a special example that parametric modeling not based on rearranging geometries, but lines. This pavilion tells us that even using lines can create amazing pattern by using parametric modeling technology. By adjusting the orientations of the fiber line and rate it bends, the pavilion is weaved.
Algorithmic E
Explorations By learning Grasshoppers, now we are able to make creative styles via algorithms. I get really excited about this app because it really save my times compared to do it by hands. I can’t imagine doing it by using AutoCAD or hand drawings. It would take a long time to finish the design if so. And once get wrong somewhere, you have to erase all the lines or drawing related to the mistake and restart over again. But using Grasshopper, I don’t need to worry about it. The original work is still there and all the changes are on the grasshopper work rather than applying to the Rhino directly. And what’s more, I can bake any work during the innovation period. At the end, I can choose from all the designs I’ve made, comparing with each other and select the favorites. However I also met some difficulties when I tried to do the work especially the vase. I think when you want to create a continuous surface; you have to place whatever lines, curves or geometries in order. When I did it, I didn’t notice that, and when I inserted another in between the existing ones, it just failed to create a continuous surface, it connected each geometry in the order of created time. Therefore I had to redo it again. But I think there may be other ways to avoid this. Anyway, I think most of the Grasshopper functions are full of fun when you play around such as Mesh and Parametric. The results sometimes just surprise me and inspire me more.
Conclusion Start from architecture discourse, we learnt that architecture is a continuous course. It keeps going forward. Instead of using hand drawing, now we are introduced to the computer technology. It expresses our inspirations in a new way and speeds up the time we spend on the design process. It allows to correct mistakes made during process without losing all the other relative works. Besides, computational architecture also brings surprise as they could create amazing effect when applying parametric modeling technology on it. It simplified the complex designing work. Computation is now a significant and essential tool in designing disciplines.
Learning Outcomes At the beginning of the semester, I felt worried about using the software GrassHopper that I haven’t touched before. Because I thought any new things needs time to learn it. I was afraid that I could not catch up the others. However, it seems not that hard after these four weeks. I went through every week’s videos online. They are a little bit too fast for me sometime, therefore after one minute or two, I stop it for a while, and when I catch up then carry on. The videos explained every function in detail. I think if I keep playing with it, I will get much familiar with Algorithmic technology. With the computational technology, I can express myself and visualize inspiration in a professional way. It also rich my ideas during my designing process. It will be really significant helpful when doing the gateway projects.
References Fast Company, ‘The World’s Most Complex Architecture: Cardboard Columns With 16 Million Facets’, < http://www.fastcodesign.com/1663306/the-worlds-most-complex-architecturecardboard-columns-with-16-million-facets#0> (accessed 14th March, 2013) ICD Research Pavilion,2012, http://icd.uni-stuttgart.de/?p=8807 (accessed 20th March, 2013) Michael Hansmeyer, ‘computational architecture’, < http://www.michael-hansmeyer.com/profile/about.html?screenSize=1&color=1> (accessed 14th March, 2013) Seer by Galorath, ‘What is parametric modeling?’, < http://www.galorath.com/index.php/ company/books/what-is-parametric-modeling/> (accessed 20th March, 2013) Suzanne Stephens, ‘COOP HIMMELB(L)AU’s Wolf Prix goes into the wild beyond with the swirling forms of the BMW Welt on the outskirts of Munich’, Architecture Record, < http:// archrecord.construction.com/projects/bts/archives/museums/0803_BMW/> (accessed 20th March, 2013) Yessios, Chris, 2003, ‘Is There More to Come?’, in Architecture in the Digital Age: Design and Manufacturing, ed. Branko Kolarevic, 259-68, new York: Spon Press.