Case For Innovation

ARCHITECTURE DESIGN STUDIO AIR ABPL 30048_2013_SM1

Wei bo Qian_ Group 07 - 16 P_Michael Wu & Zak

SELF INTRODUCTION

My name is Weibo Qian.

I am a third year environments student major in architecture. This semester, I choose air as my studio subject. After reading through the subject guide briefly, I found this subject is assigned with grasshopper, which I have never learnt or used with. However, after watching the tutorial videos provided on LMS and the assistance from my tutor, I found grasshopper is a very powerful tool for design progress. To be honest, I found it is quite exciting to explore the design world by using grasshopper.

Grasshopper, which provides a new way of design in process rather than design with 3D model, different from the AutoCAD,

Sketch up that I have used for my previous design studios. I took the studio water last semester. This studio focused on learning from the masters, which encourages students to study the successful precedents of masters and found the particular materiality, functionalities they have used in their buildings. Our major designs were mostly inspired by our masters.

The one below is my design, which is inspired by the master Alvar Aalto. I was quite interesting about his vase, and I adopted it in my design as the fallingwater roof, which can be seen on the left bottom of the picture.

A.1. Architecture As A Discourse

Obviously, architecture is gradually focusing the philosophical, social or professional realm as well as the material. It becomes able to engage with those different elements as visual culture trough considering architecture as discourse.1 Architecture needs to be analyzed as discourse. It then becomes possible to think about architecture as something in which all can participate. One can begin to free it from its professional ties. Crucially, one can begin to think about it from the point of its consumption as much as its production. It is here that

the field of visual culture as an approach may have the most to offer in our understanding of architecture.

The consumption of architecture may be thought about in two ways: first, in terms of the understanding of it as sign, or symbol; second, in terms of it as spatial experience.

Architecture ought to be seen as discourse. Buildings as material facts are a small part of the overall field of architecture, a field which is better regarded as a network of practices and debates about the built environment.

A.1. Precedent 1

Norman Foster, Willis Faber & Dumas Headquarters, Ipswich, Suffolk, UK, 1975

Foster’s Willis Faber & Dumas Headquarters turned many architectural norms on their heads as it rumbustiously made the planning envelope literally its own. Innovations were at many levels, including bringing the fully glazed walls out to the building’s physical perimeter, the open planning and inclusion of a swimming pool within the interior, and the entire roof forming a garden. The invention of suspended glazing associated with the building makes it a landmark in ‘high tech’ architecture.

A.1. Architecture As A Discourse

A.1. Precedent 2

Renzo Piano, Richard Rogers and Gianfranco Franchini, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, 1977

In the history of architectural innovation from this building onwards, building services could no longer be presumed to be inevitably tucked away out of sight, as here at the Centre Georges Pompidou they were celebrated for the

first time. Other innovations included inventing structural technologies more familiar to bridge builders than to architects in order to create the magnificently generous column free floor spaces within.

A.2. Computational Architecture

Architectural design relies on the consideration of the external constraints such as site conditions, climate, functionality, cost and building codes. Also, it requires the internal design inspirations. A good design needs the analytical and creative ability. 2 Computer is designed as the super analytical tool.

If programmed correctly, computers will be very useful for design tests. They will never make stupid mistakes or tire, and will gladly search through and correlate facts buried in the endless heaps of information they can store. They will do all the work quickly and repeatedly by the settled program. However, computers cannot make up new instructions themselves because they lack any creative

abilities or intuition.

Computing design is based on the development of the computational systems, which provides various assistances to humans by taking care of smaller or larger parts of the design process.

Thus, computers are limited to support human in drawing lines and other geometrical entities. Nevertheless, computers make the communications among designers much more conveniently. And as the technology develops very fast these days, the limitation of computer assistance will be resolved sooner or later.

It would be interesting to find that if computation would be helpful for blob construction tests and developments.

A.2. Computational Architecture FREE, Museo Soumaya, Mexico City, Mexico, 2011

The structural diagram above shows the inner columns of the parking grid, lateral forces are taken by the 28 steel columns, concrete belt, seven steel bracings, and the concrete core takes the gravity force.

Due to the complex form of the building, it becomes impossible to draw this design with standard 2D drawing skills as it has a lot of interior complex

components.

As architecture design is becoming more complex, it requires a clear, comprehensive process to understand and communicate this complexity.

It is clearly that design a complex or sort of blob building; computational assistance is a very necessary condition.

A.2. Computational Architecture The design of Dublin’s Aviva Stadium(2010) was as a Swiss watch. In order to express the watch as a whole, the stadium was supposed to be the combination of functionality and elegance.

Working with computational design process, each components of the stadium can reach their own function and beauty. Moreover, computational design also can set up the relationships among each other components, which makes the stadium not just as a singular unit, but become a functional entirety.3 The stadium was designed and developed through using a combination of Robert McNeel & Associates’ Rhinoceros and Bentley Systems’ Generative Components (GC).

Computational design tool generates a fully resolved 3D geometry by using several of tiers, capacities and geometric set- out parameters. As a result, new undiscovered configurations can be set whilst the standard main relationships still preserve.

As a blob construction, it also desires to be a functional whole. Meanwhile, blob construction also require modify of its structure by keeping the formal configurations.

A.3. Parametric Modeling

Most aspects of a Karmapa model can be made depend on parametric input. Such a model consists of an assemblage of visual components which look and feel like the native software’s building blocks. The fact that Karmapa reacts immediately to any change of input parameters helps to understand structural mechanisms in the design. Using Karmapa is like watching a film compared to a fixed image; one can easily create a series of images in real time by manipulating the corresponding user interface widget instead of the more traditional approach of having a systems response only at one particular state.

Although its development has been rooted in the context of Bollinger + Groh Mann Engineers, Karmapa has

always been a stand-alone project. As development proceeds, the range of its applications constantly widens; for example, shell elements can now be included in calculations.

But what is perhaps most interesting is how the structural properties that are normally hidden from view – deflections, natural vibrations, and force flow lines – can be used creatively in an architectural context. With the advent of new digital tools that combine architecture and engineering, demand has grown for professionals who have knowledge in both areas. Karmapa is the instrument for this new generation of architectural engineers and engineering architects to play their new tunes on.

Although its development has been rooted in the context of Bollinger + Groh Mann Engineers, Karmapa has always been a stand-alone project. As development proceeds, the range of its applications constantly widens; for example, shell elements can now be included in calculations. But what is perhaps most interesting is how the structural properties that are normally hidden from view – deflections,

natural vibrations, and force flow lines – can be used creatively in an architectural context. With the advent of new digital tools that combine architecture and Engineering, demand has grown for professionals who have knowledge in both areas. Karmapa is the instrument for this new generation of architectural engineers and engineering architects to play their new tunes on.

A.3. Parametric Modeling

Parametric design means we are now able to design more parts, more accurately, at an earlier stage, and therefore create new methods of delivering construction information. While parametric

modelling has allowed us to design variations, building information modelling (BIM) is the process through which we can coordinate design execution.

For the commission to design a new pit lane building and redesign a portion of the Silverstone Formula 1 track (2011), the architects returned to the core of what parametric design can offer. The challenge here was to design a track, associated safety barriers and safe spectator positions while also optimizing the driving experience and spectator viewing.

Populous solution was the combination of a parametrically driven track and safety-barrier design tool, a computer game simulation to define an optimum racing line/speed, and a simulator machine to market test-track options with professional drivers, which resulted in a dynamic

spectator/ driver experience. Together, the driver, simulator and track design input created a more desirable circuit for drivers as well as entertaining and competitive racing for spectators.

A.4. Algorithmic Thinking & Explora-

It is really interesting to use grasshopper as the tool of making algorithmic patterns. And the outcomes of the parameters are very exciting.

Here are the two examples that I have tested after learning from the tutorial

videos. The videos on the LMS are quite useful as they generally explain what a grasshopper is and how it works, which helps me a lot in studying grasshopper.

A.5. Conclusion _ A.6. Learning Out-

Throughout the past few weeks of learning from Computational architecture, Parametric Modeling, Algorithmic thinking and explorations., I found that modern architecture design is associated with the 3D modeling software, such as the Rhinoceros with grasshopper, which adopts the use of parameters as the tool to make 3D models by 2D patterns. Different from the previous modeling tools that I have used for my studio, such

as the AutoCAD, sketch up, and so on.

It makes modeling become flexible by using grasshopper. As a result, to change the structure of a building, it does not require changing the large part of the building, but only the parameters in grasshopper, which saves much more time on modeling, thus, more and more undiscovered forms or structures can be easily made through using grasshopper.

References 1. Richard Williams, ‘Architecture and Visual Culture’, in Exploring Visual Culture : Definitions, Concepts, Contexts, ed. by Matthew Rampley (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005), pp. 102 - 116.