Kelvin Man

aiR2013 SEMESTER 1T 16 : Michael & Zak

K E L V I NM A N

Welcome to my Journal! This is Kelvin. I am a 3rd year student studying Bachelor of environment, major in architecture. I was born in Hong Kong, an extreme crowned city where I completed my high school studies. In Feb 2010, I flied over to the Southern hemisphere to continue my study journey. Knowledge from high school has helped me to survive in tertiary study and I believe knowledge and experience that I get from Melbourne will benefit my future architecture journey.

My interest and impression in architecture was brought from Hong Kong, a crowded

city combined by modern skyscrapers. I remember when I was young, I looked at these skyscrapers as many rectangular blocks and I was hoping to build the tallest block when I grow up. As I studied more about architecture in the university, I discovered more about buildings, not just its purpose but the idea and construction method behind it. I appreciate the aesthetic sense of architects that they can design buildings into a piece of art work. I hope I will be a good architect and design more good work in the future.

- 2 - StudioAIR 2013

INTRODUCTIONHo Kwan Kelvin Man

My experience with digital design theory and tools was mainly began in 1st year Virtual Environment which I learnt to use Rhino to create a lantern that can express the natural process and be able to wear on a body. My design was base on the process of transmission of sound wave which is transmitted through compression and reflection of air particles. As sound wave was produced, they will be diffracted and reflected when hitting the objects. I captured the reflection moment and tried to express it in bending and twisting form. I found it hard to create my design in Rhino at the beginning as I was not familiar with the command and I messed up the 3Dpanel usually. As I had more try and error, I was getting more familiar with

this this design tool.

In the 2nd year, I have taken Studio Earth and visual communication. In these two subjects, I tried to engage several digital design tools to my design. I learnt to use Autocad to draw plans and sections; Sketchup to create 3D model and illustrator to edit the perspective drawing.

In this year, I need to learn how to use Grasshopper in Rhino to create 3D models. Although I have basic skills in using Rhino, Grasshopper is completely new to me. I understand that Grasshopper can help to increase the flexibility for using Rhino and I hope I can overcome the challenges and create greater model.

StudioAIR 2013 -3-

Experience

EXPRESSION OF INTEREST

PART AC A S E F O R INNOVATION

ARChITeCTURe As A

DIsCOURse

Architecture is inescapable to human life. They shelter human activity and they define our life, movement and

discipline, hence, architecture is of huge social importance and they are responsible to the public (Williams, 2005). As to think of what is architecture, Architecture as art might be the popular answer in architecture writing. Similar to other artist, sculptors and painters, architects would engage their personal aesthetic sense to design and express themselves in order to get visual attention and resonance from audience. However, a good architecture is not merely about personal expression and having esthetic appeal; it is about communicating and responding to the public. In this course of Studio Air, I aim to explore and create architecture as a “mother”. I believe a good mother would listen, communicate and respond to children’s need, giving the best to them; and I think this is what architecture should be, engage in communication with the public and response to their need. Therefore, I would describe the architecture as the “Mother of the Arts”.

To further analysis, “architecture needs to be thought of less as a set of special material products and rather more as range of social and professional practices” (Williams, 2005). Architecture should not merely take care of personal benefit and expressing personal aesthetic interest, treating architecture as an individual product; it is as the “Mother of the Arts” that having both aesthetic expression and social interaction. Having social interaction in architecture is to respond to the human needs inside and outside the building, create an interaction between the building and the user and not disturbing the natural environment. Architecture designs should therefore make balance between all the “children” needs and expression of personal or client interest. Moreover, human needs and environment are changing from time to time, it is important to keep communicating and rethinking architecture as a discourse in order to create responsive and interactive architecture to adapt the fast changing environment. “Buildings with no capacity to change can only become slums or ancient monuments” (archigram, dir., archigram, bbc Productions, 1966).

Discourse architecture as “The Mother of the Arts”

archigram, dir., archigram, bbc Productions, 1966Edinburgh University Press, 2005), pp. 102 - 116Richard Williams, ‘Architecture and Visual Culture’, in Exploring Visual Culture : Definitions, Concepts, Contexts, ed. by Matthew Rampley (Edinburgh:

HYGROSCOPEMenges and Reichert

“Responsive architecture is commonly defined as a type of architecture that has the ability to alter its form in response to changing conditions” (Sterk 2003). This hygroscope project as being a responsive architecture that can adapt to the climate change is what I am appreciated. The aim of this project is to respond to the climate change and create an architectural system that can make people feel comfortable under the moisture climate. The design team had explore the behavior of wood under climate change condition and realized that wood has the ability to absorb moisture when dry and yield moisture to the atmosphere when wet. This concept has been inserted into the Wooden Hygroscope system which makes it able to ventilate the moisture saturated air without any sensory equipment and electricity supply. There are 4000 elements in this system and each of them having different size and shapes which can be physically programmed to adapt to different humidity level.

I am very appreciated with this architectural system and it is the “mother of the arts” that I described. This architectural system has been focusing on human needs from its aim, to respond to human needs in the uncomfortable moisture condition. With its continuous responsive feature, it helps people adapting to the climate change over time. This system had also take care the environment by reducing need of non-renewable energy, treating the architecture itself as the dehumidifier. In addition, the composition of thousands of unique elements has created a great hierarchy to the structure which gives a aesthetic appeal to the audience.

http://www.achimmenges.net/?p=5083Sterk, T.E. (2003) Building Upon Negroponte: A Hybridized Model Of Control Suitable For Responsive Architecture

HILLS PLACEAmanda Levete Architects

Hills Place, filled up with large aluminum skin is another architecture that I am appreciated. It is not just the aesthetic skin and technology behind that inspired me, but the similar situation that I am facing that makes me feel I need it. Similar to many student accommodations in Melbourne, Hills Place located at the city heart of London is surrounded by buildings with similar height. They are not only blocking the view of the building, but most importantly, the sun light. Inspired by the art work of Lucio Fontana, Amanda Levette designed the Hills place with large window facing towards the sky to increase the probability of sunlight receiving. And to increase the level of sunlight, the skin of this architecture had been placed with slashed aluminum strips which help to reflect sunlight into the building. This architecture has truly contributed to the needs of human and changed the pattern of living from which electric light is needed in daytime to sunshine.

Hills Place have not only contributed the functional benefit to the stakeholders, but also having an aesthetic appeal which I would describe it “the Mother of the Arts”. The fine facet of the aluminum strips has created a smoothing and comfortable shape to the audience. This aluminum strips reflects the sky, light and streets, created a beautiful and highly visible scene to the public. It seems that this slashing aluminum strip would be a solution to the Gateway project since it can increase the visibility to the architecture which will be further explored in this course.

http://www.dezeen.com/2009/09/10/10-hills-place-by-amanda-levete-architects/

COMPUTATIONAL ARChITeCTURe

Digital designing tools create opportunities for new design situation and enhance problem solving

Peters, B. & De Kestelier, X. Computation Works: The building of Algorithmic Thought. Vol 83, Issue 2, (2013) pp. 1–152Kolarevic, Branko, Architecture in the Digital Age: Design and Manufacturing (New York; London: Spon Press, 2003), pp. 3 - 28Yehuda E. Kalay, Architecture’s New Media : Principles, Theories, and Methods of Computer-Aided Design (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2004)

Architecture design has come to an age that driven by digital design technology. This evolution of designing tool is changing

the way of architectural design process and methods of problem solving. Digital designing tools help architects to design architecture in a more effective and efficient way, they open up opportunities to allow designing and constructing very complex architecture that were thought to be too difficult or even impossible to build in previous age (Kolarevic, 2003). In addition, Computer are machines that follow the program logic, if correctly programmed, they would follow the input instruction to make its logical conclusion, never get tire and never make silly arithmetical mistake (Kalay, 2004).

To be more specific, computational systems provides varying levels of assistance to the design industry. The basic level is computerization which computer helps designer to draw lines and other geometric entities, digitize existing image or process that preconceived in the architects’ mind (Peters & De Kestelier, 2013). This helps architect to create image more efficiently and make it convenient for documentation. The advanced level is computation which computer can process information through an understood

model to express as an algorithm (Peters & De Kestelier, 2013). It help architect to extend their abilities to deal with complex situation, provide inspiration and solve problem.

As mentioned in the last chapter, architecture as the “Mother of the Arts” has to respond to the public need, having social responsibility. This issue of responding to the human needs become the architectural problem that architects have to solve with. Architects might thus analyze the problem, setting goals, evaluate the efficacy of each solution and communicate with others involved in the process; however this traditional problem solving method might have to create lots of unsuccessful solution which will decrease efficiency. With the advancement of computational systems, analytical systems having enough understanding of the data can be able to provide rational appraisal for human designer’s solution, designers can thus group the potential solutions and focus their efforts towards the potential ones. Moreover, they can set the boundary for the solution in computational systems so that the generated solution will not exceed the limit which can increase the probability of successful solution.

CIRRIFORMJason Kelly Johnson

Payne, A. O. and Johnson, J. K. (2013), Firefly: Interactive Prototypes for Architectural Design. Archit Design, 83: 144–147. doi: 10.1002/ad.1573

Cirriform is a responsive architectural system that can create interaction between human and architecture itself. Different from the Hydroscope described in the last chapter, Cirriform cannot make response on its own material, but is powered and controlled by the computational systems behind – Grasshopper and Firefly.

This architectural system is combined by hundreds of small illuminated crystalline components, with sensors inserted in each component. When visitors walk towards the façade, their proximity will trigger the sensors closest to them which signal will be transferred from the sensor to the Firefly. Firefly serves as the bridge between digital and physical world and give real-time feedback to the grasshopper. The

illuminated crystalline components will finally rotate towards the visitors and light them up according to the program logic of Grasshopper.

In this architectural system, computation has created a bridge between human and architecture which human can interact directly with the architecture. It is no more an individual product alone but having social practice that would communication with the audience under the assistance of computation tool. With the help of Firefly and Grasshopper, architecture can further develop to respond to human needs by using sensors to detect the actual environmental condition like thermal and brightness condition, and giving real-time feedback to the hardware to satisfy human needs.

INNSbRuCK AIRPORTThomas buseck

A new passenger terminal of Innsbruck Airport, designed by Thomas Buseck, has integrated the environmental analysis into his design. This design is assisted by GECO, a plug-in of Grasshopper, which can create linkages between 3-D modeling software and analysis platform. GECO allows architects to export environmental analysis and evaluate the designer’s performance in Ecotect and import the results back to Grasshopper.

In the Buseck’s design, he aimed to create an airport that can adapt to the environmental condition in Innsbruck. The design team used GECO as a platform to analysis the solar access condition to the roof design over a period time and explores the relationship between the solar

condition and the overall design. The result was then imported to Grasshopper for the design tuning. Base on the environmental analysis with GECO, the Innsbruck Airport design has designed the roof with holes in different size to control the amount of solar radiation passing into the airport.

This airport design has demonstrated how computation affects design process and how computation makes architecture suitable to the environment and human needs. With the platform of GECO, architect can integrate different analysis such as acoustic and moisture condition into the design process which helps them to tune architecture into an environmental adaptive one.

Grabner, T. and Frick, U. (2013), GECO™: Architectural Design Through Environmental Feedback. Archit Design, 83: 142–143. doi: 10.1002/ad.1572http://www.designboom.com/readers/thomas-buseck-new-airport-innsbruck/http://thomasbuseck.blogspot.com.au/http://networkedblogs.com/e5jFc

MuSEO SOuMAYAAmanda Levete Architects