AIRArchitecture Design Journal

Semester 1, 2015

Studio#5 Daiwenqi Cao 503630

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CONTEXT

Introduction 4

Part A. conceptualisation 6

Part B. criteria design

Part C. detailed design

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Introduction

I am a third year architecture student and interested in designing and hand-drawing.

In my childhood, I am interested in drawing and love to use pencils and colours to show my imagination about world.

Since study in university, I start to learn the digital design. It is a different experience from the previous which totally new to know about digital tools. At first, it is more helpful to improve straight work lines and create more colours. In the Architecture Design Studio Earth and Water, I did most of my work in hand-drawings and only tried sketch up.Previously, I am not familiar with using digital tools and too rely on hand-

drawings. During the break, I learned Rhino and Grasshopper by myself online. At that time, I felt interesting and because I like maths when I try grasshopper, it becomes easier and useful.Air Studio is a good chance for me to touch the digital world and link with my design process. And now, the technical use not only a digital, visually tool but also becomes part of our design process and a better way to form ideas.

Nowadays, digital design is very common and useful skill in architecture. It is convenient to provide more ways and methods to achieve potential and better outcome.

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Above: Architecture Design Studio Water: Boat House

Above: Architecture Design Studio Earth: Bird House

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Part a. conceptualisation

A.0 Design Futuring 7

A.1 Design Computation 13

A.2 Composition/Generation 19

A.3 Conclusion 23

A.4 Learning Outcome 25

A.5 Appendix - Algorithmic Sketches 27

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A.0 Design Futuring

Defuturing is a totally new name and meaning which set by Tony Fry. He approach another agenda of thinking which mentioned that “the historical is as much before us as it is to our rear.”[1]

It is a revolutionary theoretical to the traditional contexts and aim to rethink designing to achieve the sustainability. Profoundly, it offers a challenging archaeology of how the worlds we inhabit have been made unsustainable, and then makes available knowledge that has the potential to radically change design thinking and to dramatically change how futures are constituted.

From The lecture notes, previously, architecture is concern on the form and functions of things. It is about building things, which embodied the cultural, social changes in particular era. It is a guider of architects, local or national interest. As Thackara said in 2005, “In the past, design was about the form and function of things. These features, which were limited in space and time, could be delivered in a fixed form, such as a blueprint. In today’s ultranetworked

world, it makes more sense to think of design as a process that continuously defines a system’s rules rather than its outcomes.”[2] At present, design is more complex and with the increase use of computational design, the process is more important. It is a code language and the process becomes part of design itself. Digital design tools consists of order, form, structure and engineering things. It is not only use the software but also use scripts to create a software. The process of computational design provides more possibility to form the idea.

Notably, “Architects actually know the consequences of their activities beyond a horizon of immediate concern.”[3] With the strategy of sustainability and resource limitation, architects think more on the social ecological system, especially focus on material usage and energy save. It is more engaged with the natural environment. The movement of architecture interact with the world we designed and lived. Design should consider about more efficient economic,positive and active impacts and plan for the future development.

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Helsinki Public Library Robert Stuart-Smith

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The Helsinki Public Library designed by Robert Stuart-Smith and won a third-place.

“The project utilised an innovative tectonic principle of a continuous post-tension timber surface that permeates through the building and mediates the organization of spaces, circulation, natural ventilation, and day-lighting.”[4] The timber surface is not same as the characteristic of tension compression, it transfers to the non-structural suspended structure.

The project aims to achieve minimum building volume and extensive the public area by using the open ground floor and larger park area entry. The building is constructed

from locally available renewable timbers. The project is not built but the computational design can consider the spatial, material and economic cost together. It design efficiently and ensure the user comfort by enhance the public space.

The project is designed by digital tools and concern on cultural context, spatial, material and interact with environment. Compare with before, it is visually show the idea and form it into data flows. Relate to the project, it is worth to think about the worldwide view and contrast with the local cultural context, which is more benefit for a longer existence.

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Spectra Ryoji Jkeda, 2013

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The spectra is designed by Ryoji Ikeda and built surround the world. He is one of the most popular artists at this moment. The left picture is ‘Spectra’ show at Tasmania in Australia.

His design is more mystery which is hard to define or divide his design concept. It can be argue as film, sound, installation or performance.

The spectra is a series of large scale installations employing intense white light as a sculptural material. The purpose of using white light is to represent the electricity/ energy in the purest form. It shows the transformation.

Also the strong white lights made people cannot see just like in the darkness to force them forget the

installation and imagine become fiction and invisible. It creates a feeling of “something indescribable, something sublime and unearthly, something unforgettable.”[5]

The above picture shows his another artistic work, the ‘Test Pattern [No 5]’. It provides an experience with a data matrix based soundtrack. The platform shows a concert with different melody.

These projects are increase people interests and attention. His work is more aim to communicate/transform something to people. Link to these sound, installation or performance, it provides a new way to think about architecture, a way to feel the interaction with human, technology, mathematics and nature.

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A.1 design computation

Computational design becomes a contemporary architectural design method. And nowadays, computerisation accounts the major part in today’s architecture.

Computerisation means “entities or processes that are already conceptualized in the designer’s mind are entered, manipulated, or stored on a computer system.”[6] It means already had design idea and use computer as a digital tools to visually show the thoughts. However, it limits by designer’s creativity and technical skill. “For the first time perhaps, architectural design might be aligned with neither formalism nor rationalism but with intelligent form and traceable creativity.”[6]

Computation design is different , it “allows designers to extend their abilities to deal with highly complex situations.”[7] It increase the capacity to generate order, form, structure and material to solve these complex problem. The term Algorithm is “a

particular set of instructions, and for these instructions to be understood by computer they must be written in a language the computer can understand, a code.”[7] It already had its own code languages by using scripts, such as Rhino and grasshopper.

Algorithmic thinking is “the ability to understand, execute, evaluate, and create algorithms.”[8] An algorithm is a flow of data. It explores ideas through design process, through the computation design. Thus, the way of designing it is part of design itself.

Digital design stores endless information and never tire. It is convenient to deal with form, material and structure and also visually see the 3D model. The computation, the code language includes engineering, mathematical and explore to create a software.

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The Guggenheim Museum BilbaoFrank Gehry, 1977

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The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is a museum of modern and contemporary art designed by Frank Gehry in 1997. Bibao is a city beside river and the city is well-known for this ship building. It is modenity, culture and clean which is worth to visit.

This building is computerisation design and the curves on the building are designed to appear random and aim to catch the light. This form of curve echoes the flow of water and communicate with the nature.

Frank Gehry used "steel, stone, titanium and water in thedesign of this museum to reflect the force, independence and industrial tradition of the Basque country in which it is situated."[9]

Computer Aided Three Dimensional Interactive Application ( CATIA) and visualizations were used heavily in the

structure's design. It can be consider as the style of DeconstructivismFrank Gehry who proposed a futuristic and attractive project. During the complicated process, computer assisted programs of design and construction. Gehry calls the " organization of the artist" prevailed during construction, in order to prevent political and business interests from interfering with the design. Also, he used CATIA and close collaboration with the individual building trades to control costs during construction.[10]

Computerisation design starts a new era of architecture. Relate to the museum, Gehry is more use digital as tool to test the 3D model and practice before the construction. Computer plays a role to help and finalize his idea into a real practice.

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ICT/ ITKE Research PavilionUniversity of Stuttgart , 2011

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In 2011, ICT and ITKE built a temporary, bionic research pavilion made of wood at University of Stuttgart.

The project explores to transfer the biological system into architectural design. The biological principles of the sea urchin’s plate skeleton morphology by means of novel computer-based design and simulation methods, along with computer-controlled manufacturing methods for its building implementation.[11]

It is a particular innovation consists in the possibility of effectively extending bionic principles and related performance to a range of different geometries through computational processes, which is demonstrated by the fact that the complex morphology of the pavilion could be built exclusively with extremely thin sheets of plywood (6.5 mm).

The pavilion is a closed, digital information loop between the project’s model, finite element simulations and computer numeric machine control.

Form finding and structural design are closely interlinked. An optimized data exchange scheme made it possible to repeatedly read the complex geometry into a finite element program to analyse and modify the critical points of the model. The project tests the resulting spatial and structural material-systems in full scale.

With the success of this project, it shows us the advantage of computational design. It can practice within software, benefit on construction logically and form finding through the iterations. It is easy to change and redefine during the process.

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Composition is the relationship and structure between the individual building elements to generate the overall form.

Generative design is a design method which set the rules/ algorithm, modify the data and judge the output by using the computer program. Most generative design is based on parametric modelling. It is a fast method of describing a range of design possibilities.

Generative design is easy for designers with little programming experience, to implement their ideas. Parametric modelling demonstrates aspects of methodological development.[12]Iteration refers to repeating some algorithm a set number of times.

The concept of Turing Machine is a hypothetical machine capable of solving any problem that could be described using an algorithm. The concept becomes the foundation of modern computer science.

A computer is a machine which is capable of modelling the behaviour of biological systems. It allows us to find meaning in certain algorithms in how we understand natural processes. It still need time to become realistic but it has some progress fro example, the ‘L’ System and the Plugin named Rabbit for Grasshopper.

A.2 composition/generation

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MATERIAL AGENCIES INSTALLATIONWASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, 2012

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Material Agencies is in order to explore how assembly may be utilised as a generative design process. The installation is defined as a tectonic experiment. It has mass production and use 600 identical elements connect to one another with no rigid joints in any axis.

This project designs materiality to be conceived as an organisational exercise with the smaller scale components. It cooperate to produce a supple textile-like surface from heavy precast concrete elements.[13]

The aim of this project is to explore the variation of material properties. It is able to be part of self-draped and self-supported. It depends on the relations of organisation and connection.

The project was developed through computational simulations and numerous scaled physical model prototypes of the assemblage and the geometry of the parts. The generative capacity of the assemblage was intrinsically related to the geometry of the part. The part was therefore designed for its capabilities in producing affects and behaviours within the assemblage. [13]

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Composite Swarm/ Wing Roland Snooks ,2013/2014

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The Composite Swarm installation designed by Roland Snooks in 2013. It is a prototype exploring the relationship of robotic fabrication, composite materials and algorithmic design.

The complexity of the form and the excess of ornament make the prototype structurally efficient and minimize the amount of material used. The prototype is 2.5 meters tall, with a surface thickness of less than 1mm. [14]

A swarm algorithm based on the self-organizing behavior of ants was developed for the project to negotiate between and compresses surface, structure and ornament into a single irreducible form.[14]

The installation combines a fiber-composite surface and flexible foam components. Both of these elements are too flexible to be self-supporting, however the combination of the two creates a highly rigid composite.

This algorithmic approach is part of Kokkugia’s Behavioral Formation design process that draws on the logic of swarm intelligence and operates through multi-agent algorithms.

The installation was fabricated by laminating cast polyurethane components and glass fiber.

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Part A starts to learn how to set argument and concept and understand the theory. And for the selection of two precedents each week, I learned the ability to find relevant and interesting projects with our topic/theme. This is very helpful to our future design to think consciously, critically and logically.

Computerisation/Computation design is a mainly method to design a project. It saves time, energy and also inspired architect when virtually gathering the data/information. It create a range of way to developing the ideas and explore through the design process.It benefits designer and also directly show to the clients. To sum up, the design approach will based on computer design, nature and human relationship and concern on the energy transfer.

A.3 conclusion

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During these three weeks design process, I find interesting and convenient on using digital tools. The design process is different and surprise. It can provides multiple iterations. I can get same outcomes in several ways and can use maths to divide layers, faces and build models.

Computation design sets scripts instead of drawing geometrics. It uses algorithm to build in right scale on computer. We already beyond past and design the future. In nowadays, we design and plan to live sustainable and design futuring. Computer design move forward to the future.

Digital tools will appear more in the future and it can easily get satisfy or potential outcome through the design process.

A.4 learning outcomes

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1 Lofting2 Populate 3d3 attractor point + circle cnr4 offset + ex-trude5 cap holes6 solid trim

A.5 Appendix - algorithmic sketches

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I loft a surface and populate 3D to get points. I use the series to control the amount of points. Then use center points and radius to get a circle.

Then offset the circle and extrude from unit z. Then cap and trim to look solid. Extrude control the height of brep and the two attractor points control the radius of circles.

I noticed when the points become closer, some of the brep closed the hole because should consider about the distance of offset.

Consider about my outcome, it can change the geometry or the attractor points like use the contours, or change points to the attractor curve to achieve potential possibilities.

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1 Tony Fry, 1999. A New Design Philosophy: An Introduction to Defuturing, (UNSW Press).

2 Thackara, John, 2005. In the Bubble: Designing in a ComplexWorld, (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press), P. 224.

3 Fry, Tony (2008). Design Futuring: Sustainability, Ethics and New Practice, (Ox-ford: Berg), P. 25.

4 suckerPUNCH, 2014. Helsinki Public Library. URL: http://www.suckerpunchdaily.com/2014/02/05/helsinki-public-library/#more-35110 - Last Accessed March 10th, 2015.

5 Ryoji Ikeda, 2013. spectra. URL: http://www.ryojiikeda.com/project/spectra/- Last Accessed March 10th, 2015.

6 Terzidis, Kostas, 2006. Algorithmic Architecture (Boston, MA: Elsevier), P. xi

7 Peters, Brady, 2013. Computation Works: The Building of Algorithmic Thought, Architectural Design, 83, 2, P.10.

8 Wayne Brown, Introduction to Algorithmic Thinking

9 THE ART BOOK, 2008.‘Big is Beautiful’– The Guggenheim Museum at Bilbao, Volume 15, Issue 1, February 2008, P. 60–61.

10 ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion 2011, http://icd.uni-stuttgart.de/?p=6553

11 Kolarevic, Branko, 2003. Architecture in the Digital Age: Design and Manufacturing (New York; London: Spon Press.

12 Digital theory lexicon

13 kokkugia, MATERIAL AGENCIES INSTALLATION . URL: http://www.kok-kugia.com/MATERIAL-AGENCIES-INSTALLATION - Last Accessed March 20th, 2015.

14 kokkugia, Composite Swarm URL: http://www.kokkugia.com/Compos-ite-Swarm- Last Accessed March 20th, 2015.

Reference

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IMAGE

robert stuart-smith design ltd. The Helsinki Public Library. URL: http://www.robertstuart-smith.com/rs-sdesign-helsinki-public-library - Last Accessed March 15th, 2015.

AD Classics: The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao / Frank Gehry | ArchDaily, http://www.archdaily.com/422470/ad-classics-the-guggenheim-museum-bilbao-frank-gehry/

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Part B. criteria design

B.1. Research Field 31

B.2. Case Study 1.0 34

B.3. Case Study 2.0 41

B.4. Technique: Development 47

B.5. Technique: Prototypes 50

B.6. Technique: Proposal 54

B.7. Learning Objectives and Outcomes 60 B.8. Appendix - Algorithmic Sketches 61

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B.1. Research Field - Tesselation

My research field is tesselation.Tesselations are used extensively in our daily life, especially in buildings and walls. They are part of an area of mathematics that often appears simple to understand.

A tesselation is any repeating pattern of symmetrical and interlocking shapes. Thus, tesselations always have no gaps or overlapping spaces. Tesselations are sometimes referred as a pattern of polygons.In rhino and grasshopper, it is typically can be analyzed mathematically.

Tesselations can be formed from regular and irregular polygons, making the patterns they produce more interesting. Tesselations of squares, triangles and hexagons are the simplest and are frequently seen in everyday life.

Regular tesselations are tesselations that are made up of only one kind of regular polygon. For example, triangles, squares and regular hexagons.

Non-regular polygons are those in which the interior angles are not the same, nor are the sides of the polygon of equal length. Non-regular polygons are slightly more difficult to tessellate, as they first require various transformations before they fit into a shape that will tessellate automatically. Non-regular tesselations are those in which there is no restriction on the order of the polygons around vertices.For example,

Triangles PentagonsQuadrilaterals

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Architecture

Nature contains many different tesselations.

Tesselations are used in architecture, both two-dimensional and three-dimensional. In two-dimensional plan, it is easy to repeat pattern which can look astonishing when it covers a large area. Instead of using rectangular building blocks, the basic shape of the building blocks has been manipulated to produce interesting shapes.

For the patterning area, it has cultural and political possibilities enabling new practices to address in the urban context.

From structure approach, the polygonal tesselation is able to

self-supporting and provide a smaller joint length per surface unit than rectangular grids, which can be built for sealed, immunizing atmospheres.

pineapple spiderweb honeycomb

London swiss

federation square

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HypoSurface

plug-and-play devices, designed for ease of transportation, installation and use-air, electricity and lighting -easy to use, control -fully automatic-more interaction with audience, users-responsive to the sound and movement

Fermid

-kinetic sculpture-explore the natural movement of living organisms and human perception-movement and space

Transformer

a layered, light-responsive shading latticecomprised of quad-shaped, polystyrene petals arrayed in overlapping, radial clusters

-mechanical movements -geometry and patterning -shadow rendering

Tesselation Projects

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B.2. Case Study 1.0

Foreign Office Architects - Spanish Pavilion

In the Spanish Pavilion for Aichi 2005, the pattern is differentiated automatically by the particular geometrical quality of the six deformed hexagons, with no other purpose than to represent a differentiated colour field that, despite its contingent appearance, is governed by the geometrical laws of the parts.

The pattern then project into the structure of the tessellation pattern.

Six different hexagonal ceramic tiles, colour-coded with a yellow and red tones, form a system that automatically produces a contingent pattern of colour.

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Change [number slider] to create different place of points which lead to different line length and direction.

[Expression] lead to more or less offset curves of the [cull pattern].

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Change [hexagon grid] to [radial grid], [triangle grid] and rectangle grid].

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[image sample] + [multiplication] or [addition] to imapct at the [integer]

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multiple ways together

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First try of the Spanish Pavilion and skylar tibbits together

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Selection Criteria

kinetic/dynamic - spatial

geometry - regular polygon or non-regular

pattern - wall, roof, ceiliing

movement and interaction- nature, organic, human interaction

function - stable, real practice

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B.3. Case Study 2.0

Festival of Ideas for the New CityMay 7th, 2011

SOFTlab produced a hanging installation for the entrance to School Nite, an exhibition of site-specific installations, performances. It located between streets.

The surface contains more than 1400 battery powered LEDs. The piece was designed to light up the entrance for the night time event.

The main formal expressions of the installation are the hanging pieces that flicker and blow in the wind, with the intention of slowing down traffic through experience and effect rather than typical barriers.

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Try to find circles’ interaction area

Try to find the intersection points of circles

Both failed to get the expected result.

First attempt

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Define four corner points and mid-point, then connect each of the corner points with the center using line component.Then, use constant number. Also, can use a number slider between 0-1 to see the effect of changing the weight.

Successful one-process

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Then, have eight points and then use [nurbs curve] to create four curves.

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To build a wall based on the [curve] which draw in the rhino and get a list of point.Then, use an [attractor point] to vary cell size and basically shuffle grid points. Green points are the ones shifting towards the attractor point.Aim to extract lists of corner points of the system cells into component logic, to use the [cellulite component] and the [list item] to separate each corner point.

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B.4. Technique: Development

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surfaces

pavilion with thickness

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triangle cellur

hexagon

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B.5. Technique: Prototypes

The heptagons creates interesting pattern and provides beautiful shadow through the light. The limitation is cannot stand by itself. But, it is still worth to design this geometry.

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The pentagon looks elegant and can self supporting, it is even can stand by two components which hold the above four.It is stable and kinetic.

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Relate to the reverse engineering project, it use the materials of mylar, acrylic, LEDs, Conductive Thread and Lithium Batteries.Link with the prototypes, each components can be weld or screwed together.And mylar and acrylic are interesting and usable, also are light-weight material which is better for self-supporting building.

Mylar Properties

electric insulatortransparenthigh tensile strengthchemical stabilityreflectivegas barrier

Thickness of Mylar Sheetsfrom .0005” or 12 um to .014” or 350 um

Acrylic glass material, usually see acrylic sheets and acrylic plastics

commonusefulcheap

light + shadow

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Precedent 1

a concrete undulation punctured with colorful round windows

yellow, pink, blue, red and green create colourful light

curved white planes and the forms

children can seat, climb or run

the shape provides a movable sunshade

Playground for machida kobato kindergarten

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B.6. Technique: Proposal

Technique in Grasshopper and Rhino:

dynamic + kinetic form tesselation polygon patternattractor points or curve which emphasize and communicate the design area

communication with the site and usersinteraction with human and nature environmentsound, light and windcolourful + interesting shadow

high density area - attract more userspavilion - create more functions

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Site analysis

surrounding environment:

reserveparkheldelberg roadresidential areanear the CBD

users:childrenresidentsexercisersvisitors

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The design area was located near the primary school, reserve site and park, also near the CBD.It has high density, traffic but also has great nature environment.From the primary school, walk around 200 meters can see the design site.The contour of the site are flat.The pavilion is in order to enhance the usability of the site, the reserve of the merri creek. Also, it should communicate with the site and users. The pavilion not only aim to provide a resting, meeting area for residents but also create a playground for children.

primary school

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A Light Installation of Cellular Tessellation at the Sydney Vivid Light festival of 2014.

The pavilion explores the pedestrian dynamic in touch and light. It transforms the Australian metropolis with light, music and ideas.

It is a site-specific viewing pavilion which can see the Sydney Harbor Bridge and the Sydney Opera House.

The outer form was first divided into a hexagonal grid, which was subsequently optimised into slightly irregular Voronoi cells. The basic structure is formed with

digitally-fabricated aluminum panels, folded and aggregated. It use LED lighting as well.

‘The pavilion – in concept – was designed to be interactive and respond to movement and proximity of occupants, resulting in dynamic lighting behavior. This would be driven by small infrared sensors connected to programmable Arduino hardware to control the circuitry,’ the architect concludes.

Precedent 2

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Geometry-non-regular voronoi cellsForm-dynamicElectricity- LED lightingSound -musicView - harbour bridge and opera houseLight-weight material-aluminum panels

Local to globalInternational view

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design concept + future development

Pavilion

a resting area a meeting areaa playgroundenhance usability of surrounding environmentcommunicate with the high density area and the traffic

use the line of contour as [curve] to [loft] and create a dynamic formdecide the outer form-the non regular polygonuse the school location as attractor point to communicate with the site

research about light-weight material, such as aluminum panelsresearch the better material for self supporting

analysize the light and shadow use acrylic to create colourful lighttest the result in the parametric model

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B.7. Learning Objectives and Outcomes

Through the design process of part B, I learned a lot about the way of computational design.

I found case study 1.0 and 2.0 is very helpful. Although we have algorithmic tasks and video tutorials, use grasshopper and Rhino to do the buildings are totally different. The case study told us about how to do computational design of a real built project and also taught us to consider about the scale, material and so on.

Computation design through the process provides more

potential options and either use form-finding or form-making are more logic and clearly to analyze the outcome.

Relate to the research field-tesselation, I think it is very interesting to use the mathematical way to develop my design. It is more easy for analyze and consider about in the real place. Input the data and use functions to get potential output. Then, to use the small pieces to comprise of polygon pattern and transfer them into a form.

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B.8. Appendix - Algorithmic Sketches

image sample

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graph mapper

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volt dome in the outer form of pavilion

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