This is a must see conference for everyone around LA interested in the status quo of computational design techniques and urban design sensibilities. To put it in a Hollywood term: A Blockbuster!
Intensive Fields: New Parametric Techniques for Urbanism
Conference, Harris 101, University of Southern California
12 December 2009
For some time now, digital technologies have had a substantial impact on architectural design. From the use of standard drafting packages to the more experimental use of generative design tools. But how might these digital technologies – and parametric design tools in particular – help us to design cities?
The conference brings together USC Professors Francois Roche, Marc Fornes, Roland Snooks, Qingyun Ma, Neil Leach, Roland Ritter and Anne Balsamo alongside other leading experts from the world of digital technologies, cultural theory and urban design, including Patrik Schumacher, Manuel DeLanda, Tom Kovac, Marcos Novak, Benjamin Bratton, Hernan Diaz Alonso, Elena Manferdini, Casey Reas and Greg Lynn.
The main qualities for the project formed the mainframe of the topological surface. The software output consisted of an extensive array of subtly varying surface conditions. According to their performative behavior the population of over one hundred individual entities where scrutinized for their fitness according to different criteria, such as the potential to fulfill the program, the performance as structural entity and the affect generated by its appearance. This process reduced potential candidates to a very small number. Finally this candidates ran trough a series of algorithms (various remeshings, subdivisions, optimizing the size of the spatial pockets etc.) which eliminated all candidates but one.
This technique can be described as an evolutionary process driven by a series of intensive forces, such as the specific compartmentisation of the pouches, the loadbearing qualities of curvilinear conditions and the allover sensual experience of the space. The numerous explorations and investigations of SPAN into the nature of topological bodies, throughout the recent years, served as basis for the design process. One of the results of these investigations was a series of models only dedicated to seamless, continuous circulations within architectural bodies and apertures in complex curved geometries. These two fundamental architectural conditions, opening and circulation, are discussed in the project of the Austrian Pavilion for the Shanghai Expo 2010 in an alternative way.
The lecture describes the design process of the Austrian Pavilion for the Shanghai Expo 2010, as well as the construction method. The lecture depicts the advanced fabrication methods involved in the construction of the Project, such as the use of simulation softwares, building information modeling and CNC fabrication.
t<>p lecture .1 _
Matias del Campo - Sense and Advanced Sensibility
Vienna based Architecture Firm SPAN, headed by Matias del Campo and Sandra Manninger, is driven by a compulsive desire to speculate about architectural opportunities in the presence of animated matter, organic entities and their underlying geometrical and mathematical presence. Their award winning architecture designs are informed by a manifold variety of sources reaching from Science Fiction and Fashion to Biology and Botany. The multiplicious inspirations are fused into projects applying the most advanced digital design tools and casted into form by computer controlled machinery. Their activities include Architecture Design, exhibitions and lectures as well as teaching in various countries and institutions, such as the University of Applied Arts Vienna, the Bauhaus Dessau and the ESARQ in Barcelona.
[overhead shot of a table in an expensive modern-european restaurant. It's not a capital, but it's one of those cities on the thinktank/summit-circuit that treaties get named after. Two people are talking. A man in his fifties and a woman in her mid thirties. Both are understated in appearance, but obviously expensively dressed. Both of their smartphones are turned screen-down on the table. It's unclear to us who is the most important. And it's unclear which one is saying the following]
Governments and corporates know me as 'Switchboard', which is how I like to keep it.
I have an aptitude.
Well, a few aptitudes.
But, mainly - I'm very good at people.
Especially those who can't really be described as people anymore. I know what they're good for, what they want and - how to get hold of them.
I've never saved the world, but I've probably had lunch with someone who has.
I'm who you call if you have, y'know - a *really* big problem.
[ringtone]
So, here is the new studio task for next semester in the Dessau Institute of Architecture:
DIA Dessau Institute of Architecture Advanced Architecture Studio WS09/10
Prof. Matias del Campo: The Tangling Line - Urban design for the Expo 2012, Yeosu, Korea
Braiding, Weaving and Bifurcations…
This semesters studio is focused on the idea of tangled structures—massively distributed networks made up of relatively weak cross-linked fibrous components that are the dominant mode of formation of structures in nature. This elegant concept of material assembly follows a long lineage in architectural history, from gothic interweaving to Art Nouveau braiding; textile techniques from two-
to three-dimensional weaving (Miyake, Northsails); Fine Arts from Pollock to Eliasson; Mathematics from topology to tangle theory; and science from advanced composites to tissue engineering demonstrate the omnipresence of this concept of matter assembly. A crucial characteristic of this structural morphology is that patterning, form, and organization are inherent conditions emerging out of the design process. The studio projects will explore in depth the aesthetics and performative parameters of tangled and patterned surface conditions as an alternative to prevailing assembly strategies in a
contemporary design environment, using the most advanced digital design tools and computer controlled fabrication methods, such as 3D printers and Laser Cutters. Design research is conducted into the architectural potential for this idea in the context of advanced engineering and contemporary construction methods.
The main task of the studio is to explore braiding, weaving and bifurcations as design tools for urban scale structures. The site and program for these explorations is the Expo 2012 in Yeosu, Korea. The site offers the opportunity to work on distributed, tangled networks along the coastline of the Expo Project. All the necessary data, such as plans and information about the site will be available from the studio master. Due to the size of the project group work is encouraged, limited to a maximum group size of 3 students.
For more information please visit the studio blog: http://bifurbication.blogspot.com/
It is highly recommended that prospective students of this studio pick up the reader Deep Ornament: Primer that is available in the DIA Office. This reader forms the theoretical basis of the work in the studio.
SPAN will be part of the exhibition Rouse[d] which will open its doors Saturday September 26st, at 555 Gallery, 5716, Michigan Ave, Detroit. The show is comprised of two parts: Part one covers the results of the Rouse[d] competition and shows the best results. The second part, that includes the work of SPAN, shows a series of innovative architecture practices that encompass the universe of digital design. Among the long list of participants are the likes of Marc Fornes (theverymany), Skyler Tibbits, Tom Wiscombe (Emergent), Andrew Kudless (MATSYS), Alisa Andrasek (Biothing), Cage Clemenceau, Roland Snooks (Kokkugia) and Chris Perry & Marcelyn Gow (Servo).
The current Issue of Frame magazine
focusses on the issue of color. This edition also features the Austrian
Pavilion for the Shanghai Expo 2010 by SPAN & Zeytinoglu.
Here is a
description of the Magazines Agenda: Frame is the
world's barometer of interior design. The magazine shows you what's happening
and where to find it. The hottest spaces, the coolest products, spiced up with
slices of art and architecture: that's the essence of Frame magazine. We gather
the most radical and fashionable work from around the globe and package it to
perfection in six hefty issues a year. Loaded with nothing but the best in
contemporary design, Frame is an inspiring and indispensable reference for
professionals in interior design and other creative pursuits.
Finally, after a Semester of hard work our students presented their results to a distinguished panel of critics at the Dessau Institute of Architecture. The results of this semesters work at the Advanced Architecture Studio where well received by the Jury consisting mainly of members of the Faculty of the Kansas State University and some additional members such as Nina Rappaport. Here are some images of the sudents work:
- the intricate relationship between surface articulation structure and affect.
The Park Guell Butterfly House.
Synopsis
Surface Grammar explores the opportunities present in the morphologies of surface articulation as point of departure for the design of architectural conditions. Inherent qualities such as spatial subdivision, components, organization, structure and circulation form the ground for a variety of speculations on architectural conditions. The sensorial and spatial experiences co-notated with the manifold qualities of contemporary, algorithm driven intricacy, starting with their topological qualities to the distribution of components and patterns forming the structural body, are scrutinized for their architectural qualities and incorporated in a project.
Yesterday and early this morning, while talking about our impending move to a new apartment a few blocks away in a much bigger building (and no longer on the ground floor), Alaina and I talked about how being in a larger complex essentially acts as a fairly effective form of security through obscurity. Unfortunately, as always seems to be the case, the conversation was prescient.
The design of the Austrian Pavilion for the Shanghai Expo 2010 made it on to the cover of the renowned Austrian architecture magazine Architektur & Bauforum. The editorial by journalist Brigitte Amort describes the history of Austria´s contribution to various World Expo´s, starting with the hosting of the 1873 World Expo in Vienna, through the various contributions such as in Sevilla, Aichi and Zaragosa to the upcoming world Expo in Shanghai 2010. The project is described extensively within the editorial. Architektur & Bauforum is available at the kiosk of your choice.
