joseph - plan
sylvia - plan
100508 - observatory drawings
Examples of the final observatory drawings. Go here for a slideshow of more drawings and here for the handout that introduced this exercise.
100505 - observatory models
100505 - landscape models
100505 - dunescape maps
Examples of the dunescape maps. Go here for a slideshow of all students' work. And here for the assignment that introduced this exercise.
Justin
Joseph
Steven
Azhar
Shachar
Great job everyone, these turned out very nicely! Now the challenge is to see how the gradients in this mapping work can inform the new gradient field models.
And of course, those of you who haven't submitted the map yet, please do so ASAP!!
100419 - final
…seemingly random but structured patterns strike a resonance within us, for our ‘internalisations’ may be built on similar ideas – a kind of haunting, of interior space being made external, of buried archetype surfacing. The whispers we hear will sharpen our intuition.
- Cecil Balmond
Informal, The Chemnitz Solution
Your final review is Monday April 26, 1 - 6pm in the HHS 3rd floor hall. Plan your time carefully and work efficiently during the next week. Continue refining the material execution of concepts while developing final presentation materials. Do not simply remake what you already know.
Final Requirements:
ALL PLOTS MUST BE SENT BY 12 NOON ON SUNDAY. Finish your drawings first and leave the completion of models and animations for Sunday afternoon and night.
Compose and rehearse your verbal presentation; it must be precise and concise. Incorporate the animation into your presentation. Trace a coherent line of thinking through the entire semester. Presentations need not be chronological. Focus on latest drawings and models while using earlier work to support the current position of the project.
Final Jury:
Jeremy Carvalho, William Feuerman, Ed Keller, Jamie Kruse, Jason Lee, George Showman, John Szot, Filip Tejchman, Soo-in Yang
- Cecil Balmond
Informal, The Chemnitz Solution
Your final review is Monday April 26, 1 - 6pm in the HHS 3rd floor hall. Plan your time carefully and work efficiently during the next week. Continue refining the material execution of concepts while developing final presentation materials. Do not simply remake what you already know.
Final Requirements:
- dunescape images
- dunescape maps
- 5 unit models
- 1 cluster models
- material and system analysis drawings
- wood landscape with wiring
- sunlight study filmstrips
- sunlight filter
- tracking document
- 1/4” scale model of observatory
- 1/4” scale horizontal and vertical sections of observatory
- perspective views of observatory
- written thesis
- animation
ALL PLOTS MUST BE SENT BY 12 NOON ON SUNDAY. Finish your drawings first and leave the completion of models and animations for Sunday afternoon and night.
Compose and rehearse your verbal presentation; it must be precise and concise. Incorporate the animation into your presentation. Trace a coherent line of thinking through the entire semester. Presentations need not be chronological. Focus on latest drawings and models while using earlier work to support the current position of the project.
Final Jury:
Jeremy Carvalho, William Feuerman, Ed Keller, Jamie Kruse, Jason Lee, George Showman, John Szot, Filip Tejchman, Soo-in Yang
100413 - bodies in spaces
As you continue developing spatial experiences within your observatory, it is worth taking at look at this post on bldgblog. Through the movie Die Hard and urban military movements, it explores the use of space in unconventional (or even illicit) ways. This is not to say your project will be inhabited by crawling through elevator shafts or blowing holes in walls between apartments, but it does suggest that the way we conventionally think about relationships between bodies and spaces can be limiting.
100412 - positioning
A dynamic conception of architecture, which overcomes the traditional notion of buildings as a still, tectonic construct, allows us to think of space as practice. This involves incorporating the inhabitant of the space (or its intruder) into architecture, not simply marking and reproducing but reinventing, as film does, his or her various trajectories through space—that is, charting the narrative these navigations create.
- Giuliana Bruno
Atlas of Emotion, Journeys in Art, Architecture, and Film
While the section drawings, animations, and perspective images you will be developing for the final review are representational, they are also operative. This work will continue to test ideas and position your project within a clear conceptual framework. Along with your written thesis, this work will support an argument for your project.
ANIMATION
Develop a new version of your animation. Track three noun-noun neologisms through the pre-midterm work (dunescape maps, unit/cluster development, landscape sunlight study, etc.), the light filter studies, the attachment / extension system, and the distinct spatial experiences of your observatory. Though the structure of the animation does not need to be linear, it does need to track a coherent line of thinking through the entire project.
Consider how the following filmic techniques can inform the animation:
Consider using short video clips combined with still images. Consider introducing sound. The camera is more than a tool to document space; it is a tool to shape space.
SECTIONS - go here for examples of the final sections
Two 1/4” scale sections are required, one horizontal, one vertical. Sections must document as many different spatial experiences as possible. The vertical section must include shadows and scale figures. The vertical section may be drawn at different times of day or year to document changing lighting conditions. All sections must show deep space by calibrating line-weight and line-type.
- Giuliana Bruno
Atlas of Emotion, Journeys in Art, Architecture, and Film
While the section drawings, animations, and perspective images you will be developing for the final review are representational, they are also operative. This work will continue to test ideas and position your project within a clear conceptual framework. Along with your written thesis, this work will support an argument for your project.
ANIMATION
Develop a new version of your animation. Track three noun-noun neologisms through the pre-midterm work (dunescape maps, unit/cluster development, landscape sunlight study, etc.), the light filter studies, the attachment / extension system, and the distinct spatial experiences of your observatory. Though the structure of the animation does not need to be linear, it does need to track a coherent line of thinking through the entire project.
Consider how the following filmic techniques can inform the animation:
- Speed: Is the camera moving fast or slow?
- Frames: What is being framed? Is there more than one image in the frame?
- Sequence: How might sequences play out separately or in juxtaposition? How are sequences manipulated by flashbacks, crosscuts, close-ups, and dissolves?
- Drawings: How are drawings panned, zoomed, and/or assembled?
Consider using short video clips combined with still images. Consider introducing sound. The camera is more than a tool to document space; it is a tool to shape space.
SECTIONS - go here for examples of the final sections
Two 1/4” scale sections are required, one horizontal, one vertical. Sections must document as many different spatial experiences as possible. The vertical section must include shadows and scale figures. The vertical section may be drawn at different times of day or year to document changing lighting conditions. All sections must show deep space by calibrating line-weight and line-type.
vertical sections - Yokohama Ferry Terminal, Foreign Office Architects
horizontal sections - Bibliotheque de France, OMA / Rem Koolhaas
100408 - excavated spillbreach
Here is a video Mandi Fung (one of my students from spring last year) made as part of the writing workshop with Filip and Jeffery. We're asking you to go much further this year in terms of how the animation becomes integral to the development of the project, but this is a good example to look at nonetheless.
Excavated Spillbreach from mandi fung on Vimeo.
Excavated Spillbreach from mandi fung on Vimeo.
100406 - observatory
Although architects generally make a clear distinction between what is given (context) and what is to be conceived (concept), the relationship is not so simple. Rather than a given, context is something defined by the observer, in the same way that a scientific fact is influenced by the observation of the scientist…Context is not fact; it is always a matter of interpretation.
- Bernard Tschumi
Event-Cities 3, Concept vs. Context vs. Content, 2004
An observatory is a device for monitoring celestial or terrestrial phenomena. An observatory is designed to gather data regarding a specific type of process or event, i.e. star formation, planetary movement, weather, earthquakes, etc. Observatories may gather data for empirical purposes (radio telescope), or for more experiential purposes (Roden Crater).
The two examples of observatories below, the Arecibo radio telescope and the Roden Crater are fully integrated into the landscape. They are organized by found terrains. Operations such as cutting, filling, extending, and slicing augment found terrains to give these observatories their final form.
Your project will be to design a type of observatory, one that monitors movement of the sun and uses filtered sunlight to produce qualitatively different spatial experiences. The observatory must have at least three clearly differentiated spatial conditions qualified by scale and time:
Go here for examples of the final observatory models.
THESIS
Write a one-page thesis that expands on the generic qualifications above. The thesis must discuss relationships between the landscape and observatory, argue for a specific type of inhabitation (how do people use your spaces and why), and make use of neologisms (existing from midterm or new).
PERSPECTIVE VIEWS
Continue developing the Rhino model of your intervention. Produce three preliminary perspective views, one for each of the three different spatial experiences. Include scale figures performing relevant activities. The quality of renderings is less important than conceptual information conveyed by the image. Every image must focus on a particular idea.
- Bernard Tschumi
Event-Cities 3, Concept vs. Context vs. Content, 2004
An observatory is a device for monitoring celestial or terrestrial phenomena. An observatory is designed to gather data regarding a specific type of process or event, i.e. star formation, planetary movement, weather, earthquakes, etc. Observatories may gather data for empirical purposes (radio telescope), or for more experiential purposes (Roden Crater).
The two examples of observatories below, the Arecibo radio telescope and the Roden Crater are fully integrated into the landscape. They are organized by found terrains. Operations such as cutting, filling, extending, and slicing augment found terrains to give these observatories their final form.
Puerto Rico
Your project will be to design a type of observatory, one that monitors movement of the sun and uses filtered sunlight to produce qualitatively different spatial experiences. The observatory must have at least three clearly differentiated spatial conditions qualified by scale and time:
- scale: small, medium, large
- time: morning, noon, afternoon or winter, equinox, summer
Go here for examples of the final observatory models.
THESIS
Write a one-page thesis that expands on the generic qualifications above. The thesis must discuss relationships between the landscape and observatory, argue for a specific type of inhabitation (how do people use your spaces and why), and make use of neologisms (existing from midterm or new).
PERSPECTIVE VIEWS
Continue developing the Rhino model of your intervention. Produce three preliminary perspective views, one for each of the three different spatial experiences. Include scale figures performing relevant activities. The quality of renderings is less important than conceptual information conveyed by the image. Every image must focus on a particular idea.
100406 - atlas of novel tectonics
My notes from the Reiser and Umemoto reading:
2. Difference in Kind / Difference in Degree – Meaning that is assigned and fixed (chess) vs. meaning that is acquired in context (go).
3. The Unformed Generic: Form Acquiring Content – Projecting content and scale into an unformed field. The field implies no specific scale of content. The stain is at once generic and specific. It contains a wide range of variations.
4. Similarity and Difference – Difference can emerge from similarity and similarity can emerge from difference. Things that look the same may perform differently and things that look different may perform similarly.
5. Variety (Difference) vs. Variation (Self-Similarity) – Intensive quantity generates a whole irreducible to the sum of its parts. Differential repetition is a means of handling program.
7. After Collage: Two Conditions of the Generic – Transformation is a quality perceived through deployment of quantity. Difference is a product of transformation. The universal is understood a “progressive differentiation.”
10. Selection vs. Classification – Typologies are important because they have range within limits. Selection within this range is based on performance of program relative to type.
11. Intensive and Extensive – “The most important distinction in our changed notions of architectural design is the shift from geometry as an abstract regulator of the materials of construction to a notion that matter and material behavior must be implicated in geometry itself.” Intensive = properties of matter with indivisible differences, gradient. Extensive = properties of matter with divisible differences. Potted plant, intensive proliferation, and extensive limit.
12. Geometry and Matter – Extensive and intensive qualities (quantities) collaborate in the production of architecture. Codes and other constraints can be considered extensive while material systems generate intensive characteristics.
13. Folly of the Mean – The mean is expected, extremes are where there is potential to innovate. The Aristotelian mean is justified in terms of human conduct and gets transferred to proportional systems.
21. Exchanges among Systems – “The architect is, in effect, neither a passive observer of determined systems nor a determined manipulator of passive material, but rather, the manager of an unfolding process.”
24. The Diagram – The diagram is not about the thing itself, but its relation to its context, milieu, or environment. Relationships may change due to scale shifts or behaviors may move from one scale to another. The diagram tracks performance (of relationships) as an abstract model of materiality.
34. Systems Becoming Other Systems – Even received structural systems have the capacity to be transformed along a gradient. New potentials emerge between the standards or norms.
38. Operating under Surfeit of Information – The management of a material process (like cooking) occurs at a different level than scientific research (the minutia are not directly controlled nor are they necessarily understood). This is acceptable because it is the larger scale effects that are important.
39. Asignfying Signs – An asignfying sign is an indication of material quality and performance. It is a locus for becoming, not a linguistic reading. It promotes production of the unforeseen rather than representing the known.
2. Difference in Kind / Difference in Degree – Meaning that is assigned and fixed (chess) vs. meaning that is acquired in context (go).
3. The Unformed Generic: Form Acquiring Content – Projecting content and scale into an unformed field. The field implies no specific scale of content. The stain is at once generic and specific. It contains a wide range of variations.
4. Similarity and Difference – Difference can emerge from similarity and similarity can emerge from difference. Things that look the same may perform differently and things that look different may perform similarly.
5. Variety (Difference) vs. Variation (Self-Similarity) – Intensive quantity generates a whole irreducible to the sum of its parts. Differential repetition is a means of handling program.
7. After Collage: Two Conditions of the Generic – Transformation is a quality perceived through deployment of quantity. Difference is a product of transformation. The universal is understood a “progressive differentiation.”
10. Selection vs. Classification – Typologies are important because they have range within limits. Selection within this range is based on performance of program relative to type.
11. Intensive and Extensive – “The most important distinction in our changed notions of architectural design is the shift from geometry as an abstract regulator of the materials of construction to a notion that matter and material behavior must be implicated in geometry itself.” Intensive = properties of matter with indivisible differences, gradient. Extensive = properties of matter with divisible differences. Potted plant, intensive proliferation, and extensive limit.
12. Geometry and Matter – Extensive and intensive qualities (quantities) collaborate in the production of architecture. Codes and other constraints can be considered extensive while material systems generate intensive characteristics.
13. Folly of the Mean – The mean is expected, extremes are where there is potential to innovate. The Aristotelian mean is justified in terms of human conduct and gets transferred to proportional systems.
21. Exchanges among Systems – “The architect is, in effect, neither a passive observer of determined systems nor a determined manipulator of passive material, but rather, the manager of an unfolding process.”
24. The Diagram – The diagram is not about the thing itself, but its relation to its context, milieu, or environment. Relationships may change due to scale shifts or behaviors may move from one scale to another. The diagram tracks performance (of relationships) as an abstract model of materiality.
34. Systems Becoming Other Systems – Even received structural systems have the capacity to be transformed along a gradient. New potentials emerge between the standards or norms.
38. Operating under Surfeit of Information – The management of a material process (like cooking) occurs at a different level than scientific research (the minutia are not directly controlled nor are they necessarily understood). This is acceptable because it is the larger scale effects that are important.
39. Asignfying Signs – An asignfying sign is an indication of material quality and performance. It is a locus for becoming, not a linguistic reading. It promotes production of the unforeseen rather than representing the known.
100406 - informal
My notes from the Cecil Balmond reading:
Informal
The informal contains the unexpected or surprising.
Order is not necessarily hierarchical.
Answers begin at the local level, not the level of the generic whole. Work proceeds outward toward a result.
Solutions stem from simple initial decisions.
Innovation, resisting the expected, requires risk.
Hybrid = one action overlapping another.
There is a difference between ambiguity and confusion.
The Chemnitz Solution
Solutions do not come from a picture of the outcome, but an analysis of the data, constraints or local conditions.
Solutions evolve and are calibrated by performance criteria.
Pose open questions rather than proposing closed answers.
A single design principle can be operative at multiple scales.
Rules that prescribe a simple set of operations can be calibrated to yield complex, unexpected results.
“Seemingly random but structured patterns strike a resonance within us, for our ‘internalisations’ may be built on similar ideas.” (p. 171)
The informal contains the unexpected or surprising.
Order is not necessarily hierarchical.
Answers begin at the local level, not the level of the generic whole. Work proceeds outward toward a result.
Solutions stem from simple initial decisions.
Innovation, resisting the expected, requires risk.
Hybrid = one action overlapping another.
There is a difference between ambiguity and confusion.
The Chemnitz Solution
Solutions do not come from a picture of the outcome, but an analysis of the data, constraints or local conditions.
Solutions evolve and are calibrated by performance criteria.
Pose open questions rather than proposing closed answers.
A single design principle can be operative at multiple scales.
Rules that prescribe a simple set of operations can be calibrated to yield complex, unexpected results.
“Seemingly random but structured patterns strike a resonance within us, for our ‘internalisations’ may be built on similar ideas.” (p. 171)
100401 - envelope
The architect is, in effect, neither a passive observer of determined systems nor a determined manipulator of passive material, but rather the manager of an unfolding process. p. 104
An architecture that has to explain itself, or be explained, has failed to present its own qualities. It sets up a conventional relationship between material organization and reference. p. 173
- Reiser + Umemoto
Atlas of Novel Tectonics, 2006
As you begin developing envelopes in your projects, consider these two definitions of the term:
WIRE
Install wires in the large-scale landscape. Follow principles developed in wiring the small-scale landscape, but do not necessarily duplicate configurations. Adjustments to the wires must be made in response to the location of inhabitable surfaces and corresponding orientations of the light filter. Develop a basswood attachment component between foam and wire. This attachment component must allow wires to be easily installed / removed and prevent wires from directly touching foam.
LIGHT FILTER
The light filter will operate according to both definitions of envelope given above – it will be an enclosing membrane and it will perform by filtering light in a specific manner. Following principles developed in the gradient model, build bristol board light filtering apertures onto the wire structure. Make iterative adjustments to the light filter so that it begins to enclose and cast shadows upon inhabitable surfaces. The shadows it casts must work like those in the tracking document.
An architecture that has to explain itself, or be explained, has failed to present its own qualities. It sets up a conventional relationship between material organization and reference. p. 173
- Reiser + Umemoto
Atlas of Novel Tectonics, 2006
As you begin developing envelopes in your projects, consider these two definitions of the term:
- An envelope is a membrane continuously enfolding interiority and exteriority. This is more like the skin of a body with all its textures, curvatures, and folds than a normative architectural system of walls, floors, and ceilings.
- An envelope is a set of performance limits, i.e. the performance envelope of an aircraft. The performance of envelopes in your project will be primarily measured in terms of sunlight control.
WIRE
Install wires in the large-scale landscape. Follow principles developed in wiring the small-scale landscape, but do not necessarily duplicate configurations. Adjustments to the wires must be made in response to the location of inhabitable surfaces and corresponding orientations of the light filter. Develop a basswood attachment component between foam and wire. This attachment component must allow wires to be easily installed / removed and prevent wires from directly touching foam.
LIGHT FILTER
The light filter will operate according to both definitions of envelope given above – it will be an enclosing membrane and it will perform by filtering light in a specific manner. Following principles developed in the gradient model, build bristol board light filtering apertures onto the wire structure. Make iterative adjustments to the light filter so that it begins to enclose and cast shadows upon inhabitable surfaces. The shadows it casts must work like those in the tracking document.
100402 - turning dunes into architecture
It's not directly related to the studio, but I think it's an interesting clip that is worth sharing with the studio.
Magnus Larsson: Turning dunes into architecture | Video on TED.com
Magnus Larsson: Turning dunes into architecture | Video on TED.com
100326 - system, revised
This is mostly a reiteration of what I spoke about with everyone in desk crits yesterday, but I want to make sure we are all on the same page:
If you are unsure about the direction you are taking over the weekend, email me images and questions!
- Focus on the attachment component, develop one or two component types that attach to +/-80% of the molding parts in the foam landscape. Deploy the attachment component pervasively throughout the entire foam landscape
- Focus on the extension component, the length and angle of the extension component must transform in response to transformations in width, cut angle, and rotation from part to part in the units and clusters.
- DO NOT focus on the surface component. Except for some of you with whom I spoke specifically about installing platform components in a limited zone, the rest of you need not worry about surfaces for Monday.
- Remember you have the landscape wiring and light filter waiting to be integrated into the project as an envelope strategy, so all you really need out of this new system are ‘ground surfaces.’ Many of you need to scale back and simplify the system.
- Develop the system diagram to document the structural aspects of the system, do not worry about including dynamic aspects of the system yet.
If you are unsure about the direction you are taking over the weekend, email me images and questions!
100322 - system
The organization of a machine [system]…only states relations between components and rules for their interactions and transformations…
- Humbert Maturana & Francisco Varela
Autopoiesis and Cognition 1972
Generally, a system is a set of components defined by ‘their interactions and transformations.’ The high-level organization of a system emerges from consistently enacted behaviors among low-level components. Specifically, architects work with systems that have dynamic and structural qualities. Dynamically, systems deal with transformation and movement. Structurally, systems deal with organization and pattern. Also note that systems can be conceptual and/or physical.
Kahn’s Philadelphia city center diagram studies a system that manages the movement of traffic in an urban landscape. This system is dynamic (movement of traffic), structural (spatial relations), and conceptual (the design was not realized, but used to think about how a could work). The Palpa Lines are a system that inscribes pattern onto a geologic landscape. This system is structural (legible pattern introduced to the natural landscape) and physical (the design was realized). Both of these systems operate on landscape, one urban and one geologic.
INHABITABLE LANDSCAPE
Conceive a system that augments your landscape to make it inhabitable for human bodies. This system will be comprised of basswood attachment components touching down on the existing landscape and basswood surface components that create surfaces and enclosures for bodies.
Build this system in the large-scale (1/4” = 1’-0”) foam landscape. Keep figures in the model to gauge scale. Developing a system is developing a procedural way of working; prioritize a systematized material practice over preconceived notions of inhabitation.
SYSTEM DIAGRAM
Diagram the dynamic and structural aspects of the new system. The dynamic aspects will deal with the potential flows of bodies across surfaces (specifically, how and where do bodies move). The structural aspects will deal with spatial relations between existing landscape and basswood attachment components (specifically, how and where are attachments made, how and where are surfaces located). Consider how the system operates both physically and conceptually. This diagram will be an extension of the material analysis drawings (modeled in Rhino, graphics and notations in Illustrator).
- Humbert Maturana & Francisco Varela
Autopoiesis and Cognition 1972
Generally, a system is a set of components defined by ‘their interactions and transformations.’ The high-level organization of a system emerges from consistently enacted behaviors among low-level components. Specifically, architects work with systems that have dynamic and structural qualities. Dynamically, systems deal with transformation and movement. Structurally, systems deal with organization and pattern. Also note that systems can be conceptual and/or physical.
Louis Kahn – Vehicular and pedestrian traffic flow study for Philadelphia city center
George Kubler – Photograph of the Palpa Lines
Kahn’s Philadelphia city center diagram studies a system that manages the movement of traffic in an urban landscape. This system is dynamic (movement of traffic), structural (spatial relations), and conceptual (the design was not realized, but used to think about how a could work). The Palpa Lines are a system that inscribes pattern onto a geologic landscape. This system is structural (legible pattern introduced to the natural landscape) and physical (the design was realized). Both of these systems operate on landscape, one urban and one geologic.
INHABITABLE LANDSCAPE
Conceive a system that augments your landscape to make it inhabitable for human bodies. This system will be comprised of basswood attachment components touching down on the existing landscape and basswood surface components that create surfaces and enclosures for bodies.
Build this system in the large-scale (1/4” = 1’-0”) foam landscape. Keep figures in the model to gauge scale. Developing a system is developing a procedural way of working; prioritize a systematized material practice over preconceived notions of inhabitation.
SYSTEM DIAGRAM
Diagram the dynamic and structural aspects of the new system. The dynamic aspects will deal with the potential flows of bodies across surfaces (specifically, how and where do bodies move). The structural aspects will deal with spatial relations between existing landscape and basswood attachment components (specifically, how and where are attachments made, how and where are surfaces located). Consider how the system operates both physically and conceptually. This diagram will be an extension of the material analysis drawings (modeled in Rhino, graphics and notations in Illustrator).
100315 - tracking document
Example of the tracking document (drawings that analysis the performance of the light filtering device). Go here for the handout that introduced this exercise.
joseph
sebastian
shachar
100314 - light filter
100312 - over the break
Congratulations everyone on a successful midterm review. Nearly all the critics told me they though the work of the studio was very strong. You should all be proud of what you've done so far...BUT also realize there is a lot more work to be done. So after you've had a bit of rest, here is what to be doing over the break:
2x SCALE LANDSCAPE
Rebuild a portion of the landscape at 2x scale in solid foam block (use pink or blue foam from Apple Art or Home Depot). This model should not rebuild any more than 25% of the wood landscape and it must accurately duplicate the wood landscape. It must be located around one of the most successful portions of wiring; select the portion to rebuild so as to include key wire touchdown points.
Use a low-power hot glue gun to attach pieces of foam. Finish the foam model with water soluble matte gray spraypaint to match the wood landscape. Some spraypaints can melt the foam, but something water soluble should be fine. In any case, test the paint on a scrap of foam before spraying your model.
LIGHT FILTER
Refine the light filtering device to make it better at what it is supposed to do, and refine the tracking document to show how it does this.
READING
Cecil Balmond, Informal. [excerpts]
Reiser & Umemoto, Atlas of Novel Tectonics. [excerpts]
Mostly likely we will not discuss these until the week of March 29, but take some down time during the break to read them. They should be helpful as we move into more concretely architectural propositions.
RESEARCH
Visit these two exhibitions in the city:
Landscapes of Quarantine at Storefront for Art and Architecture
Envelopes at the Pratt Manhattan Gallery
Aspects of both these shows pertain to the work you are doing in studio.
2x SCALE LANDSCAPE
Rebuild a portion of the landscape at 2x scale in solid foam block (use pink or blue foam from Apple Art or Home Depot). This model should not rebuild any more than 25% of the wood landscape and it must accurately duplicate the wood landscape. It must be located around one of the most successful portions of wiring; select the portion to rebuild so as to include key wire touchdown points.
Use a low-power hot glue gun to attach pieces of foam. Finish the foam model with water soluble matte gray spraypaint to match the wood landscape. Some spraypaints can melt the foam, but something water soluble should be fine. In any case, test the paint on a scrap of foam before spraying your model.
LIGHT FILTER
Refine the light filtering device to make it better at what it is supposed to do, and refine the tracking document to show how it does this.
READING
Cecil Balmond, Informal. [excerpts]
Reiser & Umemoto, Atlas of Novel Tectonics. [excerpts]
Mostly likely we will not discuss these until the week of March 29, but take some down time during the break to read them. They should be helpful as we move into more concretely architectural propositions.
RESEARCH
Visit these two exhibitions in the city:
Landscapes of Quarantine at Storefront for Art and Architecture
Envelopes at the Pratt Manhattan Gallery
Aspects of both these shows pertain to the work you are doing in studio.
100304 - midterm
In these transformations...every point may change its place, every line its curvature, every area its magnitude; but on the other hand every point and every line continues to exist, and keeps its relative order and position throughout all distortions and transformations.
- D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson
On Growth and Form, 1942
Plan your time well and work efficiently to prepare for your midterm Thursday, March 11. Do not, however, work for the sake of production alone. Clarify conceptual aspects of your project while developing documents that communicate your ideas.
M.C. Escher – Metamorphosis Drawings
incremental change, difference in kind
FURTHER DEVELOPMENT
Focus your efforts on refining the gradient field model, tracking document, animation, and if necessary, completion of the landscape wiring:
The midterm will be a comprehensive review of all work to date. Present the following:
- D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson
On Growth and Form, 1942
Plan your time well and work efficiently to prepare for your midterm Thursday, March 11. Do not, however, work for the sake of production alone. Clarify conceptual aspects of your project while developing documents that communicate your ideas.
Emergence Design Group – Skin panel study
incremental change, difference in degree
incremental change, difference in degree
M.C. Escher – Metamorphosis Drawings
incremental change, difference in kind
FURTHER DEVELOPMENT
Focus your efforts on refining the gradient field model, tracking document, animation, and if necessary, completion of the landscape wiring:
- The gradient field model must operate relative to the movement of sunlight throughout the day and year. It must contain a ‘change in degree’ gradient (see example above).
- The tracking document must show the operation of the gradient field in a perspective view of the model with rendered shadows, a top view of rendered shadows, and a drafted section with constructed shadows. These images and drawings must show different moments of time superimposed, and in series of filmstrip-like still frames.
- The animation must show the development of five neologisms and segue three of these neologisms into a transformation tracked though changing lighting conditions and/or scalar shifts. Draw on all of your work (including gradient field and tracking document) to produce the animation.
- The landscape wiring must have a clear, high-level organization that extends from the geometry of the landscape. It must have surface-like qualities and an identity ‘separate’ from the landscape.
The midterm will be a comprehensive review of all work to date. Present the following:
- 2 dunesape images (9” x 9”, can be in color)
- 2 dunescape maps (18” x 18”, with grayscale image of dunescape)
- material analysis drawings
- 5 unit models
- 1 cluster model
- landscape with completed wiring
- sunlight study filmstrips
- completed gradient field model
- completed tracking document
- animation with neologisms and transformations
- 5 neologisms with definitions (9” x 9” sheet)
100225 - instrument
Geometry is one subject, architecture is another, but there is geometry in architecture. Its presence is assumed much as the presence of mathematics is assumed in physics, or letters in words. Geometry is understood to be a constitutive part of architecture, indispensable to it, but not dependent on it in any way…
- Robin Evans
The Projective Cast, Architecture and its Three Geometries, 1993
Building on the knowledge of sunpath geometry gained in the landscape shadow analysis, you will now develop an instrument for tracking and filtering sunlight. Consider the solar system model below; study how data gathered from the surface of the earth allowed this model to be constructed. Consider Francois Roche’s Laboratory of Light; study how it works as a device that tracks the moon and how drawings of the project relate the paths of celestial bodies to the geometry of the building.
GRADIENT FIELD
Your instrument will be a gradient field of apertures and fins. Construct it from two-ply bristol board (comprising the skin of the apertures and fins) and piano wire (comprising the structure that supports the apertures and fins). Use the sun path geometry template to study aperture and fin configurations in Rhino and aid the development of the physical model.
The field must have structural integrity and be built to the following guidelines:
Develop a document that tracks the operation of your instrument. This document must show superimposed shadows for at least five distinctly different lighting conditions at different times of day and year. It may be developed as a Rhino model with rendered shadows, as series of orthographic drawings with constructed shadows, or even a paraline drawing with constructed shadows. If you choose to make a Rhino model, 100% of the field must be documented. If you choose to make a drawing, 30% of the field must be documented.
Go here for examples of these drawings.
- Robin Evans
The Projective Cast, Architecture and its Three Geometries, 1993
Building on the knowledge of sunpath geometry gained in the landscape shadow analysis, you will now develop an instrument for tracking and filtering sunlight. Consider the solar system model below; study how data gathered from the surface of the earth allowed this model to be constructed. Consider Francois Roche’s Laboratory of Light; study how it works as a device that tracks the moon and how drawings of the project relate the paths of celestial bodies to the geometry of the building.
Mechanical model of the solar system,
Reproduced from Envisioning Information, Edward Tufte
Francois Roche, R&Sie(n)
GRADIENT FIELD
Your instrument will be a gradient field of apertures and fins. Construct it from two-ply bristol board (comprising the skin of the apertures and fins) and piano wire (comprising the structure that supports the apertures and fins). Use the sun path geometry template to study aperture and fin configurations in Rhino and aid the development of the physical model.
The field must have structural integrity and be built to the following guidelines:
- width = 9”, length = 18”, thickness varies between 1/2” and 2”
- contains 32 apertures minimum
- apertures and fins must vary their configuration and performance
- variation in the apertures and fins must occur incrementally in gradient fields
- gradient fields must be derived from comparative data mapping in dunescapes
Develop a document that tracks the operation of your instrument. This document must show superimposed shadows for at least five distinctly different lighting conditions at different times of day and year. It may be developed as a Rhino model with rendered shadows, as series of orthographic drawings with constructed shadows, or even a paraline drawing with constructed shadows. If you choose to make a Rhino model, 100% of the field must be documented. If you choose to make a drawing, 30% of the field must be documented.
Go here for examples of these drawings.
100225 - material analysis
100225 - clusters
Examples of cluster development. These were the components used to assemble landscapes, go here for the handout that introduced this exercise.
steven
sylvia
sebastian
rony
shachar
100224 - architectures of time
Here are my notes from Sanford Kwinter's Architectures of Time:
The Complex and the Singular
The problem is dealing with time as something real. The forms of time in historical developments such as accounting practices, universal mechanical laws, and techniques for governing populations are abstract. That they measure and mange time…but nature is wild.
According to traditional western theoretical models, precise measure seems possible only in space, not time. How can time as a “process of becoming-ever-different,” a producer of novelty, be subject to any sort of precise measure? How to reconcile the wild with the drive to deal with things that are knowable?
Change tends to be accepted as a first principle, or not at all. “All change is change over time; no novelty appears without becoming…” (p. 5)
Because the complexity of the world is beyond our capacity to grasp or measure, it is important to engage reality at the level of process.
Cultural production (architecture included) has not done a good job of dealing with complex processes of becoming, instead it tends to revert to “postmodern” or “critical” practices.
“Critique is always a critique (and therefore an elaboration) of what exists already.” (p. 6) In other words, it is re-presentational.
Morphogenesis is the emergence and evolution of form. A “morphogenetic model of the possible in relation to the real…” (p. 6) works with two controlling operators: resemblance and limitation. Resemblance, the real matches an image of the possible. Limitation, not every possibility can or does become real. This means that reality is only a picture of possibility and possibility is merely a storehouse of pre-formed images. “This static view of things has dominated nearly all aspects of Western culture from the time of the Eleatics…” (p. 7) See Bergson, “The Possible and the Real.”
On the other hand, it must be acknowledged that things are always eroding and being created, nothing “escapes the perpetual onslaught of differentiation according to which objects are continually becoming different from themselves, undergoing transformation.” (p. 8)
There is a need for a different way of thinking about morphogenesis that works according to a scheme that links the actual with the virtual. The virtual is fully real, a free-floating difference yet to be combined with other differences. The process of actualization is in itself a process of becoming, of differentiation, and thus the actual does not resemble the virtual. “The relation of the virtual to the actual is therefore not one of resemblance but rather of difference, innovation, or creation…” (p. 8)
Realization programmatically reproduces what was already there, actualization “invents through a continuous, positive, and dynamic process of transmission, differentiation, and evolution.” (p.9)
Actualization operates in time and creates novelty, realization annihilates time.
The philosophies of Nietzsche, Foucault, and Deleuze are all based on the principle of a “mobile ground of continuous production of the real as the basis of history and life…an irreducible living dynamism that drives existence from within.” (p. 11)
Four issues must be addressed relative to the problem of the new:
The first deals with a revision of the concept of the object where architecture is an operator in institutional and social systems.
The second deals with movement as a first principle. This points to complex, adaptive, dynamic systems in science…”patterns that are not static but appear only over-time…” , the need to consider context, and the concept of singularities (moments in systems when qualities, not just quantities undergo fundamental change) (p. 13)
In the reconsideration of the object, where does architecture belong, how is its role defined? Not as it is defined by appearance, but by performance, its capacities to do work and create change.
Foucault’s Discipline and Punish details “architecture’s” function as a hinge between the material realm and formations of power. Management or logistics may be the only “real” modern architectural object. (p. 18)
In Foucault’s analysis of the Panopticon, the building itself is less important than the discussion of a set of relations that get enfolded in a social structure. It represents a technique rather than a building. “It is one of the central tasks of Foucault’s study to develop – to flesh out, as it were – the new microphysical continuum where architectural and human multiplicities mingle as if two modes of a single substance.” (p. 19)
Moving away from the design of aesthetic objects and toward dynamic field of interaction opens new fields for architects and designers. Analysis of the object vs. the complex.
Paradoxically, the clock annihilated time by reducing it to a thin, institutionalized, generalization.
“From the moment a system is understood as evolving over time, what becomes important are the transformations it undergoes, and all the transformations in a system are the result of energy – or information – moving through it.” (p.23)
Three general types of transformation:
The Complex and the Singular
The problem is dealing with time as something real. The forms of time in historical developments such as accounting practices, universal mechanical laws, and techniques for governing populations are abstract. That they measure and mange time…but nature is wild.
According to traditional western theoretical models, precise measure seems possible only in space, not time. How can time as a “process of becoming-ever-different,” a producer of novelty, be subject to any sort of precise measure? How to reconcile the wild with the drive to deal with things that are knowable?
Change tends to be accepted as a first principle, or not at all. “All change is change over time; no novelty appears without becoming…” (p. 5)
Because the complexity of the world is beyond our capacity to grasp or measure, it is important to engage reality at the level of process.
Cultural production (architecture included) has not done a good job of dealing with complex processes of becoming, instead it tends to revert to “postmodern” or “critical” practices.
“Critique is always a critique (and therefore an elaboration) of what exists already.” (p. 6) In other words, it is re-presentational.
Morphogenesis is the emergence and evolution of form. A “morphogenetic model of the possible in relation to the real…” (p. 6) works with two controlling operators: resemblance and limitation. Resemblance, the real matches an image of the possible. Limitation, not every possibility can or does become real. This means that reality is only a picture of possibility and possibility is merely a storehouse of pre-formed images. “This static view of things has dominated nearly all aspects of Western culture from the time of the Eleatics…” (p. 7) See Bergson, “The Possible and the Real.”
On the other hand, it must be acknowledged that things are always eroding and being created, nothing “escapes the perpetual onslaught of differentiation according to which objects are continually becoming different from themselves, undergoing transformation.” (p. 8)
There is a need for a different way of thinking about morphogenesis that works according to a scheme that links the actual with the virtual. The virtual is fully real, a free-floating difference yet to be combined with other differences. The process of actualization is in itself a process of becoming, of differentiation, and thus the actual does not resemble the virtual. “The relation of the virtual to the actual is therefore not one of resemblance but rather of difference, innovation, or creation…” (p. 8)
Realization programmatically reproduces what was already there, actualization “invents through a continuous, positive, and dynamic process of transmission, differentiation, and evolution.” (p.9)
Actualization operates in time and creates novelty, realization annihilates time.
The philosophies of Nietzsche, Foucault, and Deleuze are all based on the principle of a “mobile ground of continuous production of the real as the basis of history and life…an irreducible living dynamism that drives existence from within.” (p. 11)
Four issues must be addressed relative to the problem of the new:
- redefine the traditional concept of the object
- reintroduce and radicalize the theory of time
- conceive of “movement” as a first principle
- embed all three of these in a theory of the “event”
The first deals with a revision of the concept of the object where architecture is an operator in institutional and social systems.
The second deals with movement as a first principle. This points to complex, adaptive, dynamic systems in science…”patterns that are not static but appear only over-time…” , the need to consider context, and the concept of singularities (moments in systems when qualities, not just quantities undergo fundamental change) (p. 13)
In the reconsideration of the object, where does architecture belong, how is its role defined? Not as it is defined by appearance, but by performance, its capacities to do work and create change.
Foucault’s Discipline and Punish details “architecture’s” function as a hinge between the material realm and formations of power. Management or logistics may be the only “real” modern architectural object. (p. 18)
In Foucault’s analysis of the Panopticon, the building itself is less important than the discussion of a set of relations that get enfolded in a social structure. It represents a technique rather than a building. “It is one of the central tasks of Foucault’s study to develop – to flesh out, as it were – the new microphysical continuum where architectural and human multiplicities mingle as if two modes of a single substance.” (p. 19)
Moving away from the design of aesthetic objects and toward dynamic field of interaction opens new fields for architects and designers. Analysis of the object vs. the complex.
Paradoxically, the clock annihilated time by reducing it to a thin, institutionalized, generalization.
“From the moment a system is understood as evolving over time, what becomes important are the transformations it undergoes, and all the transformations in a system are the result of energy – or information – moving through it.” (p.23)
Three general types of transformation:
- importing information from outside the system
- exporting information to the milieu in which the system resides
- transporting information from heterogeneous one level to another within the system
100224 - emergence
My notes from Steven Johnson's Emergence:
Introduction
Slime mold: oscillation between a single creature and a swarm.
Morphogenesis: the development of ever more complex structures out of simple beginnings without any ‘master planner’ calling the shots. “Bottom-up behavior.”
Simple agents follow simple rules to generate complex structures. They operate according local conditions, not a knowledge of the whole.
Positive feedback loops encourage particular behaviors to take shape.
Behaviors (or qualities) identified in emergent systems are only recognizable at the collective scale, not at the scale of an individual agent.
Emergent systems are operative in varied fields. The systems are similar, but the medium in which they operate is different.
Emergent systems get their intelligence from “masses of relatively stupid elements rather than a single, intelligent ‘executive branch.’”
Emergence is movement from low-level rules to higher-level sophistication, however a system is not emergent until it displays some type of macro-behavior.
Adaptive emergent systems adjust themselves until a productive or useful macro-behavior is produced. Emergence without adaptation is like snowflakes, beautiful but useless.
Tuning the system. Given a stated goal, how do you make an emergent system adaptive?
Control Artist
Cannot predict results just by looking at the rules. The system must live before it can be understood.
Our tendency is to think of systems such as flocking birds as having a leader rather than a set of the simple rules that each bird follows.
Emergent systems obey rules defined in advance; the rules govern micro-motives. Macro-behaviors are controlled indirectly. “All you do is set up the conditions you think will make that behavior possible. Then you press play and see what happens.”
New form of programming, software that is “grown” rather than “engineered.” Programming that is ‘more like baking a cake’ than ‘engineering a machine.’
In the fitness landscape, there are local maximums. Finding global maximums is a process of trial and error.
‘Fitness’ implies that there is a gauge for success.
The rules of the game and the world of the game can be explored simultaneously. As a society we are becoming more tolerant of being somewhat out of control. We are more tolerant of the phase where the rules don’t all make sense.
Emergent systems are controlled “from the margins,” therefore the unexpected is possible.
“Rules give games their structure, and without that structure, there’s no game: every move is a checkmate, and every toss of the dice lands you on Park Place.”
A game where anything can happen is, by definition, not a game.
Emphasizing rules may seem antithetical to an open-ended, exploratory system, but this is not the case. The capacity for growth and experimentation relies on low-level rules.
“Emergent behaviors, like games, are all about living within the boundaries defined by rules, but also using that space to create something greater than the sum of its parts.”
In game design where a player has oblique control, it is up to the game designer to determine how far to the margin the player’s control will be located. Too much or too little control results in a poor game.
Designers have a feel for the middle ground between too much control and too little.
Slime mold: oscillation between a single creature and a swarm.
Morphogenesis: the development of ever more complex structures out of simple beginnings without any ‘master planner’ calling the shots. “Bottom-up behavior.”
Simple agents follow simple rules to generate complex structures. They operate according local conditions, not a knowledge of the whole.
Positive feedback loops encourage particular behaviors to take shape.
Behaviors (or qualities) identified in emergent systems are only recognizable at the collective scale, not at the scale of an individual agent.
Emergent systems are operative in varied fields. The systems are similar, but the medium in which they operate is different.
Emergent systems get their intelligence from “masses of relatively stupid elements rather than a single, intelligent ‘executive branch.’”
Emergence is movement from low-level rules to higher-level sophistication, however a system is not emergent until it displays some type of macro-behavior.
Adaptive emergent systems adjust themselves until a productive or useful macro-behavior is produced. Emergence without adaptation is like snowflakes, beautiful but useless.
Tuning the system. Given a stated goal, how do you make an emergent system adaptive?
Control Artist
Cannot predict results just by looking at the rules. The system must live before it can be understood.
Our tendency is to think of systems such as flocking birds as having a leader rather than a set of the simple rules that each bird follows.
Emergent systems obey rules defined in advance; the rules govern micro-motives. Macro-behaviors are controlled indirectly. “All you do is set up the conditions you think will make that behavior possible. Then you press play and see what happens.”
New form of programming, software that is “grown” rather than “engineered.” Programming that is ‘more like baking a cake’ than ‘engineering a machine.’
In the fitness landscape, there are local maximums. Finding global maximums is a process of trial and error.
‘Fitness’ implies that there is a gauge for success.
The rules of the game and the world of the game can be explored simultaneously. As a society we are becoming more tolerant of being somewhat out of control. We are more tolerant of the phase where the rules don’t all make sense.
Emergent systems are controlled “from the margins,” therefore the unexpected is possible.
“Rules give games their structure, and without that structure, there’s no game: every move is a checkmate, and every toss of the dice lands you on Park Place.”
A game where anything can happen is, by definition, not a game.
Emphasizing rules may seem antithetical to an open-ended, exploratory system, but this is not the case. The capacity for growth and experimentation relies on low-level rules.
“Emergent behaviors, like games, are all about living within the boundaries defined by rules, but also using that space to create something greater than the sum of its parts.”
In game design where a player has oblique control, it is up to the game designer to determine how far to the margin the player’s control will be located. Too much or too little control results in a poor game.
Designers have a feel for the middle ground between too much control and too little.
100218 - gradient
This was a part of my assignment when I had Representation 3 with Gil Akos. It is made out of using three different contour lines, to study a 3D surface that I've created.
100218 - time
Real time is more truly an engine, however, than a procession of images – it is expressed only in the concrete, plastic medium of duration. Time always expresses itself by producing, or more precisely, by drawing matter into a process of becoming-ever-different, and to the product of this becoming-ever-different – to this inbuilt wildness – we have given the name novelty.
- Sanford Kwinter
Architectures of Time, 2001
Architecture is durational at multiple levels – both its actualization (the design process) and its resulting presence or situation in the world draw matter into processes ‘of becoming-ever-different…’ You will now begin dealing with issues of time at the level of actualization by introducing gradients to the wire installation, and at the level of presence by developing animations piggybacking the writing workshop exercise.
A gradient is a type of becoming. It does not fix a single condition, but accepts change as part of its nature. It blends between different states or conditions – i.e. grayscale gradient, black blending into white; temperature gradient, cold blending into hot; and density gradient, solid blending into porous. Across a gradient, there are many nearly imperceptible state changes that create smooth transformations (see examples above).
Build gradients into the wire installation. Some gradients will form naturally as the wire stems from variations in the landscape. Other gradients must be introduced manually by incrementally adjusting the amount of slack in segments of wire bridging between points on the landscape, and by introducing incrementally transforming wire-to-wire connections. Wire-to-wire connections may be made by crimping or soldering. Their installation must be procedurally defined.
ANIMATION
Using still frames generated in the writing workshop exercise and animated frames generated in rhino sunlight studies, create a short movie documenting at least two conditions of the landscape that transform in time. Consider how shifting scales and lighting conditions create different landscape conditions. Incorporate neologisms into the movie. The movie should be assembled in Photoshop using frame animation.
- Sanford Kwinter
Architectures of Time, 2001
Architecture is durational at multiple levels – both its actualization (the design process) and its resulting presence or situation in the world draw matter into processes ‘of becoming-ever-different…’ You will now begin dealing with issues of time at the level of actualization by introducing gradients to the wire installation, and at the level of presence by developing animations piggybacking the writing workshop exercise.
Etienne-Jules Marey,
chronophotograph
GRADIENTchronophotograph
A gradient is a type of becoming. It does not fix a single condition, but accepts change as part of its nature. It blends between different states or conditions – i.e. grayscale gradient, black blending into white; temperature gradient, cold blending into hot; and density gradient, solid blending into porous. Across a gradient, there are many nearly imperceptible state changes that create smooth transformations (see examples above).
Build gradients into the wire installation. Some gradients will form naturally as the wire stems from variations in the landscape. Other gradients must be introduced manually by incrementally adjusting the amount of slack in segments of wire bridging between points on the landscape, and by introducing incrementally transforming wire-to-wire connections. Wire-to-wire connections may be made by crimping or soldering. Their installation must be procedurally defined.
ANIMATION
Using still frames generated in the writing workshop exercise and animated frames generated in rhino sunlight studies, create a short movie documenting at least two conditions of the landscape that transform in time. Consider how shifting scales and lighting conditions create different landscape conditions. Incorporate neologisms into the movie. The movie should be assembled in Photoshop using frame animation.
100217 - sun path geometry
Here is a Rhino model of sun paths for New York City's latitude for summer solstice, equinox, and winter solstice. You'll notice that each hour is divided into three segments of 20 mins. each. So bring this into your landscape model, scale as necessary and render a sequence for each of the three days by placing a directional light on each point aimed toward the center of the dome.
This will be more labor intensive then using Rhino's sun animation tools, but will yield accurate results. Hopefully it will give you a better idea of sun path geometry. Let me know if you find any problems with the model.
This will be more labor intensive then using Rhino's sun animation tools, but will yield accurate results. Hopefully it will give you a better idea of sun path geometry. Let me know if you find any problems with the model.
100217 - Something to share
This is a short animation that I've made few years ago with still frames and background music. It's not directly related to the studio, but I thought it will nice to share this since you will be making a short animation for your sun-study.
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