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.

  Mechanical model of the solar system,

Reproduced from Envisioning Information, Edward Tufte

Francois Roche, R&Sie(n)

Laboratory of Light

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

Go here for examples of these models.

TRACKING

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.