Project 1C - Revisit

I went back to the models / versions I showed last class and proceeded to reiterate them:

Green - Extended

Magenta - Extended

Red - Extended

Intended Printouts

Project 1C - Derivative Surface

(Figure 1) Base Surfaces

I began by exporting the colored surfaces from the matrix of Project 1B. The goal of this exercise is to manipulate this surface to "simultaneously express interpretations of line and contour so that the geometric properties of the surface can be translated."

(Figure 2) Simplify | Fold

I simplified the surface by reducing the number of control points (this reduces the complexity I need to maintain + workload on my computer later on). I proceeded by taking the control points and layering them over one another, which resulted in this folding gesture (Figure 2).

(Figure 3) Pattern Composition

Eventually, the curves will become dynamic once I put them through Grasshopper. Then, a texture will form from the forms' ever-changing curvatures (Figure 3).

Versioning: Evolutionary Techniques in Architecture

Response to "Inchoate"
Angélil, Marc. “Inchoate.” Inchoate: An Experiment in Architectural Education. Actar, 2003.

Inchoate. From the first sentence, I enjoy the approach that Angélil takes in attempting to bring architecture back to a nascent form, one in which all its standards and history becomes anew. He explicitly states "[Being] Inchoate is about the undoing of fixed categories" (Angélil 25). This statement is the perfect description to our abstracting of formalization + conceptualization. The notion furthers itself as ambiguity applies to the trajectories in which architecture develops. Angélil describes this with the divergence between Apollonian and Dionysian propensities; the former adds positivity with communal, agreed ways of thinking, while the latter promotes negativity with seemingly blaspheme themes.

Externalization. Angélil advocates the breaking of conformity where architects need to uproot the status quo. He defines "internationalization" as the acceptance of determined standards and following procedural order. This section goes into the factors of breaking molds and searching for deeper architectural insight.

First Category: "The primacy of visual appearances, ... architecture's delimitation occurs within the confines of an aesthetic order" (26).

Second Category: "The primacy of authorship, ... The notion of the architect as the sole agent of the work, while internalizing the processes of design refutes the possibility of conceiving architecture as a collective enterprise" (26).

Third Category: "The primacy of the object, ... This object fixation has not only led to the notion of the oeuvre as a complete entity, pure and undisrupted, but particularly excludes considerations of processes that contribute to the making of works" (27).

Experimentation. Angélil explains the scrutiny and risks that architectural design must take in order to progress in the field. We have seen many precedents as experiments and inquiries which lead to further research and hypotheses to test. Such case studies promote the theoretical aspect that we can explore today from our technology. Angélil discusses the technical, intellectual, and intuitive praxes and how they constitute the foundations of architecture. I summarize his [and my] thoughts with an analogy of us architecture students to children:

Children have no idea of rules and limitations. Their mindset is like they are put into a dark space and left to test their own boundaries. We push toward the edges to find the walls, and only then we can determine the perimeter. How we interact and make our way out of the space is left to our own creativity.

Response to "SHoP's Introduction"
SHoP Architects. “Introduction.” Versioning: Evolutionary Techniques in Architecture - AD Vol. 72- No. 5. John Wiley & Sons, 2002.

representation : modelling :: modelling : versioning

SHoP's idea of versioning attempts to break away from the system of horizontal integration toward a system in which "designers drive how space is conceived and constructed." Instead of a version as a derivation from a master prototype, SHoP re-defines a version as "a set of conditions organized into a menu or nomenclature capable of being configured to address particular design criteria" (SHoP 2). They consider the breaking of molds where originals and copies are irrelevant to the design process.

Response to "Connubial Reciprocities Surface and Space"
Ponce de Leon, Monica, and Tehrani, Nader. “Versioning: Connubial Reciprocities Surface and Space.” Versioning: Evolutionary Techniques in Architecture- AD Vol. 72- No. 5. John Wiley & Sons, 2002.

My first reaction to reading this article was consternation: what does it mean to be "connubial?" I then looked up the definition, which I provide below:

con·nu·bi·alkəˈn(y)o͞obēəl/ adjective

literary

1. of or relating to marriage or the relationship of husband and wife; conjugal.

Only after I looked up the definition did I understand Tehrani's implications of "reconciling space and surface." In his introduction, he appears to be attacking Herzog & de Meuron and Gehry's architecture. First, he calls H+dM's architecture as skins from "off-the-shelf planimetric and sectional relationships." Second, he considers Gehry's architecture as massive incoherent geometries, namely his Guggenheim Bilbao and Walt Disney Concert Hall (he did not explicitly state those projects, but "clad in metal panels" gave some very subtle hint). Those precedents provide his basis for eliminating the dichotomy between space and surface.

The dichotomy comes from the division between rationalism and empiricism. Tehrani explains that the rationalist mentality comes from the relationship between architecture's parts to its whole (the classical column), whereas the empirical mentality stems from expression and structural mechanics (Baroque era and Gaudi's works). 

Polyglotomy and Multiple Effects. Tehrani credits the current culture of construction to the developments of versioning. His examples of precedents from Borromini and Le Corbusier convey the notion that each similar move they make contributes to a different function in the project's structural and spatial integrity. "We search instead for the production of multiple effects - in the manner of a polyglot - where none is 'correct' but all may have primacy" (Ponce de Leon & Tehrani 8). The moves that architects make, namely Mies' decoration with I-Beams vs. Johnson's concealing of them, form polyglot conditions which allow for exploration and deviations of architectural practice.

Precision: Geometry and Patterning. Tehrani brings up the conflict of geometry between brick and concrete. Each have their purposes and distinct expressions so that one is not better than another. Their expression and success in beauty stems from the precision in which they are manipulated. Tehrani points out the divorce of some works: Kahn's brick patterns are independent from the building's structure; Dieste's expressions of skin and space are arbitrarily abstract. 

Coincidences: Programme, Structure, and Other Alibis. "Spatial construction and surfacial manipulation are construed as part and parcel of the same interdependent set of determinants. Without the surface, there is no space" (12).