Project 2A - Animation

Particle Flow

In this draft, I attempted to de-materialize the lofted surfaces. Future iterations will show effect of "peeling" the skin off the lattice wireframe.

Reversed

Architecture + Animation

Response to "Beyond Animation"
Burry, Mark. “Beyond Animation” Architecture + Animation - AD Vol. 71 - No. 2. Ed. Bob Fear. John Wiley & Sons, 2001.

There are at least two opportunities for animation to be used as part of the development and representation of ideas:   (1) firstly as architecture considered and represented through animated treatment of 'real buildings'; and   (2) secondly at a conceptual level where animation is used as a device in architectural design, most usually as part of an iterative design generation or as an evaluation procedure (7).

Burry advocates for animation to be a new front of architectural expression. He also cautions the downsides to animation, namely those that distort the actual reality of the subject's space and time. The reading continues to delineate the process in which a designer uses animation to depict change or Δ of the process, which is then tweened to become a fluid form / image.


Response to "Towards an Animated Architecture Against Architectural Animation"
Spiller, Neil. “Towards an Animated Architecture Against Architectural Animation” Architecture + Animation - AD Vol. 71 - No. 2. Ed. Bob Fear. John Wiley & Sons, 2001.

"Neil Spiller, best known for his evangelizing of new technologies and as an advocate of cyberspace, argues that an all-too-eager appropriation of animation software from other industries is leading architects to abandon a rigorous approach to architectural space in favor of a fetishisation of surface imagery" (3). This headline surprised me as we finally see a critic against animation!

Spiller mainly dislikes architectural animation due to their "diversion from the primary task of creating architectural space" (4). He finds that rather than the design becoming animate and dynamic, the design grounds to an object in space. Spiller claims that using an enigma as a tool suits architecture better than film theory.

The critique was very brusque and thoughtful. I lost it at the last sentence of the article.

Besides, an architect's personal touch is a critical marketing tool; to animate is often to dilute the difference between one architect and another. Something the Americans might like to consider.

Response to "Vigorous Environments"
Hensel, Michael and Sotama, Kivi. “Vigorous Environments.” Contemporary Techniques in Architecture - AD Vol. 72 No. 1. Ed. Ali Rahim. pages 34-42. John Wiley & Sons, 2001.

Eco-logic. The authors relate design to human interaction; because human activity and milieu is dynamic, discrete objects and processes become futile in present day(36). From the authors questions, they synthesize (1) the level of mediating exchange processes determines level of intervention, (2) design operations must be versioned and iterative, (3) interactivity between information and synergy determines performativity.

Performativity. The authors define this based on Elin Diamond's interpretation of performance: "to study performance is not to focus on complete forms, but to become aware of performance as itself a contested space" (37). 

Technology. Technology optimizes design and manufacturing. In this fashion, technology also serves to provide the infrastructure in which interaction can be facilitated. By incorporating technology into interventions, different effects are produced in the exchange between subject and milieu.

Project 2 - Virtual Projection

I originally intended a different study object, but who doesn't enjoy the kinetic energy behind a good free kick? I pulled a clip from a slow-motion video and broke it down frame-by-frame.

The image shows that the most interesting (i.e. energetic + slightly eccentric) movements come from the tips of the feet and swing of the hands. The elbows and head keep a steady sinuous datum that will ground the motion. Tracing the aforementioned points, we have this next image:

Adding some dimensions and lofts in Rhino, the form emerges:

Looks like a pony!
I chose to maintain the sharp, pointed edges in order to illustrate the movement's vivacity. We normally see the fluid motion of a well-placed kick, but little do we pay attention to the huge effort placed in the dynamics of such an action. You only realize the effort when you  pause halfway through the motion - it's quite difficult to stop!

Architecture from the Outside

Response to "Architecture from the Outside"
Grosz, Elizabeth. Architecture from the Outside. “The Future of Space: Towards and Architecture of Invention” pages 109-130. UMCP Architecture Library Stacks NA2500 .G76 2001.

Grosz introduces a missing element to our history of architecture:

Space itself, the very stuff of architectural reflection and production, requires and entails a mode of time, timeliness, or duration.

From that statement alone, the word "timeliness" stands out; Louis Kahn sought timelessness, so what does the author intend to describe here? The temporalization of space and time presents a new frontier for theoretical architecture that we can discover. Grosz advocates for this concept as another interpretation of time instead of the traditional, orderly progression of historical time. She claims that the futures of architecture and philosophy require reconsideration and openness to divergences. Grosz expresses this sentiment with her interpretation of Deleuze's writing.

According to Grosz via Deleuze, space is a "multiplicity that brings together the key characteristics of externality, simultaneity, contiguity or juxtaposition, differences of degree, and quantitative differentiations" (112). Duration is explained to be its animus: "It is continuous and virtual" (113). Grosz's literature review frames her argument of using the concept of time to design space. Namely, her citations of Bergson and Deleuze push for incorporating continuity and eliminating geometric division in conceptual design.

"The virtual is the realm of productivity, of functioning otherwise than its plan or blueprint, functioning in excess of design and intention" (130).


Response to "Versioning: Evolving Architectures"
Rocker, Ingeborg. Versioning: Evolutionary Techniques in Architecture - AD Vol. 72. Ed. SHoP/Sharples Holden Pasquarelli. “Versioning: Evolving Architectures - Dissolving Identities ‘Nothing is as Persistent as Change’” pages 10-17.

Rocker begins by denouncing Peter Eisenman's and Frank Gehry's design process: CAD as the finished product. 

Versioning suggests that architecture is an evolving and dissolving differential data-design that no longer simply 'exists' but rather 'becomes', as it becomes informed in and through the process's different/ciation.

Different configurations and parameters set by variables determine the extent of the version. Various versions may exist between those versions, leading to another level of differentiation. This process disintegrates the notion of "identity" as the design revolves more around the diffusing network of versions. "Different/ciation becomes that which must be thought, and that which cannot be thought, a continuous movement of life which possess its own internal dynamic, without fixed end, final essence, or final form" (17).

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).