reading form

Photos courtesy of horhizon.com & suckerpunch

As a continuation from the previous post (and found through my love of suckerPUNCH) this recent project printed aedicules by Johan Voordouw explorers the “conventional modes of architectural expression, text, drawings and models, into a singular spatial formation,” essentially marrying the figural page shape with literal “sls” or plastic 3d print modeling and graphics. The project discusses work surrounding the Villa d’Este in Tivoli – a subject which I’m sure influenced the figuration of the form/shape/graphic/text/whatever.

Now, imagine a portfolio with 3d models, great text, video, graphics, and what not all in one binding. Not that were graphic designers, but the ability to negate abstraction of form (ie, the line/ the 2d condition), in favor of pure form, is so incredibly seductive.

by Voordouw (via suckerpunch):

The project describes an annexed library for the museum of manuscripts at Villa d’Este in Tivoli, Italy. Rather than exploring the configuration of conventional spaces the project sought to explore the library through a series of books, the book becoming an expression of physical and imagined spaces. Using a combination of text, illustrations and SLS models the project formed architectural space on and through the page, an oscillating interplay between two-dimensional and three-dimensional space and experience, one that can only be fully appreciated when flipping cover to cover.

The spaces within the book are hand-carved to blur the boundary between model and paper. The book, first digitally modeled was then physically crafted, the voids forming the context for the content; the models, images and text continually reveal additional information about the intensions of the library creating a link between reading the book and reading the building. This re-forms Victor Hugo’s assertion of architecture as didactic space, a place with continual exploration and discovery.

Portfolio_VIP

video in print – the inclusion of very thin, very small videos within the printed medium

And why not? (well, other than expense, technical difficulty, proprietary technology, whatever…)

I don’t believe this is at all gimmickish - if done right. Animation could really explain certain works (as perhaps best shown by Joshua Prince-Ramus about his work on Ted Talks, see the last 3 minutes or so…), and would provide a completeness to the project that would be unobtainable any other way. This would, in a way, spoil much of the modeling technique spawned today throughout the profession – that is, only model what will render – and produce a stock of work that further investigates affect – another argument for the study of the workings of cinema in terms of architectural expression.

If nothing else it might better portfolios in some way – imagine using both print and video in the same printed portfolio…

parametric study – solar articulation/surface aggregation

 

For this study, I was asked to design a skyscraper who accommodates a system of panelization in which each panel is to be normal to the sun. One could think of these as either solar shades or PV panels. This condition allows for a level of sustainability about tall, topological projects, while still allowing the architect to control form while keeping the surfaces developable.

A number of steps went into solving the problem:

1. Planar surfaces where created from the NURBS surface using LIFT Architects Grasshopper Primer.
2. I then divided each panel into a 2x2 grid using U & V values, which yielded 9 points. I then extracted the corner points (1, 3, 7, and 9) and the middle points (5) into two distinct lists, or arrays. 
3. To create surfaces normal to the sun, I used trigonometry based on the vectors between the sun and the center/corner points of the original diagrid pieces. Because the magnitude (length) of the pre-existing vectors are known (both to the corners and to the center) as well as the angle between those vectors, a cosine function can be used to determine planar points along the corner vectors. Basically, as long as all end points of all lines draw a perpendicular vector to the existing central point vector, the surface, by definition, will be planar (see diagram). 

   GIVEN

   SOLUTION

4. Once I had the four new corner points, I used a ‘surface from four points’ component and baked the geometry into Rhino.

Because of the parametrics of grasshopper, one can view all possibilities of each panel, the number of panels, change the solar path relative to the building, etc.

To find the solar data I used an excellent excel spreadsheet put out by Greg Pelletier through the Washington State Department of Ecology (titled solrad.xls v1.2). It can be found on the web here.

Additional geometries can be explored (such as VT’s solar decathlon house wall pattern) which would do the same technique, in aggregation, which would perhaps give more variation to the work.

 

 

 

Images

(panels fixed in July position except in the video)

Interior Perspectives (January vs. July)

 

 

If the panels were to move in relation to the sun, it would look something like this (July solar data, of course):  

FlightPath

Aaron Koblin – Sand Box – Flight Paths

The paths correlate with various data tracking various flight paths about the US. I find the output (I hazard to say work…) to be quite beautiful in a way; the geometries are figural and, though complex, they seem to resemble some sort of logic, both in direction as well as in time (see the pulsing in the video).

The project also resembles the work done on processing (link to flickr stream | example 1 | example 2), the script used by Michael Hansmeyer in his Platonic Solid project, although the two do look entirely different…

Ultimately, in all of these, its not the script or the data that really matters: it is only (and will only ever be) the geometry, the articulation, and the beauty that captivates.

Images from the site: