Powers of Ten

Below: Powers of Ten in a contemporary context - interesting if not relevant.
There is still scales to consider...



Bio-Computation (2012) from David Benjamin on Vimeo.

The original Powers of Ten by Ray and Charles can be found here: http://www.powersof10.com/film

Wasmuth Portfolio

Ausgeführte Bauten und Entwürfe von Frank Lloyd Wright

Following the release of the Wasmuth Portfoliob Le Corbusier, van der Rohe, and Gropius, all working for Behrens in Berlin, purportedly stopped work the day the portfolio was released. I don’t know which is more incredible: those three designers all working in the same shop or that they (supposedly) stopped work, apparently in review of the monograph.

In any case, the portfolio (both volumes) is hosted in all its entirety online for anyone to check out. If you like hand rendering or Wright’s work, it’s a great find.

link: lib.utah.edu

Portfolio/Resume Workshop

Wednesday, June 27th
6:00-8:00 p.m. @ DCFA

FREE EVENT - register here

Inviting all students, interns and architects who are looking to improve or start their resumes and portfolios to our FREE workshop. Coordinated by the Young Architect's Forum and the Associates Committee, a panel of established and diversely experienced professionals from the local architecture community will be speaking about portfolios and resumes in terms of content, presentation and effective communication. The discussion will be followed by a Q&A session.

Panelists:
Charla Blake, Assoc. AIA, Art Institute of Dallas
Annie Carolla, Corgan (Recruiting Officer)
Bob Meckfessel, FAIA, DSGN Associates
Carole Steadham, Hon. AIA, Placement by Design

all done…

one more…

spulenkorb

Team Members: Ryan Collier | Michael Tomaso | Gabriel Esquivel

The project was awarded an honorable mention in the REPEAT competition organized by TEXFAB November 2010.

There is a vast precedent in fabrication projects that deal with the idea of weaving, however within those projects there are more specific techniques. This project concerns itself specifically in the spiral or coil. In "Tooling" Aranda/Lasch describe this technique as, “the spiral (which) is not so much the shape as the evidence of a shape in formation."(1) This idea implies constant movement as a desired effect - something architecture has historically aspired to. Aranda/Lasch continue the argument in terms of spiral lattices as multiple woven points weaving producing stability: this gives the potential of using the technique as away to assure the structure of the project’s form. To employ such a technique, one would have to use materials and tools that provide a ribboning or woven methodology.

When we began to research more about weaving techniques we looked at“coiled” baskets and “plaited” basketry. Baskets are categorized by Technique; we found diagonally plaited as producing a more contemporary effect. At the same time, coiled baskets provide more stability in that they employ a technique

of bundle strands or rods stitched into a spiraling oval or round form with a thin, flexible element to create a coil. Numerous variations of stitch types and embellishments (such as imbrications) can afford a wide range of possibilities.

Spulenkorb is a combination of both techniques. Spulenkorb literally means a coiled or spiral-form basket. The interest in a coil-spiral-weaving technique is the idea of movement - a propelling force that make things operate - a pattern and certain geometries referential to physics and chemistry as well as in popular culture, music, and film - all while being sensitive to architectural logic of elegance in structure and form.

The initial form then was conceived as a mobius rind (2), a variation of the pure mathematical "strip". For initial investigation we worked with the tool TopMod(3), a topological manifold mesh modeler which handles multi-genus geometries, to model the rind. We then continued to develop the mesh in Maya to include vortex apertures and variable, ornamental perforations, in an effort to test therobustness of the weaving algorithm.

Once the basic geometry was developed, the project was then passed through a series of subdivision routines to help determine which might provide the type of weaving that we ultimately desired. The team selected a base cubic pentagonalization routine because of the flower-like aperture treatment and the relationship between the various ribbons. There was also a strong consideration of the necessity of the final algorithm: weaving the mesh required inclusion of mesh based knots and links. These links can be represented in various ways, and can be passed through a subdivision-extrusion-reevaluation procedure to produce the desired woven effect. The final state of the project includes a series of six continuous ribbons of various lengths. Additionally, none of the ribbons are straight, nor do they maintain their width - these variables are determined by the geometry, the algorithm, and the further parametric variables provided in the algorithm. Each ribbon includes several hundred developable surfaces, all with a unique four- sided condition. It is because of these specificities, and because of the recent development of the tools that such a project can be conceived, digitally or otherwise.

In conclusion, that while up to this point much of the study in digital fabrication research has been based on tessellated surfaces typically derived from some abbreviation of the catmull-clark subdivision routine, this proposal supersedes these current studies by providing new solutions and challenges through the use of emerging tools (such as topmod) and algorithims (such as cubic pentagonalization and weaving) providing an opportunity to experiment and new directions.

1. Aranda, Benjamin. Tooling. Aranda/Lasch. Pamphlet Architecture 27. Princeton Architectural Press. Spiraling. P 12.

2. Akleman Ergun. Cyclic Plain Weaving on Polygonal Mesh Surfaces with Graph Rotation Systems. Siggraph 09.

3. see topmod3d.org for more information

Be sure to check out the project on suckerpunch-

Thesis: Asemic High

Image description:

1. Perspective from Windsor
2. Rail Interchange at base – Floor 02
3. Rail Interchange at base – Floor 01
4. Street Level Perspective
5. Aerial Perspective
6. Section
7. Rail Interchange – Floor 01
8. Rail Interchange – Floor 02

 

This project discusses the Asemic as a generator for certain geometries, certain spheres of sensation, while providing a paradigm for economically viable urban housing and integrated transit.

Asemic geometry denies signification in favor of the emotion of the glyph: that through the serialization certain geometries emerge, invoking sensations which are referential (perhaps) but maintain their independence from meaning. Exploitation of these tendencies, these geometries, yield techniques which allow for fluid conditions to exist between indices, largely defined by the line or curve.

The project is situated in Detroit just north of the Detroit/Windsor tunnel and will serve the dual purpose of a primary transportation hub for a 10 billion dollar rapid transit corridor proposed over the next several years, and a larger residential element situated atop this transportation plinth. Rapid transit will begin to connect the largely disparate suburbs of the Detroit Metro area, bringing residents back into downtown and into the recently redeveloped riverfront district. This high-rise will act as the mediator between the newly defined district and the transit system.

Economically, the project will be subsidized through a housing authority and deed restricted, reducing risk to the contractor (cost) and the government while providing an infrastructure and housing solution to the locality (similar to the Dutch Housing Act of 1901).

aperture & influence

fisker artega gt

The elevational surface of the artega gt aligns itself as knowing other geometries that are emerging from current architectural discourse (or work thereof): it’s eye-like aperture on the side is similar to the ornamental moves recently employed by Esquivel in his La Riviera renovation geometries (theoremas blog link):

At this point I contend that there are words/articulation needed to fully distinguish one aperture from another (as others certainly exist) wholly in and of itself, and not of a metaphorical rhetoric).

There is a specific move, where void makes a line, a delineation, about a surface, then invades or moves through the surface creating sub-surface expressed geometries in its wake; a moving void. In the same way there seems to be a movement about Esquivel’s work that entertains void objects about a surface, causing influences while not (in a similar move) ripping or destroying it’s plasticity.

Both discuss beauty in the most indiscrete way…perhaps this denies any true articulation to exist: they both leave the subject breathless.

la rivieria fabrication: link (I’ll post more of this incredible project as it comes online)

fisker automotive: link

TopoStruct

From the site:

Topostruct is a topology optimization software intended for use by designer and architects.

The aim of topology optimization is to find an optimal shape or distribution of material in space which meets as best as possible certain support conditions and applied loads. The user only has to inputs the dimensions of the overall volume, the target fraction of material utilization to be reached as well as loads and supports.

This software supports both 2d and 3d systems as well as a number of ways of visualizing the structural analysis results so as to make the process a bit more intuitive for non engineers. For more information on topology optimization see "Topology Opimization" a book writen by M.P. Bendsoe and O. Sigmund.

via sawapan.eu

Be sure to check out the end of the video - I love the sensibility.
The software is free for educational use-

the third & the seventh _ cg

The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

Intensive Fields

 

(link: registration)

If you can go, then go – its free. If not, send me instead :).

Man, what a killer set…

not quite final enough, not even close

current interior condition at rail depot

preliminary section

preliminary plan typical

preliminary details 

In Theory – Awful Beauty

In continuing with the webcast series, please be sure to check out the most recent talk-show at Texas A&M featuring Gabriela Campagnol (Architecture), Weiling He (Architecture), Chuck Taylor (English), and Yauger Williams (VIZ).

(link)

According to facebook:

Panelists will examine the topic “Awful/Beauty,” a reflection of the sublime and the otherworldly, during the noon, Oct. 29 webcast of "In Theory," a talk show-formatted discussion recorded in front of a live audience in the Langford Architecture Center’s Wright Gallery.

halfset

Ugly Form

Be sure to check out the “Ugly Form” talk show podcast featuring Josh Bienko, Gabriel Esquivel, and Theodore George. Moderated by Peter Lang.

(link)

According to the newsletter:

The show’s first installment featured a distinguished panel of Texas A&M artists, architects and philosophers in a wide-ranging “interrogation into the question of otherness, the unknown and the uncanny” under the topic, “ugly/form.”

Joining Lang on the talk-show set — a random collection of designer chairs with a 54-inch plasma screen in the background streaming horrific outtakes from the three “Alien” movies  — were Joshua Bienko, artist and assistant professor of visualization, Gabriel Esquivel, architect and assistant professor of architecture, and Theodore George, an associate professor of philosophy and expert in post-Kantian continental philosophy.

asemic pliant geometries

An investigations into certain geometries which discuss the asemic as a mode of sensation and seriality in the high-rise typology.

(link to graphics)

Based on the pliant and the current economic state (as was similar in the past), certain architectural (urban) conditions are ripe for discussion: the fold (interstitiary connections), sensation, economic/sustainable drivers, ornament/structure, and geometry (as a study of the asemic as we "curve away from deconstructivism").

Infrastructure has to be retooled. In the next few decades, a huge initiative to create large public infrastructure projects will come to pass, creating a paradigm and a precedent. As people detach themselves from the ground, which will, when coupled with large vacant office high-rise space (due to the real estate boom's effect on rental values) create opportunity for the integration, of weaving, of high-speed and low speed (social condensing moments) infrastructure which spans from building to building. Sky lobbies will not be a vertically driven program, but now can be understood as a horizontally derived program as well. Therefore, certain public space accommodations must be made; a programmatic agenda, but a valid agenda none the less. These spaces must drip of movement, a muscled space pulled by (as a static expression) both the vertical and the horizontal.

Infrastructure disintegrates the ground in both directions normal to its surface: infrastructure of the air becomes as crucial as below level. This includes but is not limited by underground parking (as highway systems, which is being developed in Dubai), a lower pedestrian concourse, as well as subway or high-speed rail. Because of the project's site (see below), infrastructure will invade both the earth as well as the bay.

The fold, then, is an argument away from external, urban contradictions, as argued by the deconstructivists, and toward internal "heterogeneous" blends. Blended space, the space that retains several identities, will "fold" upon other space, still maintaining itself while becoming a construct of the whole (the Deleuzean "felt").

This logic (sensibility) is seen in the weaving of infrastructure about a redefined ground (or lack there of), and ties in well with other arguments of the asemic, or asemic geometries. Asemic is defined as "a wordless open semantic form of writing. The word asemic means 'having now specific semantic content.'" at the same time, we understand text (or the glyph) as having certain geometry which can be altered to create the phenomena of seriality. This can be easily understood by selecting a font in adobe products, in which the user is inundated with several hundred fonts, all with a distinct geometry about each character (again, glyph). These geometries, which here are devoid of semantic meaning, argue for other things, like emotion, all defined by some sort of sensibility or aesthetic. And while I say sensibility, as if we all define it for ourselves, there is a broader logic to this: that certain type sets (or styles of type sets) are typically be used for wedding invitation strongly deviate from that which is commonly used for rock concert posters, etc; an argument for geometry and style. If we look into architecture, one can see similar things: the tassel house by Victor Horta is a clear example of the use of graphic (for ornament, disintegration of the edge, etc.). One would argue this as a stylized look, but even so has a level of sensibility and sensation about the space (not to mention the lighting from above, color, etc.).

However, the asemic must be contained within that of the fold, the fluid connection. Geometry is one thing, but as indices weave and are warped about, opportunities for bending the column surface in upon the ground surface and in column to column relationships becomes a compelling argument for ornament and, again, sensation.

Note that these are preliminaries. The next phase of the work is to architecturalize the project. I will be developing a structural logic about the project with professors Holliday and Fry in the very near future which will allow for other extremely important considerations (like floor plates & vertical circulation) to be developed. At this point the project is primarily a study in geometry, and while the project will be developed in other ways, I would not call the current work Architecture, but again a study in geometry and sensation.

 

interior system

 

 

northern perspective | cell graphic

 

detail at sky lobby

 

entrance and ground articulation

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):