Air journal 2015 part a

2015

JOURNALA I R

CLAIRE ROBERTSON

FINN

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 4

CONCEPTUALISATION 6 -DESIGN FUTURING 6-DESIGN COMPUTATION 10-COMPOSITION/GERNERATION 14

CONCLUSION 18

APPENDIX 20

4 INTRODUCTION

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INTRODUCTION

For as long as I can remember, I have been passionate about design an art. I love working with my hands, so crafts and 3- Dimensional artworks were predominantly what I made.

It wasn’t until the later years of highscool that I developed a real interest in the built environment, particularly interior spaces.

Coming into the Bachelor of Environments, I was aprehensive as I only had expreience in creative arts and absolutley no experience with computer aided design, in fact computers in general had always been a weakness.

In 2013 I took the subject Virtual Environments, in which we were expected to use Rhino to design a wearable ‘second skin’ and then fabricate it. I found Rhino extremely challening, but loved the process

of assembling the laser cut pieces I had deisgned in Rhino.

In 2014 I commenced Design Studio: Fire. The first few weeks of the semester involved making conceptual models, one of which is pictured to the left. I made this geometric model by repeating a single module to create a dome-like structure.

When it came to the final design project for this subject I had a lot of trouble trying to represent my idea in two dimensional drawing so I found Rhino an intergal part of the design process in finalising the design and then creating a model from this.

I am excited now to explore the role of computer modelling in formulating a deisgn, rather than simply repsesenting an already formed idea.

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DESIGN FUTURING

CONCEPTUALISATION

With a rapidly increasing population that has doubled in the last 45 years, it has become very apparent that we are placing to much pressure on the earths recoursces, so much so that there is no long term future on earth if we continue along this path.

According to Tony Fry, “we only have a future by design”, that is to say that if the Earth is to sustain us in the future, it must be a completely redisinged future to the one we are currently heading towards.

Current design practice has little focus on environmental imapct, and is instead based on aesthetic. In the current climate, comsumers are being handed design choices based on style and user functionality, giving design power to manufacturers and marketers.

In order to make the changes that will allow for a sustainable future, a complete shift in values and ideals needs to be undertaken to redesign the future. To do this, the power of design needs to shift back to deisngers who can then create a redefined design intelligence based on materiality and operabilty.

In a 2010, Matsys Studio designed a wall made of timber using digital fabrication. The focus of the design was to create no material waste. Instead of designing from the top down and beginning with aesthetics, they started with a standard sheet size of timber. From here they explore ways of effienciently cutting the wood, and then assembling it to create a wall that is also based on aesthetic and style.

In this way, Matsys have not removed the idea of aesthetics form the design process, but rather rearranged its significance to come after materialtiy and functionality of the wall.

In the current social and political climate, such a radical shift in ideals is unfeasable. It seems impossible that anyone would be able to redefine the design values of the entire population. Instead, a more realistic option is to incorperate new ideas about sustainable design into the current design environment. In this way design needs to still have a focus on aesthtics and style, because that is the idealogy of the current population, but designers must find a way to do this in a way that is also focused on creating a new sustainable future.

http://wooddesign.dgtlpub.com/2010/2010-10-31/pdf/Lincoln_

DESIGN FUTURING

7CONCEPTUALISATION

Matsys, 2010, Zero/Fold Screen, Canada

8 DESIGN FUTURING

9CONCEPTUALISATION

(L)ABnormal’s ornamental canopy was created using pramtetric modelling, resulting in a series of pleated canopies that envelope three existing columns. A series of lights within the canopy shine through small holes in the surface, an umaltion of a starry sky. The result is intriguiing and beautiful to look at.

The canopy demonstrates a large part of deisgn ideals in the current environment. In this case, computation has been to used to design and fabricate a strucutre that serves no puropse other than aesthetics. It can be argued that both the materials used in this installation as well as the energy used to produce and run it are a waste.

With aesthetics such an integral part of design in its current state, it is not possible to reject it completely. Instead aesthetic principles need to incorperated with other design parameters such as operanility and function to create a new type of architecture that satisfies the human obsession with aesthetic style and beauty as well as allowing for a future that can sustain life on Earth.

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DESIGN COMPUTATION

DESIGN COMPUTATION

Architecture and design is moving into a new phase with the increasing use of computation in many aspects of the design and production process. The realm of possibilites that opens up with the use of this new technology has a radical effect on the whole industry.

Yehuda Kelay talks about architecture being the response to a variety of paramiters and issues that need to be resolved, which to do so requires both analysis and innovative creativity. With the use of computer aided design, this analysis side of the process can be assigned to a computer which is much faster and more effiecient.

Yet computer aided design has become much more than a tool to aid and speed a design or as a way of representing a pre-formulated design accurately. With the use of algorithmic thinking, computer software is beginning to be used to ofrmualte a design, allowing one to produce a number of varieties from a preconcieved set of rule and parameters. In doing so, this process alows designers to break down the creating of a building form into a series of parameters htat can each be adjusted individualy to reveal its outcome on the overall form. In this way, designers are beginning to design these parameters, which then result in an overall form, rather than beginning with a design

and then looking into the details of forming it.

Computation in design has also created a new type of performative architecture. As the design becomes digitalised, so too is the analysis of efficieny in materialty, structural engineeringa nd energy meaning that buildings can be designed to yeild the optimum performance.

In this way, architecture is undergoing a major shift as a result of computation so that form is now driven by performance rather than aesthetics, idealogies or material limitations.

This way of algorithmic thinking is closely linked to nature, which operates in similar ways to create optimum performance. As a result, designers are getting results that mirror geometries found in nature.

The project Hygroscope by Achim Menges in 2012 is an example of the use of material computation. Though responsive analysis of the material, wood, they wer`e able to create a design that responds to the environment without any technical equipment or energy use. By exploring the instability of the material in response to changes in moisture, they were able to create a climate respoonsive morphology. As a result, the structure opens or closes in responce to changes in humidity.

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http://www.achimmenges.net/?p=5083

CONCEPTUALISATION

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http://www.oliverdavidkrieg.com/?page_id=559

DESIGN COMPUTATION

13CONCEPTUALISATION

Furthermore, the use of deisgn computation can be beneficail in the production process by using a streamline digital contimuum from design to manufacture. In this way, digiital design can be used to create non standard materials in a much faster process, increase accuracy in the manufacture thereby reulting in a shorter and more efficient design to build time that is more econimacal. This idea has been used in the Landesgartenschau Exhibition Hall in Germany in which the entire pavillion has been both digitally designed and fabricated. The buildings primary structure is made up of robotically prefabricated plates of plywood. The load bearing structure is very thin, meaning it is very econmical and resourceful its use of materials, made possible through digitl simulation and surveying methods. THe structure getsin stregnth from the robotically fabricated fingerlocking joints which are a part of each panel, still visible from inside the building. The structure also boasts material efficieny by using timber as both the primary structure and forming the buildings envelope at the same time.

However, this idea of material efficiency as a result of digital analysis and design is two fold. While in some cases computation is used to minimise material waste and optimize performance, the digital streamline from design to fabrication makes prototyping fast fabrication much easier, resulting in more material waste. It is so easy to quickly create prototypes and experimentation at each stage of the process than before digital fabrication was an option that materials are being used that serve little purpose and yeild large amounts of wastage.

While it is evident that computation is highly beneficial in the field of architecture, the increased use of digital design in the formation of a building means that the design comes as a result of computer analysis rather than innovation and creativity and is thereby diminishing deesign in the way it was previously percieved.

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A lot of controversy surrounds the issue of computation in design and whether this is actaully creativity.

Computation has evolved in architecture practice to mean that designers no longer create forms but rather design the algorithm that will then determine the form.

An algorithm is a process or set of instructions made up of a series of parameters and rules that are finite. The algorithm is given an input, which undergoes this process to then produce an output. These paramters can relate to every details of the building, including materal, production and spacial limitations which are designed by the architect.

Therfore it is in understanding the process of creating and adjusting these algotihms that makes computation a true method of design.

Algorithmic thinking then enables new ways of thinking about form and architecture that is shaped by the paramters of the design with increased ability to resolve the complex problems that designing a building presents.

Rather than approaching designing by thinking about overall form, algorithmic thinking starts from the ground up by looking at component

design, allowing eaach part of the seign to meet performance requirements on a more local level.

Many architects are now using algorythmic thinking to analise perfomance and create a form that provides optimum function. The Endesa Pavilion by Rodrigo Rubio in Spain has been created using an algorithm to determine the site, position and angle of each panel of the building to alow the photovoltaic cells to collect the maximum amount of sunilight, as well as controlling how much light enters the building depending on the season.

The structure was created using computerized prefabrication, so that the total construction of the project to only 5 weeks to assemble.

Similarly, the Acoustic Pavilion by Electrotexture Lab was created using an algorithm that searched for the optimum form and refelctive environment for electronic music with its context of the Aalborg Harbour in Denmark. The design process involved experimaentaion in form, materials structure and acoustic which fed information into the copmutational algorithm to generate the finals design.

Both of these examples illustrate how computatyion and algorthmic thinking can be applied to create designs that are optimized for performance on a number of paramters, and specific to each site.

COMPOSITION/GERNERATION

COMPOSITION/GENERATION

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http://www.fastcodesign.com/1670678/shaped-by-algorithms-a-solar-powered-pavilion-that-soaks-up-maximum-rays?partner=newsletter#1

CONCEPTUALISATION

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The use of performance analysis in comuptation can be extended from physical paramters to also respond on a social level in terms of how people interact with the building. In this way, a building can analyse information from users and continue to be shaped in response to users even after its completion.

Meta-Follies by ecoLogic Studio is a responsive installation that has been concieved algorithmically to create and acoustic interaction between structure and user. It is a mechanic strucutre made up of reused urban waste such as polypropylene, modified sound kits, steel rods and chameleonic nano-flakes which together undergoe a system of transformations in responce to the contextual environment as well as behavioural response. 300 peizo-buzzers react to peoples movement which essentially create a ripple of sound that interferes with the sound of the buzzer. In this way, the algorithm will continue to change and adapt in response to people throughout its use, not just responding to perfomance analysis in its construction.

While this technology creates a fascinating installation, further development is required to translate this into something that is practical within architectrure and influential on the social interection within a space.

CONCEPTUALISATION

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CONCLUSION

With an ever increasing population, it is becoming even more essential to think about design in a way that will change current trends and lead towards a future that can sustain humanity on Earth.

While current ideals in design revolve around style and aesthtics, a complete shift needs to take place. Design intelligence needs to be redefined to look at functioanlity and operability with minimum material waste.

It is clear that design computation will play a major role in this shift towards a sustainable future. hte increasing power of computer technology means that building design can now be thought

from the ground up, allowing operability anf function to determine form rather than style.

“We only have a future by design”- Tony Fry

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The concepts introduced in Studio Air have all been quite new to me and I have found them fascinating. While sustainability in architecture is something I have understood, I had not before considered the link between sustainable design and the role of computation.

Prior to this subject I had a very limited view of design computation as something usesd to create cool looking geometric designs without considering the beneficial role of computation in increasing effiency in many aspects of the design oprocess.

Beginning to attempt algorithmic thinking in the sketchook excercises has been challenging as it is

a very new concept to me. I found the option of changing a single paramter within a system and being able to immediately see the overall results really useful and interesting.

In the past, designs that I have worked one were forms that evolved from conceptual and aesthetic ideas. While they would have been much easier to design the geometric shapes and patterns using computation, I am looking forward to integrating the ideas of analytcal response and function optimization into future designs. Using these ideas I will be abvle to create projects thaat have a deeper meening and respond more to the current context and necessity to design in a way that will lead to a sustainable future.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

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APPENDIX

WEEK 1: LOFTED VASE

Below are examples from the algorithmic sketchbook. Each was creatied using the grasshopper plug-in for rhino to create an algorithm that determines the forms

outcome.

In this excercise, a loft was created between a series of curves. By using an algorithm to do this, I was able to manipulate the surves in different ways and see how the overall form is affected. I started with a sereies of circles stacked above each other. In the first image I experiements altering the diameter of these circles, then in the second image also rotaing and agling the curves to create an outcome that I found to be most appealling.

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WEEK 2: POINTS ON SURFACE

WEEK 3: L-SYSTEM TREES

As an extension of the loft algorithm, I next looked at different ways of adding to the surface. By determining a series of points on the surfaca, I could then add a series of shapes and lines at the points, experimenting with different sizes and positions along the normal of these points. In the second image, I begun to look at how to create different sized shapes on the surface using the random command, which resulted in a much more interesting form.

For the next excercise I looked at using anenome to create an l-system algorithm, mimicking the growth pattern of trees. By adjusting paramters such as the angle, length and number of braches and huge variety in results could be seen. In the forst image I experiemnted using the symetrical angle og 60 degrees, with a reproduction 60% of the start line. I then looked at adding an other angle on a third plane to create 3-dimensionality in the tree as well as randomising the length and angle of the bracnches to result in something that looks most similar to a natural tree.

APPENDIX