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AIR STUDIOJUN LI 526496

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CONTENT:Part A EOI I: Case for Innovation 01 Introduction: Archtiecture as a Life Sustainability

02 Computational Architectural

03 Parametric Architecture

Part B EOI II: Design Approach 1.1 Design Focus

1.2 Case Study 1.0

1.3 Case Study 2.0

1.4 Technique Development

1.5 Technique Prototype

1.6 Technique Proposal

1.7 Algorithmic Sketches

1.8 Learning Objectives and Outcomes

Part C Project Proposal 2.1 Gateway Project: Design Concept

2.2 Gateway Project: Tectonic Elements

2.3 Gateway Project: Final Model

2.4 Algorithmic Skethces

2.5 Learning Objective s and Outcomes

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PART A EOI I :CASE FOR INNOVATION

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I am a third year architecture student of Melbourne Univer-sity. I am from China and this is my third year in Melbourne. Obtaining my first-hand ex-perience about computa-tional design from learning Virtual Environments in my first year, I realized the impor-tance of cutting-edge de-signing method in architec-tural discourse. By using the software, Rhinoceros, I be-came to acquire knowledge about NURBS, which had fur-ther impacts on my design concepts and perceptions about forms and repetitive

patterns. I basically focused on the golden ratio and it-eration of geometry in the project and used Rhino and Panelling tool to generate some interesting forms. The program helped me to es-tablish the basic knowledge about computational design and light effects. In Air stu-dio, I expected to accumu-late more knowledge about tessellation and patterns by using Grasshopper, hence, have further understanding about heterogeneity and homogeneity.

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INTRODUCTION: ARCHITECTURE 0 1 A S A L I F E

SUSTAINABILITY

Architecture is not just about building. It is ubiquitous as it has become our ‘third skin’ and we spend most part of our life within it.1 Schumacher argues that the inclusive books, magazines, photographs of buildings, drawings, discussion about des ign and al l that communication associated w i t h a r c h i t e c t u r e s h o u l d b e r e g a r d e d a s p a r t o f architectural discipline.2

Importantly, architecture is a powerful tool to influnece our perceptions and behaviours. S ince Mer leau-Ponty has advocated that 'inside and outside are inseparable', which means that our understanding about the world is inseparable from the space around us,

architecture has far-reaching i m p a c t s t o r e s h a p e o u r everyday life.3

W i t h u n d e r s t a n d i n g o f these impacts, it is vital to rethink architecture as a 'life sustainabil ity' that not only means environmental-friendly design and construction but particularly, sustains individual a n d c o m m u n i t y i d e n t i t y . T h i s r e q u i r e s c r e a t i o n o f connection between people and place which necessitates t h e r e t r s o s p e c t a t i o n o f t h e h o m o g e n i s a t i o n o f archt iecture that erodes people's identity by simply apply ing global s ty le and ignoring the sites and contexts.

M o r e o v e r , I b e l i e v e i t i s

important to consider users' perspectives through design process, to use phenomenlogy and to envision how users use space at the early age of design process, rather than simply creating the isolated objects.

To regard architecture as a life sustainability is to admit that 'spatialisation has an implicit and essential part in the making of identity'.4 I believe in the new era, digital archtiectural design can enhance users' visual and spatial experience. It can assist in richness of space and meaning for architecture a g a i n s t h o m o g e n i s a t i o n . Even if some people regard parametric design as a style that looks all the same5, there

1. Scott Drake, 'The Third Skin: Architecture, Technology and Environment (UNSW Press, 2007), 6-7.

2. Patrik Schumacher, 'Introduction : Architecture as Autopoietic System', in The Autopoiesis of Architecture (Chichester: J. Wiley, 2011),1 - 28.

3. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, translated by Colin Smith, Routledge & Kegan Paul (London), 1962, pp 406–7.

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a r e s o m e s u c c e s s f u l examples that demonstrate c o m p u t a t i o n a l d e s i g n ' potentials to link projects to its contexts and even the micro-climate of the site, which can optimise the performance of material.

As a powerful tool to sustain the communictation within community and individuals, I focus on three areas that architecture can contribute:

Firstly, it can change people's life style, serving as a platform for people gathering. There are many public buildings that create shared experiences for people within the community a n d t h u s e n h a n c e t h e commun icat ion between

individuals.

Secondly , landmarks and edifices increase legibility of city. Urbanism is innevitable i n t o d a y ' s s o c i e t y a n d urban context has become important topic for architects to consider.6 To retreat from busy life, to reflect city life or to merge into the context are the main design concept that architects hold when facing the fast-change urban life.7 I think the creation of links within city is important rather than isolate the buildings from its surroundings. This links may be innovative solutions to maint relations between inside and outsie, which can be found in some parametric design for the facade.

F i n a l l y , a r c h i t e c t u r e c a n maintain shared sensation and memory for people within the community. It sustains these tradit ions and ref lects the changes and forces that shape the community to generate 'the spirit of local identity'.8

For the Wyndham Gateway project, the visual perception, the movement of users and engagement between projects and users in visual and spacial relationship should be studied at the early stage of design process to enhance the visual impacts and create latent possibilities.

4. Paul Brislin, 'Identity, Place and Human Experience', Architectural Design , 2012, p. 144.

5. Patrik Schumacher,'The Meaning of MAXXI – Concepts, Ambitions, Achievements',<http://www.

patrikschumacher.com/Texts/The%20Meaning%20of%20MAXXI.html>, accessed on 3 April, 2013.

6. Caroline Bos, 'Phenomenology and Topography of the Megacity', Architecture Design, 2(2012), 139.

7. Thomas Daniell, After the crash: Architecture in Post-Bubble Japan,Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 2008.8. Paul Brislin, 'Identity, Place and Human Experience', Architectural Design , 2012, p. 144.

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Grin Grin ParkToyo Ito

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In Georg Simmel’s phenomenological depiction of city life, there was strangeness, oppression and avoidance of contact while the nowadays reality is that we spend most of time with ‘masses of strangers in public space has not necessarily resulted in a proportional increase in urban antagonism’.9 While, Toyo Ito is searching to get rid of these mindsets to create spaces that can be found relations between exterior and interior, the interconnectedness between buildings and site and even the links between buildings.

For Toyo Ito, setting out from the natural forms and letting architecture returning to the nature is extremely important to articulate his concept about architecture and architectural effects relating to the social and cultural contexts. This entirely artificial park seems to reflect the site, an artificial island, and Japanese traditional culture, ‘harmony with nature’. Ito chose the image of circles radiating from the park to the whole city, reinforcing the relationship between architecture and urban space. The continuous spiralling shapes merge with the undulation of the topography, manifested the complexity and

variations of the projects. The interior sometimes scrolled and became the exterior, which blurs the boundary and creates dynamic and instable sense. This also generates various paths for people to experience and they can even walk on the roofs to get interesting views of the whole city. This is a public, open and free space for people walking through, sitting and chatting with others, which enhances the connection of people in the community.

Relied on the computerized structural optimization method developed by engineer, the asymmetric concrete shells

9. Richard Williams, 'Architecture and Visual Culture', in Exploring Visual Culture : Definitions, Concepts, Contexts, ed. by Matthew Rampley (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005), pp. 102 - 116.

10. Toyo Ito, shedding the modern body image: is a house without criticism possible? Jutaku Tokushu 149 (September 1998): 21.

11. Lynn, Greg "Why Tectonics is Square and Topology is Groovy", in Fold, Bodies and Blobs: Collected Essays ed. by Greg Lynn (Bruxelles: La Lettre volée, 1998), 169-182.

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can be generated and optimized. Remodelling and testing individual parts of the concrete shell is crucial during the modification of the final form. It provides new prototype for architecture, as it discards the Cartesian axis and basic static geometry . I to advanced the architectural discourse, especially in tectonics. He declares that architects should have a desire not to create joint, beams, wall... and all that universalized tectonics.10 The general ized typologies of structure and construction always separate different elements and set the rules for architecture.11 In contrast,Ito argues that the grid system that was set up by Modernist for architecture has degenerated people’s sensation to the heterogeneity and complexity in natura l forms, du l led the i r everyday life and isolated human beings from nature.

"It is a park like a building as well as a building like a park."

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Namba Parks designed by Jerde Partnership in Osaka, Ja-pan is a mixed use of commer-cial area and garden. The sinu-ous walls and greenery on the sloping roof of the mall quickly hit the news and became a hot topic among the public as from the aerial photo, it looks like a hanging garden, which evokes citizens’ interests. It is successful in terms of its important natu-ral intervention function in the dense and harsh urban con-dition.12 Osaka is lack of open space and parks in that the land is extremely expensive. Namba Parks is a good solution for the city as it has eye-catch-

ing forms and high visibility of water and trees on the slop-ing roof that appeal to resi-dents and consumers, which becomes a centre of the city for community gathering and further strengthens communi-cation, community culture and interactions. Its greenery is also pivotal to relieve extremely high temperature during summer.However, the project seems to be monotone inside in that visitors realized that it was just a mall with gardens on roof top rather than what they expect-ed from the photos.13 Jerde’s analogy is ‘canyon’ and the in-terior and curved wall that en-

capsulates paths area totally decorated with different ‘can-yon-like’ colour to symbolize. Why would he choose canyon as analogy and what is the relationship between canyon and Osaka’s gateway and city image? Some visitors think that they felt that the ‘American-canyon’ like design gave them this kind of image that Japan used to copy western culture and itswesternization.14 The public always perceives some different ideas from the one that designers intended to impart.

" S T R A N G E ATTRACTOR"

NAMBA PARKS

JERDE PARTNERSHIP

OSAKA, JAPAN

2005

12.Rocket News, 'Namba Parks Gets Rave Reviews from Overseas',<http://en.rocketnews24.com/2012/09/08/namba-parks-gets-rave-reviews-from-overseas/> [accessed 3 April].

13.Rocket News, 'Namba Parks Gets Rave Reviews from Overseas',<http://en.rocketnews24.com/2012/09/08/namba-parks-gets-rave-reviews-from-overseas/> [accessed 3 April].

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The park seems to be a strange attractor in Osaka, which iso-lates itself from surrounding community with curved walls. It is unusual that as shopping mall, the shops are lack of visibility and even windows. The circulation does not work quite well from residents’ point view that they spend a lot time to find a store. The area mixed with different functions should always be designed carefully with circulation and the arrangement of space. Simply focusing on the garden feature and raise up a topic among the public but to ig-nore the function and users’ views cannot be an innova-

tive project. Hanging garden may be an attractive title for the mall, but the design is lack of diversity of special experi-ence for people so that visi-tors feel the space is simply a shopping mall.

For Wyndham city gateway project, it is important to con-sider the project not only in architectural scale but also to establish the relationship between the project and the whole community. Ito’s park project is an innovative one that can be learned in the gateway project. The simple geometry and its variations link the park, the topography, the

surrounding environment and the whole island. For gate pro-ject, it is crucial to consider the symbol meaning that archi-tecture can carry on so that it can create and articulate the new image of the Wynd-ham city. It is also important to think about the effects of the project on the public. Rather than a park that can be expe-rienced and observed slowly, the strong visual effects of pro-ject should be highlighted and even exaggerated so that it can be eye-catching in forms.

14. Rocket News, 'Namba Parks Gets Rave Reviews from Overseas',<http://en.rocketnews24.com/2012/09/08/namba-parks-gets-rave-reviews-from-overseas/> [accessed 3 April].

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References:

Alexander Eisenschmidt, Stranger than Fiction: A Mission Statement,Architecture Design, 219 (2012), 14-15.

Caroline Bos, 'Phenomenology and Topography of the Megacity', Architecture Design, 2(2012), 139.

Lynn, Greg, "Why Tectonics is Square and Topology is Groovy", in Fold, Bodies and Blobs: Collected Essays ed. by Greg Lynn (Bruxelles: La Lettre volée, 1998), 169-182.

Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, translated by Colin Smith, Routledge & Kegan Paul (London), 1962, pp 406–7.

Patrik Schumacher, 'Introduction : Architecture as Autopoietic System', in The Autopoiesis of Architecture (Chichester: J. Wiley, 2011),1 - 28.

Paul Brislin, 'Identity, Place and Human Experience', Architectural Design , 2012, 144.

Richard Williams, 'Architecture and Visual Culture', in Exploring Visual Culture : Definitions, Concepts, Contexts,, ed. by Matthew Rampley (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2005), pp. 102 - 116.

Rocket News, 'Namba Parks Gets Rave Reviews f rom Overseas' ,<http://en.rocketnews24.com/2012/09/08/namba-parks-gets-rave-reviews-from-overseas/> [accessed 3 April].

Scott Drake, 'The Third Skin: Architecture, Technology and Environment (UNSW Press, 2007), 6-7.

Thomas Daniell, After the crash: Architecture in Post-Bubble Japan,Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 2008

Toyo Ito, 'Shedding the modern body image: is a house without criticism possible?' Jutaku Tokushu, 149(1998), 21.

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0 2Computation is different to computer izat ion that h a s b e e n a p p l i e d i n architectural representation t o i n c r e a s e e f f i c i e n c y of drawing and share of drawing components in the last decades, which has been integrated into the architectural design processes. Even if some people are suspicious about its impacts on architects’ designing methods and the creations of some ‘uncanny forms’ that were dr iven by ‘fake creativity’, I sti l l believe when computation encountered architecture, creativity can be aroused,1 t h e r a t i o n a l i z a t i o n o f des ign p rocess can be articulated and the distance

between architects’ own views and reality can be shortened. Computational a r c h i t e c t u r e c a n b e a m e t h o d t o c o m b i n e a r c h i t e c t s ’ s e n s i t i v i t y and subjectivity with the object iv i ty . As des ign i s f i l led wi th uncerta int ies and can be determined b y p e r s o n a l h e u r i s t i c decisions, it is a ‘puzzle-solving’ process rather than ‘problem-solving’ process.2 Personal influences play an important role in the process a n d h e n c e i t i s p r o n e to generate e r ro r s and limitations particularly when requirements from clients, society and the public are complex.Complex projects, i n c l u d i n g l a r g e s c a l e ,

mutable environments and designers’ desire to create dynamic built environment for users, necessitate the integration of computation i n t o d e s i g n p r o c e s s e s . One example is UNStudio’s project, Arnhem Central S tat ion , the in tegrated p u b l i c t r a n s p o r t a t i o n area. It combines different funct ions and d i f fe rent stops for different vehicles into one area. It is a place w h e r e a l o t o f p e o p l e pass through and keeps changing as the increase of travelers. Therefore, it is pivotal to organize different information as input to be considered into the project.

1. Kolarevic, Branko, Architecture in the Digital Age: Design and Manufacturing (New York; London: Spon Press, 2003), pp. 3 - 28.

COMPUTATIONALARCHITECTURE

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However, computers and tools can definitely not dominate the whole process as they lack the ability to decode sensibility and inspirations of human’ mind. Architects are still important des igners as the i r d i scern ing about non-geometric parameters: social, economic, political and material, which is hard to transform into quantitative data to be used as the input of the algorithmic design but these factors impact the design idea and designers set out their processes based on them.3Architects use software to set up the criteria to optimize their projects. Computation play important role to stimulate the real situations and set constraints such as wind, solar path, circulation and other environmental factors in the designing process to assist in decision-making of architects.

The Knowlege Centre of Masdar institute of Science and Technology has semi-circluar shape roof to regulate and shade the sunlight. The designers are famil iar with computer-programming and can create programs by themselves so that the design process was efficient and generated more variety. Computation also generates innovation in construction process and breaks away from traditional building methods.As designing in computation can directly caculate the precise positions and materials for the building.

F i g u r e 1 . T h e Knowledge Centre, F o s t e r + P a r t n e r s ’ SpecialistM o d e l l i n g G r o u p ( S M G ) , M a s d a r Institute Campus, Abu

Figure 2. The Knowledge Centre, Foster + Partners’ SpecialistModelling Group (SMG),Masdar Institute Campus, Abu Dhabi(2010)

Rather than concerning about the details in modernism and the time during art and craft movement, computation focuses on the relations between

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Figure. 4 Andrew O Payne/LIFT architects, Air Flow(er) facade prototype, 2009

Computation also allows a r c h i t e c t s t o t e s t a n d stimulate their design under different circumstances. From Greg Lynn's concept about 'motion-form' that it is important to participate in the flow and forces that shape the built envionment to l iquefy the Cartesian s p a c e . 4 C o m p u t a t i o n provides opportunities to conncet ideas with real and let real factors to shape the design. In the facade prototype designed by Andrew O Payne/L IFT

architects, computation i s cr i t ical to real i se the i d e a t o c r e a t e d i r e c t interconnection between building and surrounding env i ronments . By us ing Rhino and Grasshopper, the facade can react to the heat that generated by pedestrian from them, which is directly transformed into the variet of the forms.5The architects focus on the design of prototyping tools for designers to stimulate their design and shorten t h e d i s t a n c e b e t w e e n real world and architects'

views about design. It is a more integrative approach o f u s i n g p r o t o t y p e t o h e l p c o m m u n i c a t e a r c h i t e c t s ' i d e a s .

3.Xavier De Kestelier,Recent Development in Fosters+Partners' Specialist Modeling Group, Architectural Design, vol.83, p. 23.

4.Michael Meredith,After after geometry,Architectural Design, vol.83, p. 92-94.

5.Andrew O Payne and Jason Kelly Johnson,Firefly Interacting Prototype for Architects, Architectural Design, vol.83, p. 140.

Figure. 3 Andrew O Payne/LIFT architects, Air Flow(er) facade prototype, 2009

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Christian Dior Ginza Store designed by Kumiko Inui represents the concept of using parametric design to create interesting relations between inside and outside. In this case, the de-signer plays with people’s visual perceptions by using offset patterns of dots on the double layers.6 The cavity is also cre-ated according to the visual impacts that designer wants to achieve to show the illuminated perforations with keep-chang-ing depth. Viewers may per-ceive that the depth between two layers are large but actual-

ly the actual distance is smaller than perceived distance. It makes building looks larger than it is actually is. It is innovative in architectural discourse and use this special visual impacts to interact with viewers.

6. Farshid Moussavi and Michael Kubo,

The function of Ornament, Barcelona

: Actar, Harvard University, Graduate

School of Design, 2006.

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Parametric Precast Con-crete Panel System

The design represents concept to strengthen the relation between spe-cific site condition to the pattern gen-eration. It is based on multiple param-eter to optimise the shading effects and save energy.

It shows the design considerations of interactions between external forces and the performance of material.

There are three control factors:

1) Quantitative information related to sustainable issues like solar orientation and sound abatement;

2) Logistical factors such as transpor-tation, material usage and installa-tion; and

3) Qualitative information like non-standard panel variation and aesthetic composition.7

7. Topocast, Parametric Precast, retrieved from http://topocastlab.com/portfolio/paramet-ric-precast/.

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References:

Andrew O Payne and Jason Kelly Johnson,'Firefly Interacting Prototype for Architects', Architectural Design, 83 (2013), 140.

Farshid Moussavi and Michael Kubo, The function of Ornament, Barcelona : Actar, Harvard University, Graduate School of Design, 2006.

Kolarevic, Branko, Architecture in the Digital Age: Design and Manufacturing (New York; London: Spon Press, 2003), 3 - 28.

Michael Meredith,After after geometry,Architectural Design, 83 (2013), 92-94.

Xavier De Kestelier,Recent Development in Fosters+Partners' Specialist Modeling Group, Architectural Design, 83(2013), p. 23.

Yehuda E. Kalay, Architecture's New Media : Principles, Theories, and Methods of Computer-Aided Design (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2004), 5 - 25

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PARAMETRICMODELING 0 3

Sketching is regarded as a basic skill that architects should acquire so that they can express their ideas quickly and effectively, provide problem-solving methods and even obtain inspirations from sketching. Through sketching, the projects can be personal and carry architects’ visions of the final project from which may have distance to the reality.1 Even in nowadays, architects still have dreams to design ‘a pure space that is created within oneself and extremely personal’, which is like painting and other forms of art, abstractly and conceptually.2

However,architectural design should be propagated not only from ‘top-down’ process that is conceptually driven but also from ‘bottom-up’ method to consider different factors. It is a way to minimise the errors when the projects have become more and more complex and the requirements for the diversity and dynamic environment are more and more important. During the fast changing world, architects can learn from nature and use 'algorithm' to optimize their design and increase adapability of architecture.

1. Woodbury, Robert. Elements of Parametric Design (London: Routledge,2010), 7-48.

2. Riken Yamamoto, The Discovery of Process, Toyo Ito, (New York: Phaidon, 2005), 28.

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The 2011 Pav i l ion at the U n i v e r s i t y o f S t u t t g a r t , designed by the Institute for Computational Design (ICD) and the Institute of Building St ructures and St ructura l Design ( ITKE), was inspired by the bionic principle of sea urchins’ skeleton morphology a n d e m e r g e d t h r o u g h t h e p a r a m e t r i c m o d e l i n g .

T h e p a v i l i o n i s f o r m e d b y repetit ive plywood hexagon panels that were connected by using finger joints, representing the method in which urchin’s she l l l inks wi th each other . The two inter locking domes create openings and blur the boundary between interior and exterior. The small dome allows people to have a look at its logic joints and structure. Even if it is a small project through using extreme light ‘paper-like’ material,it represents the idea of the wholeness of designing,

manufacturing, fabrication and installation.The folding and joining of plywood cells blur the distinction between structure and skin.The hexagonal geometries provide rigidity and every three cell edges always join together to transform f o r c e s , w h i c h f u r t h e r strengthens the form and avoid deformable shape.

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Moreover, the dynamic s i z e o f h e x a g o n a n d p e r f o r a t i o n s o n c e l l s create variations of light e f f e c t s a n d d i v e r s i t y . P a r a m e t r i c m o d e l i n g plays an important role here, as it optimizes the pattern s i zes and thei r positions by considering transferring of loads and c u r v a t u r e i n d i f f e r e n t parts that determines the heterogeneity of individual cells.

The bionic principle sets out the initial ideas and the requirements of structural

r ig id i t y and h igh load bearing capacity set the tone of constraints of the design, which translates into input of the parametric modeling process.

Therefore, the form finding and structural design were combined together during the early process by using computat ional des ign. The final project is different f r o m t h e n o r m a t i v e tecton ic ar t icu lat ions , w h i c h e m b o d i e s t h e wholeness and complexity of the form.The relationship among different individual

cells and the integration between individuals and the whole are interesting i n t h i s p r o j e c t , w h i c h highlights the important role of parametric design that defines and analyzes the heterogeneity and complexity logical ly by optimizing the individual characteristic and their re la t ions w i th o the r s .

"Parametricism aims to organize and articulate the increasing diversity and complexity of social institutions and life processes within the most advanced centre of postFordist network society." The Meaning of MAXXI – Concepts, Ambitions, Achievements P a t r i k S c h u m a c h e r 3

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Through parametric design, dependencies and connections between different parts in the project are captured, articulated and communicated with other designers and builders, which is critical for precision and efficiency of fabrication and

UNStudio’s work, Galleria in Cheonan, South Korea is a mixture of different functional areas, which combines commercial stores and public space for social and cultural aspects. Based on their research about Asian users in commercial departments, architects consider the project as a highly social area, hence, the project should address its role to provide platform for the communication between users and also the interaction between building and the public. The change of skin of the building becomes the most straightforward way to communicate with the public. Parametric design provides more opportunities to approach the diversity in terms of function and interwoven spaces, which is different from the way in which Post-modernism or deconstruction uses fragile and chaotic elements to communicate with the public. The project sets the start point from users’ perspectives and allows the research of pluralism which can be addressed

the research of pluralism which can be addressed by the parametric modeling. As parametric design concentrates on the relationship and constraints between different parts rather than separation, it is more than a style from aesthetic view. Parametric design provides different ways for architects to think about the process and relationship between different parts. The skin of project has double layers to create dynamic effects.

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Another interesting approach in this project is the study of nowaday's human motion and their ambulatory vision to connect the spacial design directly to the users.

The linear forms that emphasizes the horizontality and verticality can restrict vision and focus. In contrast, the dynamic forms can stimulate visual percep-tion of being moving around the object and differnt experiences. Based on the study of how people experience the visual and spacial relations when they are walking, a central space that including way-finding and orientation is created,which is a main attractor and connector of the building.

Figure 5. Atrium

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References:

P a t r i k S c h u m a c h e r , ' T h e M e a n i n g o f M A X X I – C o n c e p t s , A m b i t i o n s , Achievements',<http://www.patrikschumacher.com/Texts/The%20Meaning%20of%20MAXXI.html>, accessed on 3 April, 2013.

Riken Yamamoto, The Discovery of Process, Toyo Ito, (New York: Phaidon, 2005), 28.

Woodbury, Robert. Elements of Parametric Design (London: Routledge,2010), 7-48.

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ALGORITHMIC EXPLORATIONS 0 4Week 1 algorith-mic exploration: use rotation, curve menu.

Field explorations:

Point Charges,

Line Field.

Spin Force

It is handy way to control sizes of patterns and gen-erate diversity.

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Graph Mapper creates interesting patterns by quantifing the relation be-tween individual patterns through mathematical diagrams.

Understanding about list and tree is important to acheive more control of the program by locating and organising the points. The data match will be useful to achieve diversity and strengthen relations between individual elements.

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PART B EOI II :DESIGN APPROACH

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PART B DESIGN FOCUS

Our group focused on tessellation and geometry areas, especially the interconnectedness of

individual parts and the integrity of the whole without sacrificing the heterogeneity of individuals.

The relation between heterogeneity and homogeneity is an interesting topic in architectural

discourse, which can be extended to ubiquitous questions in everyday life, the relation between

individuals and community. Under rapid urbanism, both individuals and community are undergo-

ing different changes in terms of social relations, life-style and propagation to the public.

We chose tessellation area as a start of our explorations of architectural computation because

tessellation stems from interconnectedness and generates diversity. The individual heterogeneity

is articulated by these repetitive patterns’ properties, their relations with surrounding patterns and

their orientation relative to the whole, which reflects the relation between residents and commu-

nity in the reality. Therefore, we think that, through using tessellation in our project, it can possess

the feeling of variety and change that can create positive image for Wyndham city. The proper-

ties of geometric shapes assist us in understanding the relationship between different parts and

obtaining more control of the result. We wanted to achieve three specific effects:

• effects of subtle change and drastic contrasts in patterns

• creating irregular shapes based on regular grids

• localising each individual parts to amplify the effects of change and motion, and articulate

complicated surfaces

The relatively identical patterns can impart sense of subtle change, which also provides great ef-

ficiency to produce individual parts and assemble them. This is the main reason that we choose

this area to study at the beginning. We are also interested in drastic change that is formal be-

cause it can create strong visual impacts and can be easily understood by people within a short

time, which is essential to achieve ‘eye-catching’ effect in the Wyndham city gateway project.

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VoltaDomSkylar Tibbits

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CASE STUDY 1.0

Designed by Skylar Tibbits for MIT’s 150 year anniversary, the installation decorates the corridors of buildings in campus. By using parametric design, it is an successful example to achieve diversity of shapes, various depth of forms, interesting views to outside and inside and quick installation methods by using simple strips.

The project has strong visual impacts in terms of organic distribution of dif-ferent individual parts and shadows that it creates. From the outside, the organic complicated vault like indi-vidual parts seem to be released from the bonds of controls and regulations. However, from the inside, the individu-al vaults are located relatively in order and can be connected easily.

‘Meshsplit’ component in grasshop-per program played an important role to reshape the individual cone by trimming the intersection parts, which we found inspiring and is relevant to our design concept.

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Random

Regular

opening size

expression

polygon

input curve

box morph

input grid

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ANALYSIS OF RESULTS

ORDER

Random

Hex grid

Zig zag grid

Rectangular grid

CONCLUSION

The first one show the sense of motion as cones are located according to the curve and intersecting with each other. The repetitive patterns seem to have more strong visual im-pacts. The relations between each cones form the grid pat-terns. They can be used in the wall paper or as surface.

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HARESH LALVANI STUDIOCASE STUDY 2.0

Lalvani’s design concept is based on understanding about natural force and material and analysis of its formal codes of geometry and generative principles from mathematics.

In his sculpture work, he used laser cutting to produce triangular shallow etches on steel plates. Then push the surface manually to create convex and concave form. Due to the difference of external forces conveying to different parts of surfaces, interconnected parts can react to the external factors differently so that the gaps between different parts will be created. Interestingly, the patterns of gaps look regular and the subtle change between different parts in local scale can also be observed.We found this effect inspiring and relevant to our idea about the relation between

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Flat Surface Set grids and orders

Surfaces react to external forcesExternal forces

Parameter Parameter Input Output:

Gaps (negative spaces)

New patterns

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PROTOTYPE | SUBTLE CHANGE

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ANALYSIS

At the beginning, we concentrated on his form-finding method as it provides great variety and direct interactions between external factors and our own systems, which can help us to further analyse the relationship between heterogeneity and the whole.

At start, we thought there were changes of connectivity between different individual parts as forces adding on the flat surface.

However, the grids and numbers of vertices are fixed and therefore the identical patterns can only be achieved by adding limited range of directions and quantity of forces.

Some unexpected patterns were generated when the original grids are stretched and reoriented by the forces. Thus, we realised that the pursuing of identical patterns at the early age of design process can definitely limit other possibilities. What we learned from this process is the importance of grid and geometry that creates strong visual impacts and possibilities for diversity of patterns. The various positions of individual cells through ‘folding’ is also critical for us to think about how to create heterogeneous properties of single part.

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Techinique Development|Patterns

Local scale:grids test

Local scale:relative item

Regional scale: point attractor

Regional scale: line attractor

Regional scale: cull pattern

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Characteristic of Voronoi Patterns

Voronoi diagram has certain stability and regulation with small change in the shape of Voronoi cells when it is distorted.

The end points of one cell shares three edg-es for a given set of points, which implies the connection method between different single cell.

The Voronoi cells can be optimised through the desired distribution of seeds to achieve more control of cell sizes and layout. Due to using of rectangular distribution of seeds, the Voronoi cells that we generated are modu-lar but not repetitive, which creates sense of subtle change and can be produced quick-ly.

Techinique Development|Voronoi

Through technique development process, we practiced different methods to acquire com-plete control of the patterns. We can local-ise them by using tree and list components in grasshopper to access group of points, which enriches the patterns and provides more pos-sibilities. We finally chose Voronoi patterns to further develop for our project due to several rea-sons:

Edges: angles at different vertices are equal

Patterns and gaps

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Symbols|Form-finding

The gateway project is like a link con-nect Melbourne city and Wyndham city area. Therefore, we use intersect-ing circles as symbols to combine them together.

In the program, one circle is locat-ed on the xy plane the other is on xz plane. When loft them, the unexpect-ed shape was generated. It repre-sents the connectivity between two areas.

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Voronoi project-ing on surface

Bounding box &Box morph

Hexgonal grid

Trigular grid

Bounding box &Box morph

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Voronoi Patterning

We tried different density of voronoi diagram on the surface. What we are looking forward is interesting and diverse patterns.

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Control of flipping panels

Change rotation angles Point Charge to define rotation angles

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Prototypes

The prototype process made us realise the distance between real world construction and what we expected by modelling in pro-grams.

One issue is about the bending capacity of materials as our form is like Möbius loop that has double curved surface. The two different materials we used for prototypes are polypro-pylene sheet and ivory card. The two materi-al cannot bend and twist as what we expect-ed. Therefore, we should rethink about our form. To maintain the two intersecting curve line from the section view, we can trim the bottom part to anchor it on the ground.

Another issue we should further develop is the ‘unroll’ method of our surface. Since form is complex, we should try to separate them into different parts then to unroll and assemble.

The polypropylene sheet is not complete opaque so that the shadows it creates are blurred. The ivory card model creates more contrasting shadows. Therefore, we may use opaque material in the future to create strong visual contrasts between light and dark.

As we imitated Lalvani’s concepts, Voronoi cells were cut through shallow etches. As a result, we can fold cells by hand and adjust their angles. This created unexpected effects of rotation and de-materialisation, which ex-tended our ideas to combine subtle change and formal elements together to create light-ness and freedom of form.

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Prototypes

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Opening Sizes experiment

Then we reworked our model in the pro-gram to determine the opening sizes of each flipping panel. The method I used is to use “rotation” component and use each short edge of the cell as axis. The angles are determined by the curva-ture of the surface.

We will further analyse the interaction between sun path and the opening siz-es to optimise the project.

The seeds of Voronoi will be determined more explicitly to maximise the visual impacts that Voronoi cells can create.

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Connections & Joints

We tested several connection methods that can use the advantages of voronoi cells’ characteristics.

The tap connection takes the advantage of the equal angles of which three edges form, which is easy for mass production. However, the effects are not what we expected. The continuity of the edges is highlighted in our design concept while taps cre-ate visible circle nodes.

The other connection method learned from ‘strip morphology’ by using three intersecting edges as modular to join the different parts. It achieve some extent of the continuity of the voronoi edges.

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Connections & Joints

Another precedent we were looking at is Beijing National Stadium. The steel strips that have structural function and surface decoration interweave the stadium, which creates the smooth appearance and illusion of continuity due to the successful use of welded connection between steel lattice.

In our project, we can also use weld-ed connection to connect intersect-ing Voronoi edges. The flipping panels can also be welded on the Voronoi edges.

We may further develop the Voronoi edges as both pattern and structure.

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Algorithmic Sketches

Using “explode tree” to access each tree data and using “jitter” and “weave” components to obtain effects of continuity and weaving.

Using ‘section’ component to gen-erate different layers.

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Learning Objectives and Outcomes

The learning objectives is to expand the knowledge of computational technique and practice them into the project, especially to use them to understand repetitive patterns and obtain more possibilities to generate diverse outcomes. I think through the technique development and design process, I really learned a lot about data flow and extract specific points, curves through using ‘list items’ ‘relative items’ and other methods, which realizes some extent of control in the program.

The precedent we found enriched our ideas about designing methods. The inspira-tion from nature and mathematics can quantify the parameters we used in design and provide some regulations that we can use to control our projects. The computa-tional design also provides many unexpected design outcomes. Through our design process, we changed our ideas and found more opportunities by using the program to generate extensive range of models. At first, we stick to our precedent and want-ed to realise it. Even if we did not success in reconstruct his work, we can imitate his concept and applied it in a different way, which also results in some unexpected patterns and effects.

Feedback

From the critic’s feedback, the realisation of our project in the real world will be criti-cal challenge for us in the following approach. This reminds us to think about the real world construction methods and to be site-specific when we are exploring the 3D models.

For the opening of our project, we will quantify the sun path as an important param-eter to determine the angles of flipping panels so that interesting shadows can be created.

We should do more research about Voronoi diagram as it is sophisticated system that has been used to find the closet region based on the desired seeds. I think we can specify the seeds’ locations in the following design process.

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Refereneces

Friedrich, E. (2008) ‘The Voronoi Diagrams in Structural Optimisation’, UCL.

Herber J. Gans (1961), ‘The Balanced Community: Homogeneity or Heterogeneity in Residential Areas?’, Journal of the American Insti-tute of Planners, vol 27, p. 176.

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PART C:PROJECT PROPOSAL

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C1 Gateway Project:Design Concept

Design Concept: The proposal is to em-phasize the interconnectedness between ‘microclimate’ of site and the installation, individual and community, Melbourne city and Wyndham city to create a sense of motion and diversity. To achieve this, the installation should be site-specific and represents the similarity and difference between each individual element. The tessellation is a sophisticated method to study this complicated interrelations. In our project, the individual cell of complex form becomes expression within a ho-mogenous whole, which shows the mutu-al relation between uniformity and diver-sity. We chose Voronoi diagram as basic pattern as it has main properties that sat-isfies the concept of interconnectedness between uniform hexagon patterns to di-verse patterns.

Considering the high speed traffic, the

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gradual and more significant change in form and patterns are necessary for travel-ers to understand the project within a short time. Our design possesses two elements, Voronoi structural patterns and the flipping panels, to achieve strong visual impacts. From visual perception journal, the two dif-ferent elements act like two different visual order to further strengthen the visual im-pacts. The form we generated is from the two interlocking circles that emphasize the idea of interconnectedness and then we

used surface points to further develop the form to make it integrate into the site. From the plan, the gateway is situated at the in-terchange of the roads and follows the flow of the traffic. It has voids and allows motorists from two ways to see each other and gener-ate interesting views. The concept is also to create dialogue between the project and its natural environment, especially the its mi-croclimate—air flow, that is affected by the movement of cars.

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Site Analysis

Site Location:‘Flat, wide open landscape’

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Circulation:Interchange Different direction (towards city and move away from city)

Selected Site:Site A is chosen to maximise the visual experience for people arrving in Wyndham city and leaving from the city, which creates the shared impression and experiences for motorists.

Kinetic Elements:The sun path and the air flow that influences by cars create site’s own ‘microclimage’. They act as parameters to quantify the flipping panels’ opening, resulting in interconnected relation between installation and the site.

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The Differentiated Space Frames Project has interrelated elements:

‘triangular faces of tetrahedrons varied with respect to their porosity, tetrahedral elements that vary in size, hexagonal elements varied in cross-sectional profile thickness relative to tstructural necessity’

These individual elements form the homogenous system. The designers used specific climatic and luminous data of the site to determin the responsive form and articulate the porosity, density and angles of different faces.

We get inspiration from the project to use airflow, including laminar and turbulent flow as analogy that is relavent to the streamlined form and individual flipping panels of our project.By using airflow as parameter, we can quantify the angles of flipping panels and opening sizes. This allows us to organize and quantify the options to achieve the diversity of individual elements and to strengthen the relation between the installation and its micro environment.

Differentiated Space Frames

Michael Hensel and Achim Menges

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Laminar flow (Uniform)

Turbulent flow: Diversity & Rotation

Form (motion)

Flipping panels

Change of speedIrregular boundary shapes

Interrelation between lamiar flow and turbulent flow

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Laminar Flow and Turbulent Flow as Analogy

We use fluid flow theory as analogy to quantify the opening sizes of flipping panels to strenghten the sense of motion and dynamism.

According to the theory, Reynolds number

Re = ρ v L / η

to indicate the transition from laminar flow to turbu-lent flow. It is affected by several factors: ρ density of fluid which is determined by temperature and pressure and is within the range between 1.1922 to 1.1455 kg•m-3 for the Wyndham area, v average flow velocity indicates the speed of vehicles, which is around 19m/s for the highway, L is the length of the vehicles and we regard it as 4.5m (medium size cars), η is 1.81×10−5 Pa.s. From the theory, ‘the flu-id becomes turbulent is related to tis viscosity η and density ρ. Therefore, these two elements are consid-ered as main paramters within the range.

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We also want to express the con-trasts between the city and the rural areas. We divide the panels into two parts: one is next to the road to the city, the other part is adjacent to the Princes Highway away from the city.

As the road to the city is relatively straight and the what we can re-late to the city are fast pace life and regular urban fabrics, which shows the uniformity and sense of speed and motions. Thus, we extracted the panels next to the Princes Freeway and tested dif-ferent opening sizes by change speed in the equations to the relative high speed. The result is comparatively small and uniform opening sizes. We wanted to cre-ate sense of dynamism and com-plexity for the southern part so that we enlarge the speed and viscos-ity range to test different opening sizes.

The side adjacent to the Princes Freeway to the city has relatively regular flipping panles with fixed 170 degree angle to the surface. Even if the angles for the pan-els to the surface are equal, due their different locations on curved surface, they look quite dynamic with different opening sizes. The fixed angle is also easily to manu-facture.

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Final form of the project

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Design Definition

Generate Voronoi Patterns on 2D Grids

Project Pattern on Form

Split Surface by offset Voronoi Edges

Extract Surfaces

Rotate Surfaces by using Re Equations

Sweep 1 Generate Rectangular HollowColumn

The Grids and Cull Pattern we used to generate and limit the Voronoi pat-terns.

By using expressions, we choose two variable items to control the opening size of flipping panels

Set Up Rectangular Grids

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Fabrication Method

extract the edges individual voronoi cells

divide edges and extract middle points

draw lines between middle points

divide lines extract the centre points of voronoi cells

draw curves across points

split cells by curves

unroll fragments

We unrolled the surface directly and use laser cut to generate porous 2D sur-face. Then we fold the surface and stick the flipping panels on the edges.

In the real world, it is not possible to do this. Therefore, we should divide the whole into small segments and use the joints we decided to assemble them.

We can use grasshopper to text and unroll individual elements.

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Construction Method

Cut hollow columns according to the length

of unrolled Voronoi cell edges

Manufacture the steel plate joints

Transport material to the site

Digging the site and construct pile footings and concrete base

Bolt column base plate on the concrete base

Assemble different hollow columns on site and joint them by using steel plates

Cranes will be used to assemble the upper part s

Steel Flipping panels bolted on the columns by using welded plates

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Double Curve SurfaceRelative Flat Surface Curved Surface

The form we generate is complicated with different characteristics in dif-ferent parts of the surface. It is important to analyse the curvature of the different parts first then to come up with different connection methods that suit the surface’s properties.

Flat and gentle curved surfaces will be easily to connected while the dou-ble curved surface will be problematic. The joints itself may be curved so that we came up the solution by using steel plates on both sides of hollow columns to achieve structural rigidity. The joints are based on the tensile strenght property of the steel plate. The steel plates can be rolled both off site and on site. The analysis of individual joints’ curvature shoulb be taken and then to send to manufacture.

C2 Tectonic Elements

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As the the density of voronoi patterns increased, we began to think about different connection methods that can achieve construction efficiency.

The criteria we have it to achieve continuity of vor-onoi cells’ edges. The finger joint and folding seems to be a good method to gain certain continuity and rigidity of structure. Particularly, the edges meet to-gether quite neatly.

However, we can only find some precedents that are temporary rather than to achieve structure’s lon-gevity. The folding process and cutting process can be difficult to apply to the rigid material.

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The first joint can achieve structure rigid-ity. However, if the columns are quite curvaceous, three columns cannot at-tach each other neatly.

The second joint is not rigid.

The last joint satisfies our criteria. Voids between three hollow elements meet are necessary to solve the high conduc-tivity that steel has.

From the section, the joint is curved which maintains the continuity of the the voronoi cells.

Section of the third joint

Axonometric view of the third joint

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Rethinking Connection Method

As the density of voronoi patterns has been changed, the initial connection methods are not efficient to be applied.

Firstly, the voronoi panels are relatively similar and repetitive in rows, which means the cells can be prefabricated and produced efficiently rather than separating them into individual edges to assemble.

Secondly, the distance between two adjacent joints turns to be closer so that the two joints have to be welded together, which lost the orginal construction efficiency we were looking forward.

Therefore, we may try to decompose them into individual cells and then assemble them.

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250mm coach bolt

60mm thick high tensil steel plate manufac-tured and bolted on the welded voronoi cells

250 ×190mm Rectangu-lar section hollow steel column

Bottom connection: welded base support bolted to the concrete base. The columns have steel plates welded to the circle plate.

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C3 Final Model

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C4 Algorithmic Sketches

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Projecting patterns on the 3D surface has its limita-tion to generate the out-lines of surface and to lo-calise individual patterns according to the surface’ conditions.

Instead of using project 2D patterns on 3D sur-face, I tried to use points that on 3D surface and project to the back of the surface. Then I used interpolate line to join the points.

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C5 Learning Objectives and Outcomes

Air studio is different from the studios that I used to learn. It relates to the interesting project com-petition in the real world and requires us to write EOI, which assists in composing further under-standing of architecture and the contribution of cutting-edge architectural discourse. During the semester, I acquire some basic knowledge about computational design and have some under-standing about basic parametric design techni-cally and theoretically. It is my first time to learn about the program, finding that it is interesting and it changed my perception about design method. By using parameters, the project can be modified rationally and reasonably. As the input can be quantified, it is more systematic to test dif-ferent options and to optimise the performance systematically. From readings and lectures, I found that the computational design has its influ-ences and applications to achieve material effi-ciency and performance of the project in the real world. However, the interdisciplinary knowledge and corporation between different disciplines are

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vital to accomplish these. There are still distance between computational design and real world construction that need to be analysed to achieve construction efficiency and logicality.

From crits’ feedbacks, the main issue for our de-sign is how to construct it in the real world. With-out adequate considerations about fabrication and materiality at the beginning, some elements such as the scale of whole structure, the opening sizes and the angles of flipping panels, are hard to determine. During the post-presentation time, we rethought about these factors and we further de-veloped them by determining some variable val-ues to rationalise our design. The knowledge about data structure is important when defining the an-gles of individual flipping elements to ensure data match with each other. ‘Flattening’ and ‘Grafting’ data can organise the items. When using expres-sions and other input, the ‘Remap’ process and ‘Cull Pattern’ methods are critical to modify the el-ements in lists and to adjust the opening sizes. How-ever, I still encountered some problems and may not have comprehensive understanding about data structure.

During the fabrication process, we wanted to un-roll surface by divide them into individual elements. However, the points on the voronoi cells have ran-dom text tag and do not have any order, which is hard to use relative items to get the points next to each other and match them in sequence. An-other problem is the generating hollow columns in

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grasshopper. Due to the limitation of specific input into the certain parameter, sometimes the rectan-gular surface cannot extrude along the curve. I think we should organise the curves to the straight line, which is more close to the construction cases in the real world. During the whole semester, I believe I did gain understanding about the parametric de-sign and advocate that it provides potential oppor-tunity to generate revolutionary buildings, especially edifices that has large-scale and more influential in terms of complexity and diversity. To master the pro-gram, I still have a lot of work to do.

From the final presentation, I learned a lot from crits’ feedbacks and other students’ works, in terms of es-tablishing persuasive arguments, design concepts and visual communication. Rethinking our design concept, it is relatively chaotic and lacks of narra-tive characteristics. It can be found that some sim-ple and clear ideas are more easily to be accepted by the public and related the project to the Wyn-dham community persuasively. The diagrammatic explanation, high-resolution pictures and 3D render-ing are also necessary to achieve visual communi-cation between designers and the public to articu-late ideas and make it persuasive.

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