Sunday, September 30, 2012

Project Schedule Calendar

Below is a calendar I have formulated to ensure I cover all required criteria within this project. Hopefully I will be able to stick to this plan so I can have enough time for each segment, I worry modelling will be an issue..


 October 2012

Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
29 Sep


30 Sep

BLOG: What are the needs and desires of my future citizens? What will be the design response to this?
1
BLOG: Study of site/context.
BLOG: Reflection of group scenario and refinement.
BLOG: Ideas about creation of the architectural IDENTITY. What does it provide? What will it be known for?
2

BLOG: Possible access points to space, how many? Ground, Middle, Top Floors?

Single Cell 3D Modeling

3

BLOG: What will the experience of the users be like?

Single Cell 3D Modeling

4 OFF

Single Cell 3D Modeling

Single Cell Sketches
*Upload 3D Models to blog
5 OFF

Show Single Cell to Ruwan

POWERPNT:
*Context/Site study map/diagrams.
6 OFF

MODEL

BLOG: Research on materials, joints, technologies and systems
7 OFF

MODEL
8 OFF

MODEL
9

MODEL
10

MODEL
11

MODEL
12

MODEL
13

MODEL
14

MODEL

15 OFF

MODEL

16

MODEL

17

MODEL

18

MODEL
19

MODEL
20 OFF

MODEL

21 OFF

POWERPNT:
- Site Map: Access and Entry points to space(s)

22  OFF

POWERPNT:
- Perspectives/Section: Use of space
- Section: Circulation and movement

23


24

POWERPNT:Current and Future status of reverseparasite. Diagrams showing future growth
25


26

POWERPNT:
Storyboard showing how specific people in specific needs experience/utilise space.
27

POWERPNT:
- Skeleton Structure
- Joints
- Future Growth

28


29 OFF

PPOWERPNT:
- Materials
- Technologies
- Operation
- Maintenance

30

31

POWERPNT:
Market/advertise as the best solution for needs of future citizens. How does it offer meaningful spaces and services for future citizens if realised?
1 Nov
2 Nov

PROJECT DUE DATE

Friday, September 28, 2012

Additive Architecture

Additive Architecture

While undertaking research on exemplars and the philosophy of "Additive Architecture" I came to realise that my future proposal design approach is one which was largely used by Danish architect Jørn Utzon who uses this approach on the basis of growth patterns in nature during the development of his own projects. My tutor Ruwan helped me to refine my thought process to think of the building as if it were a seed of a plant which has potential to develop and grow. I find Jørn Utzon's approach interesting where he takes this idea further by catering to the fact that depending on various physical factors such as the environment, the seeds may develop differently and subsequently, their forms are dependent on their "upbringing". His vision was an additive world where both natural and cultural forms "contributed to additive systems and hierarchies". It can be said that the best example of his additive world proposal was for the Jeddah sports centre in Saudi Arabia, where the design was based on the use of a limited number of repeating elements.

Examples of Jorns design process:
http://www.mas.caad.arch.ethz.ch/mas1011/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Jesper_T_Christensen_M4_T01.pdf

Monday, September 24, 2012

Biosphere: Input/output tubes of sphere create intricate design.


Biosphere by Tomas Saraceno



 













































































suckerPUNCH: Air Farm by Jorge Mutis.


Recently the concept of urban farming has gained a well deserved amount of popularity. While consciousness is no longer an obstacle, the reality is that city centers are not designed to accommodate such ideals. This proposal investigates the potential of using inflatable structures to begin to occupy places we couldn’t before. The idea was to research the possibility of lunching theme up into the sky. Instead of using air as their structural material, helium would enable these structures to lift and float above the ground.

The farming technology proposed is aeroponics, as a step further in water efficiency from hydroponics, this mechanism will enable the flying structure to be extremely light weight, consisting only of a fiber glass armature and ETFE panels on the exterior.
The urban center in the ground is where the flying farms will be tethered to. The roof of the structure is multi-dynamic. Its an extension of the ground that makes a seamless interaction with the site and neighbors allowing the entire surface of the building to become a public park. Furthermore, the roof houses the “Docs” where the Farm{airs} are continuously cycled up and down for cultivation and harvesting. The ultimate goal with this project is to formulate a powerful idea for the problem of urban farming, and designing a building that would enable the maximum interaction possible with its context. A high level of porosity and accessibility was paramount. This proposal is more than a farming center by revolutionizing its own concept with the farm{air} structures; and architecturally by melting itself into the neighborhood stretching a boundary-less concept of architectural space.






Future Adaptability: Subtraction/Addition Module Concept


"The adaptable populations survive, and the inflexible succumb." 

"We seek the ability to grow and change without jarring disruption, or the loss of continuity and basic structure. Biological organisms have this ability to a high degree... General adaptability in an environment seems to be enhanced where major structure is concentrated, and where functional areas are separated in a rather coarse grain, particularly where the likely-to-change or easy-to-change features can be distinguished. But where the categories of functional areas may shift, or there may be expansion of many units of one type at the expense of many units of another type, then a very coarse grain may be an inflexible feature."


Logic Matter, Skylar Tibits




Michael Lawlor: http://blog.algorithmicdesign.net/protopatterns/michael




Parasitic Green Pin-up: http://www.proudfoott.com/organicities/parasitic-green-pin-up.html

Parasitic green is a concept for a flexible carpet of growth that fills and animates a city's unused spaces.















 

Regenerative Architecture for the Future? [An Excerpt].


The Cornell Journal of Architecture: RE [Excerpt].
Full Journal See: http://cornelljournalofarchitecture.cornell.edu/main.html?id=2

"In the many experimental design studios of Francois Roche and Mark Fornes, we are again confronted with intelligent forms of so-called primitive materiality, each of which defines a new relationship with the machinic.  Our strange fascination with these new artificial “natures” in their many distinct forms—seemingly symbolic compensatory acts that repeat our return to the discovery and exploitation of new “virgin” territories—often remain somewhat impotent when examined according to the performance of these projects in relation to actual living systems. We are acutely aware of the fact that the architectural emulation of growing, animate, or atmospheric environments as an investigation of new modes of architectural form generation or the material amplification and expression of its ambient affects, do not, despite their biomimetic appeal or communicative engagement, contribute in any fundamental way to the enhancement of real nature or the mitigation of its cultural instrumentalization. Conversely, those on the other side of the nature-culture continuum, who have been developing systemic explorations into energy-generating, bioremediating, and recyclable materials and systems (the environmentally “responsible,” rather than environmentally “affected”), although certainly not influenced by geometries that emulate natural formation or its primordial sensual affects, are overtly concerned with natural material, biological and chemical processes; yet where the material functions of these processes have often had little effect on the actual form generation, spatial disposition, or symbolic intentions—that is, the design—of the biodegradable artifacts they produce. The widening gap between those focused on creative formal, morphological, experiential, and interactive processes and those whose emphasis is on material technologies and their ecological functioning, exposes the lamentable segregations still evident in our design thinking. Despite the pervasiveness of our symbolic return to nature, the seemingly endless appropriation and instrumentalization of the natural world for the surplus products of culture, still reigns within the postindustrial and postcapitalist regimes within which we are operating. Against the backdrop of global warming and extreme environmental depletion, our absorption into this web has taken on a new urgency, foregrounding our own biological fragility within the context of the postnatural cyborgian future we have already created.

Perhaps one of the greatest future challenges that will dominate the design industry is initiating the inversion and integration of these principles, through the reduction, transformation, and recycling of cultural waste concurrent with the design and construction of newly acculturated natures in many different forms. Just as steel, concrete, and glass were the new homogeneous materials to represent the industrialization of 20th-century modernity, and plastics signified the utopian trajectory of the 1960s, for our postmillennial future, in addition to the continued development of new biotechnological materials, one of the most important raw materials for design will be trash. Our future return to matter, will therefore not only be through the sensuous deployment of form and the atmospheric extension of design, but also through something far more primitive—the ways in which we generate new processes that collect, sort, filter, pulverize, mix, melt, and modulate trash. Currently our largest renewable resource, trash will become our new postindustrial nature and future raw matter—an inherently heterogeneous mixture whose modes of typological and functional classification will be simultaneously determined by biological and technological properties. Within the context of this postnatural “real,” our framework for authenticity and origins is dissolved, as the endlessness of nature’s transformative operations are drawn on as models for cultural production, and as biotechnologically regenerated trash—a new form of raw repotentialized postacculturated matter—becomes the substantive material matrix for future design endeavors.

Despite the obvious fact that our current deleterious environmental impacts would be substantially reduced if we simply manufactured, built, used, and disposed of less—a concept that undermines the impulse toward excessive production that drives global capitalism—the true inversion of our modern obsession with production and consumption is not only to be found in their absence (for those who yearn toward a preindustrial future), but rather in their much needed reversal, by amplifying processes and designs that contribute to cultural digestion and regeneration. The “other” of production, therefore, refers not only to a redefinition of consumption that expands the parameters of both use and design, but also to the inversion of production through an emphasis on the disassembly reassembly process—an evolutionary, ecotechnological model of regeneration that would require that we spend as much of our energy on the strategic recycling of matter, form, and space as we do on the creative design of new objects. William McDonough’s proposition to incorporate the concept of biological and technological nutrients into our design parameters to transform the way we think about materiality (his now famous dictum: “waste = food”) is one strategy for ensuring that the physical substance of cultural products have the potential to be biologically “digested” when literally buried in landfills, or infinitely recycled when returned as secondary materials for industrial reprocessing.[10] In spite of the questionable application of intensive ecological strategies directed toward products, such as cars, seemingly by their very nature ecologically irresponsible artifacts, McDonough’s model U Ford concept car (2003), one of many new proposals for hydrogen-fueled electric hybrid vehicles, incorporated modular disassembly methods and plant-based manufacturing materials as a way of integrating digestive and regenerative strategies into the design process. Biopolymers such as polylactide (pla) fabrics derived from corn- as well as soy-based foam, and machined components used in its design ensured the potential biodegradability of parts of its vehicular apparatus while engendering new biotechnological continuities between cultural and natural systems."







Opus 2008, Francois Roche Studio GSAPP, Inviting Marc Fornes, Chi Chen Yang Student.

Aranda/Lasch’s Grotto project, Kokkugia’s ongoing research into wetFoam geometries, and mos’s growing Ivy project, for example, each establish analogical links to continuous and transformative natural material landscapes directly resulting from the intricate patterns of their evolutionary emergence.



(L) Grotto, Aranda\Lasch, PS-1 Entry 2005. (R) Algorithmic Wet Foam Study, Kokkugia.


Bio-mimicry + Algorithmic Architecture

I find algorithmic architecture suitable for my future scenario design proposal as the Urban farm design I am proposing is an additive/Subtractive to structure which can follow a calculated movement as it spreads in a parasitic nature on building surfaces.

Aranda & Lasch: www.arandalasch.com
Growing rooms, buildings & cities.

Aranda & Lasch envision an unpredictable, self-generating landscape of interlocking hexagons that could represent rooms, buildings or entire urban neighborhoods. The work explores self-assembly and modularity across scales. Using Rhino3D, high-density foam and an algorithm that mimicks the growth patterns of microscopic structures, they create a sprawling matrix of three-dimensional structures that can multiply indefinitely without sacrificing stability.























Lava Bionic Tower: http://www.l-a-v-a.net/projects/bionic-tower/

The tower proposes a naturally occurring system of structural organization that generates a building embodying efficiencies found within natural structures and architecture. The proposed facade also envisions an intelligent automation of surface to address pragmatic issues such as ventilation, solar access and water collection. In the same nature envisions organic regeneration, so to the building proposes a natural system of organic structure and organization. Structure and ornament There is a unity between structure, space and architectural expression, similar to cathedrals, and any natural system. Learning from nature and advanced computing enables us to conceive structures of incredible lightness, efficiency and elegance. The intelligence of the smallest unit results in the intelligence of the overall system. By parametric modeling of a behavioral logic the system is constantly optimized. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. New materials and technologies enable adaptability, responsiveness, environmental awareness and strength. Instead if an array of individual elements the building behaves like an organism or ecosystem. The building systems and skin are controlled and react to external influences like air pressure, temperature, humidity, air pollution and solar radiation. Intelligence of the System Architecture of the future is not about the shape but about the intelligence of the system. No building skin today approaches the performance of the biological world. The traditional curtain wall facade is passive, lacking the power to adjust to the fluctuating external environment. It should be able to intervene actively in the buildings struggle to maintain its internal stability. Architecture has to perform as an ecosystem within the organic tissue of the city.




Parasitic Growth Forms


Zeta Kachri: ‘void exhibit(AAC), Arup’s Phase 2 Gallery, London, UK.

"Parasitic
 architecture
 allows
 the
 creation
 of
 flexible
 structures
 that
 feed
 off
 existing infrastructure
 offering
 solid
 answers
 to
 the
 problem
 of
 structural
 density
 of
 cities and
 the
 need
 of
 temporary
 accommodations.
 Additionally,
 modular
 systems potentially 
provide 
forms
 with
 great
 complexity 
out
 of
 simplicity. This
 project investigates
 the
 evolution
 of
 self‐sustained
 parasitic
 structures
 that evolve
 by
 creating
 aggregation
 forms
 well
 adapted
 to
 their
 hosts."







Evolo Project: Urban Parasite, by Paul Tse

http://www.evolo.us/architecture/urban-parasite-creates-new-types-of-habitation-for-seoul-paul-tse/















































UNCAGED by dave BANTZ + cat PHAM 

Designed as a direct counter proposal to Renzo Piano’s New Whitney Museum “Box” this studio, run by Lise Anne Couture or Asymptote while visiting at SCIARC, encouraged students to explore the varied and diverse work of the America artists who may have their work displayed in the museum itself. Highlighting the struggle to reconcile to big box museum with more intricate, detailed, and formal architectural design approaches, the studio began with simple formal exercises meant to explore possible techniques for the dissolution and opening up of the traditional box museum with aperture, structural expression, and integration of color.

In particular “UNCAGED” draws from the work of artist and sculptor Matthew Ritchie. His use of color and explosive modular sculptures which tend to take over the museum space with reckless abandon and parasitic division. “UNCAGED” latches onto the site at the south end of the Highline (Diller + Scofidio + Renfro). The museum’s sprawling appendages are accessible from multiple points of entry; a move geared to intentionally dissolve the institutional grand museum entrance. The interior spaces work much like a three dimensional maze providing views from level to level, without necessarily illustrating a clear notion of how to get from one place to another. One may visit the museum several times always entering at a new level or walking a new path. The coloration and texture further alienate the museum from it’s dreary setting and punctuate the location and function as a commentary on the clean white modernist exterior of some other “New Museums” in New York City.







Vertical Parasitic Growth Forms

Arasitic insertions by blake BETHARDS.

This speculative project endeavors to answer the question: what might happen if this infrastructure were revealed? The design proposal explores bioengineering, botany, agriculture, and entomology in the development of a bio-lattice. This exoskeleton, the formal result of a bio-refinement process which the crude oil undergoes, serves as an ecological habitat for honey bees and seed-plants. The tower is literally a pollen factory. An attempt at re-programing outdated oil towers for the sake of food security.
The Los Angeles basin rests above the third largest oil deposit in the United States. During the late 1800’s and into the 1950’s, oil derricks and wells were visible throughout much of LA County (Venice beach, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Long Beach, & Pasadena). Today, much of this infrastructure has been taken down as drilling technologies have improved and in order to accommodate the high demand for property in the region. What most Angeleno’s don’t know is that there are still several dormant derricks hidden within the city, concealed behind false walls or within nondescript buildings.


 





" PARASITIC ARCHITECTURE Independent Study, University of Massachusetts Amherst" [EXCERPT]


Analyzing the idea of parasitism: the unique relationship and flow of resources between hosts and parasites in nature. Existing parasitic architecture and determined media can be offered by a host and used by a parasite in architecture. Those media could be the structure, material, electricity, water, heat, people, sunlight, impression, status or location. Also the specificity of the relationship is highly influencial to the design. The more specific the relationship (the needs of the parasite), the less possible hosts exist.



Black Box Architecture: Inhabiting the Swarm
Mobile urban green space, creates new spaces to be inhabited by users in the city.

The substructure of the layered gardens provides novel circulation space in around the garden surfaces.








.



What do plants need to grow?



EXPERIMENTAL PLANT INCUBATOR
http://www.annuwilenius.com/Ana_Annu/Incubator_24_01.html

As part of my future scenario my focus will be maintaining the start of the ozone layer thinning where there is a rising sea level and Brisbane City is prone to casual flooding as a result, Queen Street maul has been turned into a channel for access water from the Brisbane River to flow out through Eagle Street pier. This would be the start of future water channels throughout the city, Where are my future design set in 2020 would be an example of what may be implemented around Brisbane City. Essentially what I am looking to propose is a versatile adaptable and modular frame structure that will use the Brisbane River as an energy source as well as solar energy due to the rising UV rays from the ending ozone layer. In our previous group project we suggested for the Brisbane City to become the hub of self-sufficiency and sustainability as a result I believe an urban farm which caters for the increasing population would sit well in the proposed site and scenario. I have found some examples of Plant Systems so that I maybe able to Have a better understanding of what Plants need to grow and then I will look at how I may design a singular self-sufficient housing cell which can be multiply as an adaptable additive system. Experimental Plant Incubator involves a hydroponic self-sustaining modular system for plant cultivation. It consisted of a series of ‘bubbles’, in which selected plants were inserted. A small fan sustained each “plant pod” and the infrastructure of connecting plastic tubing allowed water circulation to and from the pool underneath.






Friday, September 21, 2012

par·a·site

As I progress with my individual ideas following refinement of my group future scenario development, the idea of Parasitic Architecture as a form and an Urban Farm as its purpose has become central to my final design direction.
par·a·site 
n.
1. Biology An organism that grows, feeds, and is sheltered on or in a different organism while contributing nothing to the survival of its host.


“The identity of the parasite cannot be determined completely. It is mobile and localised at the same moment. When being mobile, it can acquire its full meaning only through its installation. Its receptacle changes because of this temporal addition. At the same time, the design of the ephemeral-mobile, must take into consideration all the possibilities of settlement in places previously unknown to it.”
Papalexopoulos, D., 2002 [online] Parasites, their receptacles and digital interconnections

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Possible access points to space.


BLOG: Possible access points to space, how many? Ground, Middle, Top Floors?

Site mapping/analysis diagramming

Saturday, September 15, 2012

Preserving and Strengthening Brisbane's Identity - The River City.

Ideas about creation of the architectural IDENTITY. What does it provide? What will it be known for?

Brisbane City Elements and Key Considerations:

A River city—positioning the Brisbane River as a memorable, healthy, active and accessible
artery of the city centre. The river must become the focus of attention between the city core and its frame. This can be achieved by increasing pedestrian connections along the river as well as across to the frame. The river edge can host a variety of activities, with visual and physical connectivity
extending from the water’s edge into the city. These measures will serve to reinforce awareness of Brisbane as a ‘river city’. A river that is enjoyed and used must also be healthy, therefore the quality of water entering the river must be improved along with river care in general.

Subtropical city—articulating a uniquely ‘Brisbane’ response to our subtropical climate and setting.
Brisbane’s subtropical character should be a fundamental point of difference with other cities. Our
architecture features shaded buildings, courtyards and structures with filtered light, shade and ventilation. Our relaxed outdoor lifestyle is also a reflection of the subtropical climate. Given the importance of useable open space, noise levels and air quality are significant considerations.
Responding to our subtropical climate entails shelter from wind and rain as well as sun. Urban spaces must combine built and natural landscapes to allow people to move comfortably through the city.
Brisbane’s subtropical character is also evident in its diversity of flora and fauna, however the effects
of climate change—drying and warming—must be accommodated when interpreting our future subtropical image. 

LAVA - Oasis of the Future

Construction of a meaningful Architectural Identity.


Ideas about creation of the architectural IDENTITY. What does it provide? What will it be known for?

Meaning, identity and historical change.

My aim is to provide a balance between iconic architectural identity, sustainable design and technology. However first I believe it is necessary to gain a better understanding of the current culture of Brisbane City. The evolution of Brisbane City evolution and its changing identity: How will my proposal effect this culture?