DYNAMICS IN EXTREME ENVIRONMENTS

ETH CAAD and Chalmers Faculty: Manuel Kretzer, Stig Anton Nielsen

IAAC Faculty: Areti Markopoulou

IAAC Assistants: Alexandre Dubor, Carlos Bausa

External Guest: Raul Nieves, Prototipolab

In collaboration with: MaterFad

In traditional architecture, a change in a material’s property, such as its volume or elasticity, was generally seen as a potential problem affecting the performance of built structures. Static planar surfaces related with stability or even durability have long dominated the architectural vision. When, as a consequence to the introduction of domotics, design disciplines started to explore kinetic and dynamic performances to increase efficiency, this was done following mere rules of mechanical actuators and heavy motor or servo-based systems plugged-in in whichever material surface.

Today, progress in novel and advanced materials coming from disciplines such as medicine or aerospace engineering raise the challenge of adaptation following smart, active or reactive materials that are able to alter their properties reacting to external stimuli. Changes in state, colour, and volume take place with no need of any computing device or mechanical actuator; rather the material itself has all these functions programmed into its persistence on a molecular scale.

In parallel, the 21st century challenges related with global warming, i.e. global temperatures that rise and cause climate change and global urbanization, raise new questions regarding our way of building and inhabiting. Architecture, will have to respond to extreme weather conditions, especially the rise of temperature in densely urbanized areas and smart materials will play a critical role in the architectural process of dealing with the current challenges of the global context.

Which architectural systems can be dynamic and react to environmental conditions such as temperature shifts?

Can buildings and cities perform as environmentally integrated living organisms?

How can architecture remember and learn from previous experiences, therefore evolving with embedded intelligence?

The workshop introduced students to a series of “smart materials” such as polymorph plastics, shape memory polymers, bioplastics, thermochromic pigments, temperature-sensitive and electroconductive materials for 3d printing.

The project proposals explored active materials and developed dynamic architectural proposals for extreme environmental conditions where temperatures in urbanized areas surpass 70 or 80 degrees Celsius. Such extreme temperatures are able to activate a series of smart materials that can change state when heated in high temperatures.

Project 1

Project Name: Thermoteam

Students: Alina Kvirkveliya, Ji Won Jun, Josep Alcover, Jose Algeciras, Matteo Silverio, Yoko Gotoh

Project 2

Project 3

Project Name: Thermoluminescence

Students: Nina Jotanoivc, Panagiota Sarantinoudi, Farah Alayeli, Apostolos Apostolinas, Lubna Alayeli, Ceren Temel

Project 4

Project 5

In collaboration with: 

Digital Matter // Intelligent Constructions

Wednesday, 18th of June 2014 // 10h00 – 18h00, IaaC Auditorium

Tutor:

Areti Markopoulou

Assistants:

Alexandre Dubor

Moritz Begle

In Collaboration with:

Mette Ramsgaard Thompsen, CITA Director – Copenhagen

International Jury Board:

David Stasiuk, CITA Copenhagen

Daniel Ibañez, Margen Lab – Harvard GSD

Lluís Viu Rebés, Max de Cusa Arquitectes

Miguel Rodriguez, xmade

Valérie Bergeron, Materfad

Luis Fraguada, IAAC Computational Expert

Maite Bravo, IAAC Faculty

Pepe Ballesteros, ETSAM – Pasajes Arquitectura

Edouard Cabay, APPAREIL

During her lecture Ms. Sisternas discussed City planning through the Case Study of one particular project: the area of Glories, here in Barcelona. In this sense, the management of these processes, and how they can pass from rigid designs, as in the past, to a more flexible situation, in the hope of satisfying the contemporary urban phenomenon’s needs, from social, economic and environmental points of view. Ms Sisternas presented the project through 10 paradigms of change.

1_ The city as an incremental process: how can the city manage and participate actively during the construction site time lapse, through the generation of positive dynamics, as well as continuous activity? In large scale urban transformations, the areas involved tend to loose economic activity and density, generating a high risk, particularly in the case of Glories where the City’s aim is to create a new centrality. How can the complexity involved, on all fronts and in all phases, in these processes guarantee positive outcomes, particularly in the public realm? More simply, why is it that some public spaces work and others don’t?

2_Moving from designing for the people, to designing with the people: The first interest in the development of large scale urban transformations is now to understand what the citizens expect form said transformations. This information is then obviously discussed from a political point of view, as these clearly represent an important public investment.

3_From an infrastructural approach to the Human scale: the particular situation of glories, was that of a mega infrastructural node. How can this become a new centrality for the people? How can this image be changed?

4_Longterm previsions vs the relationship with the everyday lives of the citizens: the City Council has decided to activate the construction site through social micro colonisation. It is a meeting point of diverse ecosystems. Through the progressive reactivation thanks to micro investments, first the border spaces, then towards the more central spaces, the construction site becomes a dynamic centre for activities, already changing its image in the mmd of its potential users during the construction process.

5_From a more closed and designed system to a more open, temporary and ephemeral situation.

6_Sustainability and ecological compensation: How can we compensate the ecological footprint of this area? The concept applied was that of proposing architecture generated through the development of green infrastructure.

7_From intuition to facts: The design an no longer be based on suppositions, the project is finally shaped through the data available.

8_From impersonal to tailored solutions: this point is in particular reference to the housing and residential development of this project.

9_From underused facilities to Vibrant buildings: reactivating the area calls for a dynamic use and participation.

10_From overdetermination to a continuous process: developed thanks to the innovation of materials, knowledge and information, generating a positive outcome in the spatial distribution of the final project.

Finally the 3 main objectives of the project can be summed up into: a current and future economic, environmental and socially friendly process, the consideration of the everyday life of the users from the beginning of the process into the future, and the generation of an open and flexible situation towards the generation of a new urban centre.

Maria Sisternas trained as an architect at EtsaB-UPC, was awarded with the Fundación Caja Madrid Scholarship and holds a MSc in City Design and Social Sciences from the London School of Economic. She has lectured at the Postgraduate Diploma in Sustainable Architecture and Urbanism at La Salle (PAMUS) since 2010 and serves as a Board member of COAC. She is a regular contributor to the “Resvista Diagonal” and took part of the Commission of Architecture at the Barcelona Metropolitan Strategic Plan 2010-2020. Her interests focus on the links between the economic, social and legal issues that contribute to the development of contemporary cities, as well as the influence that urban form can play over citizens’ quality of life. She is currently Director Projects at the Urban Habitat Department of the Barcelona City Council.

To end the trip to Copenhagen on a lighter and more touristic note, the Students and tutors then had the pleasure of visiting BIG.

The Students are continuing to develop their research and prototypes in the workshop studying the ways of creating tensioned membranes with disconnected bending active elements, stabilising non-elastic membranes locally (for example with the configuration of three linear elements placed in a reciprocal configuration).

Within the workshop a series of questions are being discussed and developed among which: the setup of bending active elements; patterns towards the creation of membranes with local active bending tensioning (regular, irregular, self-organising); topology of skin, single, double, splitting skin; the computation of bending active and tensioned skin; modelling of interdependent models for skin and bending active elements; as well as tools for 3d modelling and pattern cutting of membranes.

The CITA tutors Mette Ramsgaard Thompsen and David Stasiuk also gave a presentation on the evolution of the works produced during the Workshop held in IaaC, by David Stasiuk – digitalization of the physical models for the self parametrization -, Henrik Leander Evers – 3D scanning expert -, as well as the RS3 studio directors: Areti Markopoulou with Mette Ramsgaard Thompsen – CITA – and tutor Alexandre Dubor, and developed with the Digital Matter Studio students, earlier this year. The evolution presented included new generative algorithms to be added in the different stages of the design process, allowing to enhance the self-learning systems, as well as generating an optimisation criteria towards the final development of the 1:1 prototype. Said prototype is to be produced in CITA during an exhibition to be held in 2 weeks from now.

After the Presentation, the Students then presented the work they have developed so far in a Mid-Workshop Presentation, gaining some useful feedback towards the further development of these projects, and finally the 1:1 Prototype.

The Students and Tutors from IaaC also had the possibility to visit the 3XN /GXN, including a visit to the DAC (Danish Center of Architects).

The professors and tutors leading the 4 groups of students, both from CITA and IaaC, are: Prof. Christoph Gengnagel (UDK), Julien Nembrini (UDK), Mette Ramsgard Thomsen (CITA), Paul Nicholas (CITA), Martin Tamke (CITA), Anders Deleuran (CITA) , Areti Markopoulou (IaaC), Alexandre Dubor (IaaC) and Moritz Begle (IaaC).

The workshop is developed to investigate a further an understanding of material systems as being based on discreet energetic systems that negotiate flows of energy. The forces and emerging behaviour of the system are understood and simulated as well as used in a designerly way.

The investigation is centred on how materials and their properties can be modeled, chosen and programmed to influence a material system in a target oriented way.

The overarching concepts and computational techniques are exemplified and investigated in a structural system that negotiates the forces from programmed bending active elements and a tensile surface with variable geometry.

The IaaC students and tutors arrived in Copenhagen on Saturday, and started off their stay with a bicycle tour visiting the VM Houses, 8 taller, VM Mountain, Hotel by 3XN, as well as Christiania.

They then went to CITA where an introduction to the workshop, including the design task and diverse materials to be investigated. The students were then divided into their working groups, and started developing their specific tasks towards the creation of their first models.