Example 1: Construction Stage : Capital Gate -Abu Dhabi

STRUCTURE

From its foundations right through its pinnacle, Capital Gate is a unique building and among the most technically challenging engineering projects in the world.
Some key features stand out amongst others:
–It’s gravity-defying 18 degree lean, widely believed to be the most inclined in the world
–The continuous twist of its form which ensures that the tower looks different from every angle
–The unique nature of the floor plate, each floor is unique

The foundation contains an incredibly dense mesh of reinforced steel that sits above 490 piles, drilled 30 meters underground to accommodate gravitational, wind and seismic pressures.

The core of the building is a pre-cambered, ‘slanting’ core that pulls in the opposite direction to the lean. It straightens as the building grows, pulled into a vertical position by the change in the centre of gravity of the building as concrete was poured onto subsequent floors.

The floor plates up to the 12th level are stacked vertically over one another. Between levels 12th and 29th the floor plates stagger over each other, in relation to the lean and twist of the shell, by between 800 to 1400mm and then back to 900mm. Between the 29th storey and the top storey, the range is between 900 and 300mm in relation to the line of the façade.

Capital Gate’s shell comprises a super-strong exo-skeleton called the diagrid, that provides a clear, unobstructed floor plate, using much less steel than a conventional structural frame. Other high-profile buildings that use the diagrid technology include the Hearst Tower in New York City, the Swiss Re building (“the Gherkin”) in London and the CCTV headquarters tower in Beijing. The total weight of steel used in Capital Gate is estimated to be around 21,500 tons which compares favourably to the 50,000 tons estimated for the CCTV tower in Beijing and the 36,910 tons of steel used in Malaysia’s Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur.

Example 02: Conceptual : St. stephen’s cathedral,Vienna Austria by liu CHIEN SHENG.

New cathedral integrates the surrounding societal functions, such as religious, art, commercial activities, tourism and traffic system. The church is placed on the ground floor, theaters and department store on the upper floor of the basement, and metro station on the bottom of basement. All the layers are divided by glass floor, and thus, the activities in different level generate visual overlap by the transparence of glass floor. People can experience the new cathedral through variety of spaces. This design is more appropriate style for the cathedral which is required to have multiple functions in modern human life.

The second example shows us that there are endless possibilities when it comes to architecture using parametric design.

Parametric design and digital fabrication is being used in development various of art forms, furniture and personal utility items but but the technology has still not stepped into the field of mass production to a noticeable scale.

The first example is the Digitally Fabricated Furniture Twin Shelves By Chilean Design Studio Gt2p.

The shelves are made of Lacquered Medium-density fiberboard using a CNC Router Machine.

These shelves belong to a series of parametric furniture digitally fabricated and generated by means of an algorithm which is based on Voronoi’s tessellation. The Twin Shelves model’s variables are an edge and points that determine its inner subdivision. This allows to customize the x,y and z dimension adapting the shape of the furniture to the specific requirements of each client. The tessellation rule permits to regulate the number of inner subdivisions, creating a variety of objects spanning from shelves to passive solar controls.

The Second example is of a model designed by Koen Boonen

This model is an adaptation of the Julia-fractal in a xenodream metamorph the mesh for this artform was optimised using cinema4D

The Jellyfish House, a recent project by San Francisco’s IwamotoScott Architecture, has been “modeled on the idea that, like the sea creature, it coexists with its environment.”

Jellyfish have no brain, no central nervous system, no eyes, and consist largely of the water around them. Yet, they sense light and odor, are self-propulsive, bioluminescent and highly adaptive to changing aquaculture. Like jellyfish, the house attempts to incorporate emerging material and digital technologies in a reflexive, environmentally contingent manner. The house is designed as a mutable layered skin, or ‘deep surface’, that mediates internal and external environments. The skin is designed as a parametric mesh that uses efficient geometric logics of Delauney triangulation and the Voronoi diagram. It deforms in thickness locally for geometric, structural, visual, and mechanical performance.

The house is a transformative prototype for reclaimed land. Specifically, it is sited on Treasure Island, a flat, artificial island built off the naturally occurring island of Yerba Buena in the middle of the San Francisco Bay. Treasure Island is at once local and distant, isolated and connected. It has recently been decommissioned by the military, and is being redeveloped largely for new residences. Like many former military bases, Treasure Island suffers from a range of environmental hazards. The most geographically desirable parts of the island have toxic soil that requires remediation. In these areas, the particular hazardous materials necessitate that up to five feet of topsoil be removed for cleansing. In other areas, the contaminated soil can be treated on site using plant based phyto-remediation techniques. The proposed site strategy is to infiltrate the island with sinuous fields of wetlands that allow the removed soil to not have to be replaced, and remediate the remaining toxins. In addition, the wetlands act as a filtration system for the island, becoming a form of productive infrastructure that naturally filters stormwater run-off.

This is an interesting concept called the HyperGreen Tower by Jacques Ferrier, which was recently submitted to an architectural competition in Paris. The 246 meter tower design has an unusual curving exterior lattice facade made out of concrete that acts as the building’s primary structural system. This allows for adaptable floor plates and vegetated sky lobbies that sit between the tower’s facade and interior office space.

The green highlights of the HyperGreen Tower include integrated solar cells, wind turbines, a rain water harvesting system and a geothermal heating system.

Materinal: Gloss  Laminated  Polyurethane  resin, silicone

The enigmatic liquid form of the Aqua table awakens one’s curiosity. The user is invited to explore the forces of motion that created such a form. The form is blurring the relationship between the horizontal top and vertical legs. The three blisters bulging out to form legs below the table surface register as indentations at the top surface.

The “Water Cube” is a rectangular-shaped steel building covered by a membrane of brightly lit blue bubbles which is incredible to look at but it is also important on an environmental level.  The Water Cube consists of 100,000 sq m of ETFE, (Ethylene Tetrafluoroethylene) a unique transparent plastic which absorbs solar radiation and reduces thermal loss. It is the world’s largest and most complex EFTE building ever constructed. EFTE is recyclable and light (1% the weight of glass) but it is also strong, capable of bearing up to 400 times its own weight. As it lets in more light and is a better insulator than glass it will reduce energy costs in the Water Cube by 30%. The Water Cube’s structure consists of 3,000 pneumatic cushions ranging from with different sizes from 9sqm to less than 1sqm in size. These “air bubbles” are relatively independent of each other so they can be easily replaced. The LED-lit bubbles allow warm air to enter the building and keep the water temperature at an optimum 28 degrees, but the air can also be stored and used in the Water Cube when required. The Water Cube spans 80,000-sq-m and was constructed with 6,700 tons of steel, but as EFTE spans greater distances than glass it needed less supportive steel structure beneath it.

 “Between the corporeal units there lie the various empty fields of tension that hold the parts together like planets in a void“ (Manifeste du corréalisme, F. Kiesler).

The Endless House is called the “endless” because all ends and meet continously. It is endless like the human body. There is no beginning and end to it. The “Endless” is rather sensuous. More like the female body in contrast to sharp-angled male architecture. All ends meet in the “Endless” as they meet in life. Life’s rhythms are cyclical. All ends of living meet during twenty-four hours, during a week, a lifetime.

Kiesler talked repeatedly about an elastic spatial concept, wich must be capable, even in a small house, of providing an optimun response to the very varied social concerns of its occupants.

 “Since Kiesler’s death in 1965, his notion of Endless Space and his studies of the Endless House in particular, have resurfaced in recent architectural discourse. New technologies have emerged that are now provoking different questions regarding the tectonics and material potentials within the concept of The Endless House” (Frederick Kiesler – Inside the Endless House, Matthew Krissel).

http://dprbcn.wordpress.com/2009/09/21/endless-house-frederick-kiesler/