Difuminating the limits

By Javier Fernandez Ponce | Published: November 23, 2014

RhizomeDIGITAL  LOGICS    |  Assignment   |  T3

Reading:   Thousand Plateaus -Rhizome   |  Deleuze- Guattari

Case study:  Blur Building  |  Diller Scofidio – Renfro

Image collage for academic assignment: Javier F. Ponce

Difuminating the limits

A Thousand Plateaus :Capitalism and Schizophrenia, by Deleuze and Guattari, was written in 1980 in a non-linear way which allows the reader to move among plateaus  in any specific order. Plateaus propose self vibrating regions of intensities. A Plateau is always in the middle, not at the beginning or the end.

The authors describe some types of logics, like the tree-thinker / central trunk logic (vertical, territorial, hierarchical), the Radicle system (fascicular root, indefinite multiplicity of secondary roots, but the root’s unity subsists) and the Rhizome. The latter can be illustrated as a vegetable which propagates, an acentered system which spawns and proliferates. A Rhizome is made of  Plateaus. We can say that the Rhizome is inherently multiple, it has no center, its horizontal (avoiding vertical or linear connections) , it just proliferates, it is not genetical, all within a Nomadic non-territorial approach which opens endless possibilities.

They also talked about the following principles:

- Principles of connection and heterogeneity: any point of a rhizome can be connected to anything other, and must be.

- Principle of multiplicity:Multiplicities are rhizomatic

- Principle of asignifying rupture: A rhizome may be broken..against the oversignifying breaks separating structures or cutting across a single structure.

- Principle of cartography and decalcomania: a rhizome is not amenable to any structural or generative model. It is a stranger to any idea of genetic axis or deep structure.

As in the example of the Orchid and the Wasp, the orchid forms an image and the wasp reterritorializes on that image, they form a Rhizome.

While discussing the case study and the reading in class, a few analogies came to my mind: Just as the Blur building difuminate the limits of  “the container” , allowing the mist (fog-mass)  to expand in the context , the Rhizome proliferates, it has no limits and it is not contained within a linear structure. When entering the Blur building, the person experience a lack of all visual and  acoustical references, the visitor is not sure what to expect. The same happens  in a rhizomatic system, in which different unexpected inputs from different sources can emerge from any direction, allowing for new relationships and multiplicities. Internet can be a good example of a rhizomatic system where information can be shared form endless different sources.

Regarding my personal research or line of inquiry, I’ve been attracted by self-sufficiency, de-centralized systems and non hierarchical structures related to the way people interact and how  architecture can play a significant role in this type of logics. As an example, a decentralized energy network based on the contribution of the neighbors to the energy system can be far more efficient and sustainable, if managed properly,  than the current centralized scheme, where someone produces and others consume, at almost any price…I’ll like to kep on exploring the Self-sufficient agenda and the way our profession can be a major input.

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WATER CUBE – Beijing National Aquatics Center – 2008

By Joy Alexandre | Published: November 23, 2014

WATER CUBE

Beijing National Aquatics Center – 2008

 

The water cube is an aquatic center won in a competition by PTW architects and built for the swimming competitions of the 2008 summer Olympics. The ecologically friendly water cube maximized social and economic standards. One of the concepts the architects used was to build on natural process of using soap bubbles by building with Weaire-Phelan structure. When two bubbles meet, they form a flat angle to build on. They then unified the angle at  105 degrees.

The second concept is using the square shape which symbolizes the Chinese culture, where the cube signifies earth and the circle of the stadium represents Heaven. However since all bubble are at the same angle hence similar, the whole volume was rotated before it was sliced into a square in order to get a façade with bubbles shapes of different size depending of the cut line position. That is why it looks random while it actually is very regular. The architects and engineers used the state of art technology and materials to get an energy efficient building. The 100,000 sq. ETFE plastic used is the largest clad structure in the world. It is very thin and recognized for its light weight characteristics – it weighs 1% of the weight of glass. As well it allows natural light to penetrate requiring 55% less artificial light. By having a double sheet design, it creates an opaque insulating skin which captures solar energy to heat the interior and the pools. This makes it an energy efficient building. As well, the double sheet concept creates fluidity and continuity between the interior and exterior. Yet the most impressing feature of ETFE is that when it catches fire, it simply melts away instead of burning and spreading the fire, and it instantly stops when the fire is put away. It is also water efficient since it harvests rain water and has a backwash system, recycles and filtrates allowing the building to require 90% less potable water than a typical construction. The notion of performance is very important in this building; the nodes and connections used resemble a tinker toy and are built in a way to make the building the most earthquake resistant structure known.

Joy - watercube

I am interested in understanding and experimenting with the same systematic way that these architects had. Researching with materials, building advanced structures, and implementing sustainable and efficient solutions all together would be a great win in my opinion. By moving towards a sustainable architecture, spreading the word by showing diagrams of efficiency over time and try to apply it in new constructions, even in old ones, when possible, would make the world a better place.

 

 

 

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Digital Logics in Advanced Architecture

By Francesco Maria Massetti | Published: November 22, 2014

Termite mound

Maybe a lot of the neurons in our brains are not just capable but, if you like, motivated to be more adventurous, more exploratory or risky in the way they comport themselves, in the way they live their lives. They’re struggling amongst themselves with each other for influence, just for staying alive, and there’s competition going on between individual neurons. As soon as that happens, you have room for cooperation to create alliances, and I suspect that a more free-wheeling, anarchic organization is the secret of our greater capacities of creativity, imagination, thinking outside the box and all that, and the price we pay for it is our susceptibility to obsessions, mental illnesses, delusions and smaller problems.

          Daniel C. Dennet

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A New Vernacular: Building with the Intangible

By Samuel Shapiro | Published: November 12, 2014

Architecture has traditionally existed in the static realm, built from solid-state materials arranged in a certain configuration to arrive at a particular form. Every building has a “climax form” – that is, the originally intended geometry. This form is assertive in its territorial control, unchanging in its aesthetic, and largely unresponsive to its environment. Such architectures come across as stable and definitive, but in reality they are quite frail, because any deviation from the climax form results in failure.

In his article “The Shape of Energy”, Sean Lally advocates for a new architecture that is based on “material energies”. We are constantly surrounded by different energies – thermodynamic, electromagnetic, acoustic, chemicals – and we take them for granted, but in reality the role which they play in our lives and in influencing our behaviours are just as, if not more important, than our concrete environment. Material energies create boundaries that are fluid and responsive, resulting in a vernacular that is intimately connected to both regional and climatic conditions.

So how would one apply these intangible energies? Unfortunately, while he brings up some very interesting points, Sean Lally has failed to address the practical application of his ideations. One cannot just take energy and build with it. Humans exist in the physical domain, and we do not have a physical grasp on energy. In order to use something as a building block, one must first gain an intimate understanding of the material at hand, and while we may have an intuitive sense of different energies since we are surrounded by and interact with them on a daily basis, we are a far cry from being able to control them, not to mention manipulate them for careful study and experimentation, and eventually incorporate them into our architectural realm.

What I find fascinating is the physical manifestation of energy. Every energy somehow influences the physical environment. Tree wells form because heat generated by trees melts the surrounding snow, and compass needles point north because of the Earth’s magnetic field. Paying attention to changes in the physical environment provides information about surrounding energies as well as changes in energy conditions. A person putting on a sweater might signify a drop in temperature, while the same person, now reading a book, moving from one room to another might suggest an increase in noise or a decrease in light in the former space. By observing such changes in our environment, one can gain much insight into the invisible forces that surround us.

Another compelling thought is that architecture based on material energies would be able to adapt almost instantaneously to changes in the environment or in social programming. Through a feedback relationship between material energies and existing climatic context, an active dialogue would emerge between a building’s environment and its building blocks, with architecture that can either “dissipate on command” or respond accordingly in its shape and configuration. Of course, such a fluid reality is still far away.

It is interesting to view Sou Fujimoto’s House N in light of material energies. The house itself is purist and minimalistic, and in the physical domain it might seem like a purely spatial exercise – that is, three shells nested one inside the other. However, it is not just the walls that create an increased sense of privacy and separation as one moves deeper into the house; the change in light, sound, view planes, temperature, bodily sense of enclosure, etc. all contribute to the gradient that exists through the spaces.

I am of the strong opinion that so long as we do not transgress the physical nature of our corporeal existence, neither will our architecture. However, this does not mean that we cannot study and become more in tune with the forces that we cannot readily control, because we can certainly shape existing energies with solid-state building materials. An example that comes to mind is Philippe Rahm’s Convective Apartments, in which the architecture is designed according to the principle of convection. In this case, it is the existing thermal landscape that has shaped the resulting configuration of the building’s solid elements. Even though the architecture remains static and potentially iconic in its form, this is the first step towards an architecture informed by energy. I would be interested in examining such basic physical and climatic principles in order to generate systematic, vernacular designs that directly reflect their environmental conditions.

Neo-Seoul_Cloud-Atlas_The-Shape-of-Energy

http://cloudatlas.wikia.com/wiki/Neo_Seoul


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Relational Logics_Fujimoto_T6

By Rossana Graca | Published: November 11, 2014

Fujimoto (T6) 

In this subliminally predictive text, Sou Fujimoto lists a series of words that relate to qualities of architectural design, with regard to the practice of architecture in the future. The author does not organize the ideas in a particular order or in specific categories. This reveals how Fujimoto expresses the intertwined connections and links between the ideas discussed, where an understanding of this can be appreciated as the text develops.

Fujimoto makes a prediction. In the future places will allow people to discover them despite the fact that topography is not a possibility in the urban framework. A factor in this envisioned future must be defined in order to allow people to seek out opportunities in urban realities. Re-humanizing urban space through a quality such as light, and exploring ways to maximize sustainability and improve livability in the city, driving awareness and interest in city dwellers, urban planners and developers.

Architectural possibilities exist in-between different places, different times of the day, different sizes and scales of environments, and different periods of motion. This idea demonstrates a merger of functional and recreational spaces in architecture.

Locale is finding opportunities in a place that has qualities that promotes desirability but is not yet prepared to inhabit in. Essentially it is a place found in natural (or urban) realities as they are, thus connecting desirability to other somethings (or nothings). These ideas fall under the umbrella of the realm of possibilities, the unspecified qualities of a promising nature that is within the scope of an architect to design and develop.

 

The idea that objects of spatial and temporal dimension are mutually intertwined in various relationships. Different fields of investigation come together and connect to form common ideas, yet diverging and involving themselves with other concepts, ultimately finding and establishing connections due to the exponential growth of information.

Architecture is a single space, where all things are connected and detached in a network of concepts relating to and with spatial and digital parameters. The idea that the small scale is connected to the big scale and vice versa. For example the smaller part strives to impose its ideas with the whole, and the whole is contained within the part.

The notion of how things were connected together before the divide involves deciding upon the elements that divide two qualities or more, and defining the way in which those specific elements came together before. It forces a sense of connectivity in order to offer a basic level of comfort and efficiency. Furthermore the relationship between uncertainty and lucidity co-exist, thus this notion of in-between forging ties of connection.

A tree diagram represented as a simple childlike drawing contains many regulated things. This idea of using a lot of information to create simple structures, frameworks to fit all the information in a tree like diagram. Here, common ideas introduce the notion of simplicity.

The ideas discussed above  relate to connectivity, the state of being connected or interconnected. This is when two ideas are brought together to form a real link, in addition to physically providing lines of access and communication.

The sum of architectural possibilities and connectivity results in this idea of interaction, where reciprocal actions work together in such a way that two or more things have an effect on each other.

Inside and outside as an approach to creating contrasting spaces considering beauty and comfort. The definition of enclosure without having a physical barrier, yet playing with dense and concentrated environments, such as trees in a forest. It contributes, brings awareness and also creates open and closed spaces.

On top of that a house is a place for people to live. This typical object interacts with outside spaces through the use of tricks, transforming nature to connect with the city. This idea of fusing inside and outside results in the creation of in-between spaces known as gardens, verandas and intervals in architecture. These are places of scenic views and diverse environments that are manipulated by people, designers and architects primarily. This is very apparent in Japanese architecture, Fujimoto observes.  Fundamentally the exterior envelope establishes the relationship between inside and outside.

Interaction is thus the practice of designing products, environments, systems and services. It is interested in form but the main focus is on behavioral traits. The synthesis and imagining of things as they might be, and what they could become in order to satisfy the needs and desires of its users, occupants.

Relational logic provides a systematic framework, where the exploration of site physical features are observed and quantified. This approach allows the establishment of links between the various features to be defined, thus leading into the stratification of proposals considering spatial (and temporal) solutions.

 

Personal Interest (Line of Enquiry) 

A research inquiry to find lines of interaction between density and spatial notions of poverty in the struggle to diminish poverty in Luanda’s metropolis.   The qualities of density refer to lack of space and too many people in a given area. Spatial compensation must be offered. This can be done by observing what an area lacks and what an area needs in order to secure the necessities of life, becoming a place of social meaning. In addition, the resources that are offered in a particular area (may) facilitate the notion of self sufficiency via architectural solutions regarding the management of local resources.  Meanwhile, poverty occurs in remote rural areas and spatial poverty traps. The latter is related to marginal areas which are less favored politically, or areas which are weakly integrated into the urban environment.

 

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