Theoretical Framework _ Primitive Future by Sou Fujimoto

In his text “Primitive Future”, Fujimoto questions the notion of locale and unintentional spaces. He relates architecture to the idea of a cave that allows people to spontaneously adapt to its various contours and hollows. As to re-introduce this theoretical format into physical terms, a spacial intervention is proposed in a way to suggest improvised means for inhabiting public spaces.  Mis-using urban objects creates a sense of disturbed relation with the context, questioning our conformity to conventional habits.

VIDEO

    Women Are Heroes, JR (2008) – Favela Morro da Providência, Rio de Janeiro – Brazil.

Deleuze and Guattari uses the roots as metaphor to define an open system, decentralized and compost by networks without beginning, middle or end, that implies the idea of infiltration, spreading like water and occupying all the empty spaces. The concept of a Rhizome is explained through six principles:

• 1° and 2° – Connection and heterogeneity: any point of a rhizome can be (and usually is) connected with another one with no order or symmetry;
• 3° – Multiplicity: the idea of unity is substituted by multiplicity, creating an open system that is always changing;
• 4° – Asignifying rupture: a rhizome can be broken, but never stopped, it will return to grow in a different path or maybe with a different function;
• 5° and 6° – Cartography and Decalcomania: the system don’t follow a model, axis or structure. It is like a map, not a tracing.

Related to the society relations of exteriority, in a Rhizome system each person is part of an organism, but still is unique and individual at the same time, and more than that, can start another system or join an existent one. It is a constant process of movement and self-organization that grows in all directions, creating many connection possibilities.

A modern example of a rhizome are the South American favelas. With no hierarchy or bounder, everything is connected, and overflowing the land they occupy, there are cultural exchange with the rest of the city and especially in individual relationships, creating a network much more complex than we can imagine. It never stops to grow (first horizontally then vertically) and in this case, who builds, expands and transforms are those who walk every day by these communities. Seeking survival in scarce conditions, they are their own urban planners, nothing more natural.

INTERNET
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/Internet_map_1024_-_transparent.png

Blur Bluilding by Diller, Scofidio and Renfro for Swiss Expo 2002

This pavillion is an analogy to a cloud, with its uncertain and unpredictable boundaries. Solely made of its light tensegrity structure hidden by the fine water particles that floats in the air to create a fog mass through thousands of nozzles that project the water pumped from the lake on which the buildings sits on, or rather seems to be floating on. The water nozzles control its intensity through pressure and amount of water, regulated on a base of micro local weather state using digital sensors, either it is the wind strength or direction, temperature, air pressure, etc. to ensure the permanent yet ephemeral presence of the building as described.

Concept of rhizome by Deleuze and Guattari in the text “A Thousand Plateaus”
First, the concept of rhizome is the part of philosophical turning point, a shift in discourse of contemporary philosophy, with Deleuze considered as most important according to Foucault. Ontologically speaking, the choices are beyond binary and dualist; it is multiplicity. The openness to possibilites, attractions, influences and connection between these characterize the rhizome, as a complex map. Like a botanical rhizomatic system of roots with nodes, the concept of rhizome supports that there is no hierarchy, nor linearity, nor beginning nor end, it is always in a part of complex interrelated processes, often opposed to the tree system, where choices are linearly branched through linear ascension with clear cause as entry and consequence as exit.

The experience through this pavillion as a case study can be interestingly related to this concept of rhizome. The blurred limits of the building which statistic states are ephemeral, or rather constantly dynamically evolving based on its environmental influences. Once in this sensorial space, a visitor cannot visually and auditorily locate itself due to the dense myst and innumerable nozzles’ noise. Only the central system, as a third-eye can track the position of each individual. The smart raincoats, which respond in LED a color that corresponds to an affinity of one visitor to another based on a pre-input data from a questionnaire prior to the visit, can be related as a part of sensorial experience, as a social relationship. It is hence digitally mapped as a network of people, but also as one approaches another, there is social and psychological responses through attraction and repulsion between unpredictably approahing people meandering in a 3D space, resulting in a proliferation of senses, new encounters and further experiences. This evolving network of links and chains of reactive responses is clearly an analogy to the Internet, which reminds us of how the concept of rhizome is part of our life.

These ideas are right within our field of study. How does affinity between buildings and inhabitants, social context and existing environment within a micro context can impact its neighbourhood and building design? Mapping this relationship in a micro scale and macro scale to finally obtain a global tendency or evolution of city as a whole network can foster us architect in approaching better tools and assets to design a better builiding implementation within its context and multiple factors defining its area and the area within an urban area. It would be interesting to take advatage and full potential of digital tools to relate a new building design and its context, a node with its possible networks.

Case study:    Watercube_Beijing National Aquatics Center_ PTW Architects, CSCEC, CCDI,  Arup

Reading:   On Growth and form_ D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson

Nature and the notion of organic have always been of much interest from architects designers and urban planners. Extensive theoretical studies, as well as architectural applications, have attempted to simulate nature, by extracting forms, geometries and principles found in living organisms.

The Beijing National Aquatics Center designed by  PTW Architects, CSCEC, CCDI, and Arup is one of the most recent examples of applying natural systems in architectural design processes. In this building, vastly known as the Watercube, the strict geometry found in water bubbles was used as an inspiration for the exterior of the building, forming an iridescent cellular façade that diffuses natural light. The continuous skin, made by the ETFE material, was created as a steel structure housed in a cavity, filled by platonic solid units, that seem to be completely random, but in reality are different units that are repeated to the whole exterior of the building. The algorithmic relations that form the façade and roof of the Watercube, as well as the multiplicity of their units have been subject to great debate about the application of parametricism  in architectural and urban design context.

The former principles of natural forms were long before theoretically analyzed from  D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson in his book On Growth and form, almost a century ago. In his book, and particularly in the chapter On the Theory of Transformation, Or the Comparison of Related Forms, D’Arcy sets the basis of parametric design, at a conceptual level, through analyzing and comparing natural forms using mathematical justifications. The author explored the interrelations of growth, form and physical forces found in different relative species and the topological similarity of family variations, through grid and co-axial transformations and stretching of the natural geometries and structures of living organisms (leaves, fishes, animals, etc.). Though this study was carried out in a two dimensional level, it is implied that it can be extended into a three dimensional one, extrapolating important relations and principles between relative species, through breaking down the geometries at fractal basis. The notion of topology as a concept, that is evident in D’Arcy;s study, establishes a contemporary parametric design approach in a conceptual level.

As a future research, I would be highly interested in researching and comparing the new digital logics that are found in the recent parametric architectural examples, as well as exploring the relations that form them in a three dimensional level.

Image source: http://www.l-a-v-a.net/projects/beijing-watercube/

In this rapidly changing world, people more and more often notice that we are not so different from our planet’s species. After analyzing Sendai Mediatheque by architect Toyo Ito and studying the text of Steven Johnson “Emergence – the connected lives of ants, brains, cities, and software” I found a lot of similarities.

At first it doesn’t seem like this two projects: one being a building and the other a book, could have something in common. When we look at the Sendai Mediatheque by Toyo Ito, we see that it has three main components: skin, plate and tube. Every one of these elements by itself does not create a structure or a building, but when they are put together, they create a revolutionary, transparent cultural media center with unique engineering systems and aesthetics. In the “Emergence…” by Steven Johnson we can find similar concepts, where one component/element/creature can still exist on its own, but multiple can create a solid structure/organism or life.

Here author relies on the life of ants, and how they create this ever changing organism where each “social citizen” knows what he or she is supposed to do in order for their colony to survive. He also mentions DNA and how every piece of it is essential to the organism. By removing something in it or simply changing it, will change the organism itself. Just like in Toyo Ito’s cultural media center where every floor is designed in the way that they have their purpose within the building. It acts as an organism – architectural organism, meaning if you ever to change the function of one floor, it will automatically change the whole purpose, flow or functionality of the building.

After reading text by Steven Johnson and analyzing Sendai Mediatheque by Toyo Ito, I found it very helpful in order understand that we, architects create these organisms, but in different scales. Starting from the smallest – a building, then neighborhood and finally – city. So I guess my personal research/project that I would like to develop in the future will be creating and studying these organisms. I would also like to create them in the way where every element/component I use will have a purpose.

Deleuze’s understanding on Spinoza, that a matter is not an attribute of something and it is a singular self-subsistent substance, somehow will make you rethink about how can you ‘force’ a material to achieve more then what it was made for. At the same time it is rather restraining from the fact that in this time frame, where technology is advanced, material is always could be improved.

As architects, we have to know at our best about the advantages and disadvantages of the material that we want to use, that approach is more subtle to be applied on my understanding about Deleuze. A matter has been having its ‘blue print’ ever since they exists and the final result is less important that the transition forms that occur before the final form, is quite of the opposite on the approach by SANAA to apply their design where material is pushed to its limit by the help of other supporting system (technology). In that sense, actually the technology itself could be mediator to see possibilities how a matter is actually more powerful that what it seems.

Rolex Center has proven that technology could push the use of material advantages, but also its consequences. It has 1400 unique modules that were pre-casted, the fabrication process was a huge work, but still that the fact it is can be done. Deleuze also pointed out that the process of forming and reforming before a matter reaches its equilibrium stage is more important that the last shape a matter will eventually become;

“It is only in these far-from-equilibrium conditions that the full variety of immanent topological forms appears.” page 4, paragraph 1, Deleuze and the Genesis of Form.

But in architecture, a form has to reach its final form, as how Rolex building evolved into a magnificent piece of architecture that bare a important role on providing space for human needs. Concrete that is used to built the shell has its own nature blue print that somehow by the help of technology that now SANAA could control, those blue print showed on the force that could make a form deflection.

Research approach I want to take is on how we as architects could really understand the “blueprint” or the molecule compositions of matters that going to give us the most advantages and at the time give a more challenge. So, in that manner, anything could be design in an effective way and right on target. Also the behaviour of every material that we are going to use, not necessarily to be used to make a parametric architecture design. Material that we have from nature personally for me has the best manifesto that perhaps you dont have to process or extract them again. My approach to this is to focus more on the research about every matter that I am going to you so every elements will act at its best to support the design as a whole. I think vernacular architecture shows the best result on that effort.

http://www.afritecture.org/tag/vernacular

]]> http://legacy.iaacblog.com/maa2014-2015-advanced-architecture-concepts/2014/11/digital-logics-t2-2/feed/ 0 http://legacy.iaacblog.com/maa2014-2015-advanced-architecture-concepts/2014/11/digital-logic_t4/ http://legacy.iaacblog.com/maa2014-2015-advanced-architecture-concepts/2014/11/digital-logic_t4/#comments Mon, 24 Nov 2014 20:07:58 +0000 A.Angello Coarite Asencio http://legacy.iaacblog.com/maa2014-2015-advanced-architecture-concepts/?p=952

Case Study :  SENDAI MEDIATHEQUE  BY  ARCHITECT TOYO ITO + STRUCTURAL ENG. MATSURO SASAKI 

Reading Text : EMERGENCE THE CONNECTED LIVES OF ANTS, BRAINS, CITIES AND SOFTWARE  BY STEVEN JHON

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Referent Image: www.artspace.org.nz/exhibitions/2001/blurringarchitecture.asp

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In the above Mediatheque Sendai and The Connected lives of Ants both naturally developed because express components: Fluidity, Order Unstable and Transparent both designs and try to prolong the inside outwards emphasizing the continuity of the space.

Sendai Mediatheque is built and consists of  3 main elements: plate, pipe, and skin; The dwellings or places of life of ants naturally developed into huge amounts of solid ground. Both filters and communications develop from the inside to the outside creating the connection. Sendai trying to translate the conditions of society in the architecture using digital media and inhabit ants more naturally, where there is no reason, no logic, only the will of intuition. The most important thing is that both are able to develop their buildings in a collective way as a colonial system that plays an essential role (some can not do), but it (the participation of all in coordination can accomplish anything), large jobs or buildings.

This is a new concept in architecture that expresses much fluidity, lightness, like seaweed moving freely; image or sketches was poetic, far from any known reality, using dimensions, codes, numbers, position, displacement, and utilization of software. This is a project that is parametric and made parametrically.

The ants inhabit is a concept that is made of wild type with lots of places made in huge amounts of solid ground, for its swarm logic is a dominant force, behavior emerge from colonies with constant communication and interaction is the key to understanding the overall behavior evident achievements of its great buildings of its proportions; exploring their spaces without predefined orders. This is a clear sign that these buildings are habitat can see it’s a 100% parametric project, but with the difference that has not been done parametrically.

In conclusion I reached a confirmation of the above projects there today that are parametric and conducted parametrically and others like constructions that have been developed since ancient times, it can be observed that are parametric but are not made or constructed parametrically (no logic, no reason, are free as the wind and flow like a natural organism but is there the ability to achieve and suggest how they can do.

Reference Image: http://technoccult.net/

Case Study : Blur Building Swiss Expo 2002 by DILLER SCOFIDIO + RENFRO

Reading Text : A Thousand Plateaus by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari

“Architecture as special effect” is the phrase that I felt in Blur Building. It is an Experience Architecture. There is no roof, no wall, only lightweight tensegrity structure. We actually cannot measure the real size of architecture because all 35,000 nozzles which are controlled due to the parameter of climate and weather generate the “mist and fog”. Each individual nozzle are controlled by senor of wind climate which effect water pressure to nozzle. Water works as primary material and particles that envelope architecture acts as movable and kinetic façade so called “Responsive Architecture”. In term of Topological Thinking, we can see the transformation from water into the mist and mist into the air, there are number of  changes in the process of material properties.

Rhizome has big impact on parametric and digital architecture. It’s non-linear system which there is no beginning or ending. The input and output can enter from anywhere anytime. It is “the notion of network”. There will be no center called “Decentralization” which is a web of interconnected network.

The rhizome, of course, is their well-known image of a decentered system of points that can connect in any order and without hierarchy, a term drawn from botany that names a network of stems, like the strawberry plant, that grows horizontally and discontinuously by sending out runners. The logic of the rhizome is opposed to that of the tree, which is a hierarchical structure centered around a fixed root, a structure that grows continuously and vertically

My present interests is in the field of algorithmic architecture and generative design that has focused on agent-based models and the methodologies that focus on investigations spatial, structural and material organization in architecture and urbanism. I strongly believed that good architecture can embrace an intimate engagement between social and material interaction that concern in material performance and material life cycle.

In future research, I will use generative design process that can approach to environmental design by using multi-agent systems which capable of self-organizing into an emergent intelligence because it has the potential of the systems to negotiate between a complex set of desires and parameters in the generation of architecture.

Finally, my research line will explore more in algorithmic design methodologies and  non-linear algorithmic design methodologies in developing complex systems and how these non-linear systems interact and operate within geometry in response to a set of architectural criteria.

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

During the last decades philosophers and scientists have been discussing about the human mind and what we named awareness, as the state to perceive, to feel, to be conscient and to recognize environmental and inner variations, though being able to choose between multiple possible future reactions. What generates problem between researchers are the achievements of neurosciences in studying neurons and brain connections. Suddenly, we were obliged to think us (our brain/mind) as an organism made of objective, automatic and unconscious elements (neurons) that, however, act like surviving animals, always addressed to the best and rational choice for their lives. In this scenario, it emerges that conscious and aware beings (or supposed to be that) can take shape from unconscious, unaware, electrical and always moving beings. The system is conceived as an infinite loop in which death and life continuously switch from one to the other in the same time and at the moment seems to be impossible to detect any kind of starting point, singularity or first energy injection.

The same logic of neurons can be found in machines and computers. One of the best examples of this process is the core of the register machine, that is the basis for the actual informatic and computational architecture. The idea is to construct a system with n numbered containers and m objects. After having randomly distributed the elements in the containers, we provide a simple set of rules (increment, decrement, clear to zero) according to the number of elements in each container and the machine will provide us the right result to our question. In this manner, with few and simple rules it is possible to create other scripts (multiplication, comparison, repositioning) and solve different problems without be obliged to generate different machines for different purposes. The scripts or softwares are able to simulate more analogic processes on the same virtual machine.

Digital tools discussion lead us to the change provided by technology in architecture and building processes. The relevant importance of new technologies and techniques has not to be located in the increase of production, rather in the vision of a world that is going to the pluralism of parts and that is able to compare itself with neutrons and scripts, all elements of the same reality. Steven Johnson told us about ants collective intelligence and its different and essential parameters to work: more is different, ignorance is useful, encourage random encounters, look for patterns in the signs, pay attention to your neighbours. This five sentences could be considered the minimum request to a living system to maintain its own dynamism. It looks foolish not to detect similarities with the human living system. In particular, we can argue to be involved in all of these rules, except for the last one, that is the only one liable to be controlled. In this sense, many architects and designers have been starting to conceive their works as flexible and adaptive systems that promote dynamism, energy flows and inner relations, thanks to the adoption of sets of rules instead of intentional design acts. As results we can include the Watercube in Beijing, the Yokohama Terminal and the Rolex Learning Center in Lausanne. Clearly, though with the same logic of building the landscape, these programs have different purposes. While in the intervention of SAANA it is possible to detect the will of linking inside and outside along multiple vectors (even if the horizontal is the main one), in the FOA’s Terminal the site offers itself to be layered and to host different programs. In Beijing, this logic generates one component that, after being put in the system, is able to confer to the building an unusual energetic performance.

Swarm intelligence is the word that better represents the main feature of evolution and nature. Even human beings are within it, as we admit our superiority when linked in and between groups. But animals’ efficiency is really beyond ours and, looking at termites for example, the proportions are not the same, making them able to build more complex and functional organisms. In a certain way, machines and computers are going to move us toward the animals’ way of building: digital beings are now the channels to express the potential of our neurons, that are not able to be explicit with us, into a production process. We are trying to understand our minds using technologies and to translate it into reality. As we saw many times during the human growth, we are forcing our system to obtain operative information addressed to improve our surviving skills. In this direction, many attempts have been made, but still there are inexplicable influences, about how the building could react to the environment and, above all, how the people think at themselves within the environment.

]]> http://legacy.iaacblog.com/maa2014-2015-advanced-architecture-concepts/2014/11/740/feed/ 0 http://legacy.iaacblog.com/maa2014-2015-advanced-architecture-concepts/2014/11/relational-logics_fujimoto_t6/ http://legacy.iaacblog.com/maa2014-2015-advanced-architecture-concepts/2014/11/relational-logics_fujimoto_t6/#comments Tue, 11 Nov 2014 15:18:13 +0000 Rossana Graca http://legacy.iaacblog.com/maa2014-2015-advanced-architecture-concepts/?p=683 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.