A I RARCHITECTUE DESIGN STUDIO

2015

SEMESTER 2

HONGBANG

CHEN

TUTOR:

FINNIAN WARNOCK

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Fig. 1. Render of HYBIOS_HYBRID BIOSTRCUTURES de-signed by RIYAD JOUCKA

Joucka, R. 2012. Hybio-hybrid Biostrcture Project, London.

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CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

PART A: CONCEPTUALIZATION

A.1 DESIGN FUTURINGA.2 DESIGN COMPUTATIONA.3 COMPOSITION & GENERATIONA.4 CONCLUSIONA.5 LEARNING OUTCOMEA.6 APPENDIX

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812

INTRODUCTION

My name is Hongbnag Chen (or Martin). Born in a small city

where locate in southeast of China. When I was a child, I

lived with my grandfather who is profession in carpentry, so

I have got chance to play around with many toys that made

from timber. However, the most of time, I’d rather making

my own little timber swards and bows, I guess that is when I

lit up a little spark for my desire of designing.

Long story short, when I was 14, the beauty of all those

well designed architectures in the internet have drawn my

attention. Suddenly, architecture seems to me as a whole new

mysterious world that I have not met before. From then on,

everything about architecture interests me, and I think maybe

I can learn something about it in the university. After I study

more about architecture, I actually fall in love with it, not

only because of its aesthetic, but also various spatial experi-

ences it can bring to occupants and public.

To me, the first experience that I engaged with digital model-

ling was in Graphic Communication I took in first year. Us-

ing AutoCad for 2D drawing and sketchup for 3D modelling,

and retouch with photoshop, were my favourite working pat-

tern in the past two years. Beside this, Rhino is not strange to

me. I learnt Rhino in my second year Method class, but

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I N T R O D U C T I O N

Fig. 2. Self-portraitC.H.B. 2015. Profile (Perth).

5INTRODUCTION

I didn’t quite comfortable to work with it. Yet I still have a

great interest in making grasshopper as a new modeling tool

for me. Because I think design will somehow be influenced

by the software environment that we work on. So it is always

best to experiment as much possibility as one can.

Nowadays, I think the digital design has undoubtedly opened

up a new era for architectural industrial. Especially, the

Building Information Modeling has already shown its poten-

tial and power in many built projects. Beside this, what dig-

ital design has brought to us is allowing various disciplines

have opportunity to collaborate. And I believe this is what

truly encourage creativity and edge-cutting breakthrough

take place.

Fig. 3. Render of reading room project in Rhino and Photoshop

C.H.B. 2014. Design Method submission

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Fig. 4. M2 Scenic Drive concept representaionMAS CAAD. 2012. Perspective drawing of Panoramic alpine urbanism.

P A R T A

C O N C E P T U A L I S AT I O N

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A . 1 D E S I G N F U T U R I N G

DESIGN FUTURING8

As the development of civilization, the lengthen and quality

of human life are continually extended, on the other hand,

the damage to natural environment is also constantly ampli-

fied. What’s more, the damage to the natural environment has

shown no sign of stop or even slow down. It is all because of

our disregard to the limited natural resources, exaggerated by

technology development and vast population 1. As what Tony

Fry in his book Design Futuring 2:

“We are now at a point that hu-

man will have no future.” Tony Fry

And this situation can only be conquered by design, which

deliberately carried out towards a sustainable future. To more

specific, design that towards future is required to be confront-

ed and solved two major tasks 3. Firstly, it needs to slowing

the rate of defuturing. Secondly, It should be able to redirect

towards to more sustainable modes 4. In addition to this, Tony

Fry has also made a suggestion that design intelligence is an

essential element for creating design remade sustainability.

The figure 5 it is a bird’s eye view of Munich Olympic Park

which designed by Frei Otto in city of Munich. This is built in

1972, it has featured by Frei Otto’s famous lightweight net

structure, which has been recognized an adaptable, changeable

and highly structural efficiency1.

He has taken inspiration from nature and trying to find a way

to make an enclose space with minimal amount of material and

energy. He has also been considered as an researcher or inven-

tor, one of his famous experiment is soap bubble experiment,

which has been conducted in several ways, and the aim is to

examine the optimized surface and structural system (Fig.6).

As the surface tension of the soap solution the surface auto-

matically formed by bubble tends to minimize its surface area

for the given boundary, hence forming theoretically a minimal

surface 2(Fig.7).

I think Frei Otto has practiced and advanced the concept of

sustainability, along side with his study on physical and bio-

logical aspects. What’s more, the influence of his architecture

is not only about the form he created, but also the approaches

to architecture that have been opened by his research and dis-

coveries.

Beside structure, the material is also another important ap-

proach towards a truly sustainable architecture. This project

Hygroskin is designed by Achim Menges. (Fig.8) It is a mete-

orosensitive pavilion that made from plywood sheet, by utilized

the material’s elastic property to archive environmental

1. Fry, Tony. 2008. Design Futuring: sustainable, Ethics and New practice (Oxford: Berg), pp 1-162. Fry. 2008.3. Fry.2008.4. Fry.2008.

9DESIGN FUTURING

Fig. 5. Bird’s eye view of Munich Olympic ParkFrei Otto. 1972. Munich Olympic Park. Built project.

Fig. 6. Soap bubble experiment for the form-finding of minimal surfaces

Frei otto. 1987. Image record of soap experiment.

Fig. 7. Soap experiment with three rigid ringFrei otto. 1987. Documentation of soap experi-

ment.

DESIGN FUTURING10

responsiveness that according to humidity level around it1. The

idea here is fully use the responsive capacity of material itself,

instead of applying on elaborate technical equipment. Achim

Menge have drawn his idea from the pine cone environmen-

tal behavior, which closes its leafs in high moisture state, and

when the environment gets dry, it opens its leafs to drop seeds2

(Fig.9). Therefore, Achim Menge’s team tried to composed

multiple layers of timbers and experiment them with computer-

ized environment to recreate this behavior (Fig.10).

Thus, when this material applied to architecture, it allows struc-

tures open during the sunny days and close during the high hu-

midity raining days. In the end, what have been achieved here

is a very simple, cheap and environmental responsive plywood

pieces.

I think this is also a great example that has shown not only new

possibility in sustainable design, but also the potential of com-

putational design that helps architects marching towards more

sustainable design.

11DESIGN FUTURING

Fig. 8. Hygroskin pavilion placed within natural environmentMenge, A. 2013. Photography of HygroSkin-Meteorosensitive Pavilion

Fig. 9. Pine cone different forms in different humidity state

Menge, A. 2013. Photography of transformation of pine cone

Fig. 10. Computer controlled transformation of humidity responsively wood

Menge, A. 2013. Photography of programing wood in differ-ent humidity level

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(NURBS) modeling system and integrate with parametric

design system, in addition to this6, there are softwares (within

parametric design) are doing digital simulate structural, envi-

ronmental condition and energy calculation7. After all, the ben-

efits of using computers in the architecture design process are

numerous, because it not only has ability to scripting informa-

tions for robots to making complex models, but also providing

opportunities to program materials that we can apply on build-

ings later on.

With the rising of digital architecture, there are some voices

that expressed their concern of whether design under digital en-

vironment limit ones creativity.

“CAD might conspire against creative though by encouraging

‘fake’ creativity8.” Bryan Lawson

But it can be argued that creativity can actually be amplified

through parametric design, which using computer to write

algorithm that programs a robot to do very complex modeling

work that almost impossible to do by hands. Here is an examp-

DESIGN COMPUTATION

Currently, there are two different trends under the digital ar-

chitecture wave, which are called computerisation and com-

putation. On the one hand, computerisation is defined as a

digital way to input, manipulate and storage the per-conceptu-

alised data, which has been widely used today as a basic way

to design within digital environment, such as Computer-Aided

Design(CAD) or Computer-Aided Manufacture (CAM) in ar-

chitecture1. On the other hand, computation, or parametric de-

sign, is referred to designer create and modulate interconnected

elements to generate design variation, shift the design process

to “formation process precedes form”2. At present, the use of

computerisation has been adopted widely across the architec-

tural industry, but the computation is still at the stage that has

been applied relatively limited3.

What worthwhile to notice is the important role of computation

in digital design realm. Nowadays, digital architecture has been

increasingly shaped by scripting and collaborating with mate-

rial fabrication4. It can be seen from the digital modeller and

research-based design team are constantly involved in many pi-

oneering architecture practice, moreover, architectural schools

are training their students to be designed computation5. To be

specific, the most representative example of computation design

software is made up by Non-uniform Rational Basis Spline

A . 2 D E S I G N C O M P U TAT I O N

13DESIGN COMPUTATION

Fig. 11. Final assembled wall in gallery spaceManto, A. 2015. Photography of digital rustication foam wall

Fig. 12. Illustration of hotknife toolmarks on the surface of foam blocksManto, A. 2015. Drawing of digital rustication foam wall process

Fig. 13. IExploded axon of wall assemblyManto, A. 2015. Drawing of digital rustication foam wall process

14 DESIGN COMPUTATION

le that demonstrated the digital rustication archived by para-

metric design (Fig.11). This project is part of research that trans-

late the ancient method of making into contemporary process,

it displayed the making process of a freestanding wall through

the application of a multi-axis robotic arm connected with a

hot-knife in service of cutting expanded polystyrene foam into

mass-customized and stackable blocks1. This project was car-

ried out by Andrew Manto and collaborated with his team and

MIT international designer center2. At the beginning, Tool-

marks are modified the surface of the foam using a U-shaped

hot knife3(Fig.12). The roughness of the finish is depending on

the distance between passes, and as the various toolpath trav-

el results in a scalloping effect4. This method can be seen as

a contemporary replication of traditional stone carving. This

wall is made up by about 140 unique bricks, which are cut from

4 distinct block blank types, and each shape is precisely con-

trolled to be able to assemble perfectly5. Addition to this, the

wall is a hallow cavity, local features and overall global form

determined the specific depth of block6 (Fig.13). The contiguous

finished surface is archived by observing the minimum over-

lapping distances between courses7.

I think this project has well proved that the digital design has

potential to expand our creativity by writing scripts for robots

that eventually help us to archived what human cannot.

Beside this, another great advantage that computation has

brought is its ability to programing and making materials. Re-

cently, an idea of 4-D printing is mentioned by Skylar Tibbits

with who is currently a Research Scientist in MIT’s Depart-

ment of Architecture8(Fig.14). This technology enable objects

to be created with four-dimension characteristics, which means

theirs structure will change over time, depending on the hu-

midity, heat, light or air pressure level around them9. He was

inspired by Achim Menge’s environmental responsive timber

projects, and trying do more than relying on material’s inher-

ent property. It is archived by using multi-material printer to

generate objects with custom properties10. By controlling the

composition of wood, with 3-D printer it is possible to produce

an piece of artificial wood that can be predicted its material be-

have within different natural conditions11(Fig.15). This process

can be seen as programing materials, it has even developed pro-

graming on other materials, like carbon fiber. The system will

be able to control carbon fiber to fold, curl, twist and respond to

various activation of energies12(Fig.16) .

Overall, the computation has shown its great potential from de-

sign to fabrication, from buildings to materials, which eventu-

ally become a powerful tool to help designer pushing architec-

tural industry towards a more sustainable future.

15DESIGN COMPUTATION

Fig. 14. Samples of various programmable materials (wood, hybrid plastic, fabric and carbon fiber)Tibbits, S. 2013. Photography of programmable material samples

Fig. 16. Carbon fiber is transforming depending on the heat applied to it

Tibbits, S. 2013. Photography of carbon fiber transformation

Fig. 15. Custom design wood grain using wood fila-ment

Tibbits, S. 2013. Photography of custom wood grain sam-ple

ALGORITHM SKETCHES

PLAN VIEW

PERSPECTIVE VIEW

17COMPOSITION & GENERATION