STUDIO AIR2015, SEMESTER 1, SONYAHAOYU LIU_ 63394 4

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3 PART A - CONCEPTUALIZATION

3 ABOUT ME

4 A.0.1 DESIGN FUTURING-PRECEDENTS

6 A.1.0 DESIGN COMPUTATION

7 A.1.1 DESIGN COMPUTATION-PRECEDENTS

8 A.2.0 COMPOSITION/GENERATION

9 A.2.1 COMPOSITION/GENERATION-PRECEDENTS

10 A.3 CONCLUSION

11 A.4 LEARNING OUTCOMES

12 A.5.1 APPENDIX - ALGORITHMIC SKETCHES

13 A.5.2 APPENDIX - BIBLIOGRAPHY

CATALOGUE

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help from my tutors. Among my designs, I played a lot with geometry. I tried many different forms on my projects. However, sometimes I neglected the design brief and its practicability, which is my weakness.

My favourite architect is Zaha Hadid, I admire her creativity and how she design the architecture into such a elegant and streamlined form. Indeed, someone may argue that her architecture does not fit the context well, but not a single architecture is perfect, why not just appreciate the beauty of her works.

Overall, I’m very interested in the ADS: Air for the dramatic creation from the modelling program. This is just directly lead to my design preference. And I do want to gain more architectural knowledge through this subject.

I’m Haoyu Liu, I came from China about two years ago. I love drawing and designing stuffs since I was a little child. Paintings can be found everywhere in my own books.

I think design is all about changing the world into the way you/others like, especially architecture. I loved the way that how architects could shape this world by their creativities.

Before entering the university, I used to consider design a building is not a hard process, all we need to do is just draw and build. But when it comes to study architecture, it becomes totally different than I expected, much more challenging!

In the past two years, through a general study of the history, development, ideas, principles of architecture, I have gained a totally new recognition of architecture.

I have done several projects in the past two years with the

PART A - CONCEPTUALIZATIONABOUT ME

FIG.1 HEYDAR ALIYEV CENTER

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Water Cube Beijing National Aquatics CentreArchitects: PTW Architects, CSCEC, CCDI, and Arup Location: Beijing, China

As one of the most remarkable architectures in Beijing, the Water Cube was designed to be sustainable, eco-friendly and durable through its biomimicry design. The idea of its structure came from water bubbles and sea sponges. It looks like a cuboid filled with water, however it got a remarkable light weight and thin skin. The architects used a high-tech material called ETFE to achieve this result. This revolutionary material is critical to the entire architecture, it helps to transmit light and radiating the heat from inside.

On the facade, none of the ‘bubbles’ are the same. These irregular bubbles support the structure with the light steel frames together.

The Water Cube did inspired the architectural industry not only in China but many other countries.

I admired how those architects used modern technologies to even control the shape of the building by increase or decrease the among of air in each of those bubbles. And we can find many similar examples around us (i.e. Design Hub of RMIT).

A.0.1 DESIGN FUTURING-PRECEDENTS

FIG.2 WATER CUBE

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Metropol ParasolArchitect: Jürgen Mayer-Hermann Location: Seville, Spain

The Metropol Parasol is the largest wooden structure in the world until now. Its form comes from the mushrooms. The Parasol itself contains highly complex structure inside which containing market, museum, etc. By applying the structure of mushrooms, the sculpture could support this large span by just six main columns.

I appreciate this work for its high level of creation and the architect’s great applicant from the nature to reality. The architects used this remarkable modern wood structure to build up a connection between tradition and modern. Comparing to the architectures nearby, the Parasol is absolutely the one and the only.

FIG.3 METROPOL PARASOL

A.0.2 DESIGN FUTURING-PRECEDENTS

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A.1.0DESIGN COMPUTATIONThrough out the human history, mankind has never stopped developing machineries that could reduce labour burden. Along with the invention of the computer, it has totally changed the way we works in every industry. The following paragraph is going to discuss the changes that computer design brings to us and also the opportunities, potentials and impact brought with it.

Digital computing has brought huge changes to the architectural industry. First of all, it is important to understand the difference between computation and computerisation. Peter has described ‘computation’ as the way that ‘allows designers to extend their abilities to deal with highly complex situations’.1And the new extension (or opportunities) that the computation produces for the industry is so important. For centuries, architects are pursuing for progress. From the ancient temple of Egypt to the Modern Movement, there is always a certain form to represent the architectural trend of that period. And when it comes to 21st century, digital computation is definitely an architectural breakthrough of this era.

Computing has provided the architects a new approach to their projects. One of the most significant different between computing and traditional way of design is that the program could be modified while the old way was hard to change. The modification to the program some times comes up with unexpected result. In another word, the modification can create more possibilities and provide further options and design potentials for the architects.

Computing has not only change the way that architects design their projects but also ‘defines a digital continuum from design to production, from form generation to fabrication design’.2 It has brought new solution for a new building from design to completion. Also, some new specialised consultancy grew up to adapt

the need of this new tendency. And as the communication method developed, the industry has becoming increasingly collaborative. The connection between practices and consultancies are tightened by the computation software.

As the development of computing technologies, curvy and geometrical shapes become more and more common in present projects. Also, the computing algorithms accelerate the universality of the use of repetitive patterns in architectures. By using digital computation, architects are much easier to achieve complex patterns by adjusting algorithms. Therefore, many new buildings could have such fancy facade unlike the plain ones in the old time. However, by using digital computation technologies, architects are very likely to be limited by the technologies and this is the problem that the whole industry must face.2

Computation could not only provide the look of the building but it can also simulate the performance of the building. It enables the architects and the engineers to ‘see’ the building before it is actually built. And by this ‘foresee’, it helps the architects and engineers to create ‘responsive designs, allowing architects to explore new design options and to analyse architectural decisions during the design process’1.

Therefore as the preceding architectural theory trending to design through computation technologies, the architectural future will going to take the advantage of the potential capacities of computation which, in some way, beyond architects themselves.

1.BRADY PETERS, ‘COMPUTATION WORKS: THE BUILDING OF ALGORITHMIC THOUGHT’, ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN, 83.2, (2013), 08-15.2.RIVKA OXMAN, ROBERT OXMAN, THEORIES OF THE DIGITAL IN ARCHITECTURE, 1 EDN (LONDON: ROUTLEDGE, 2014), P. 1-10.

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The aim of the ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion was the development of a winding technique for modular, double layered fibre composite structures, which reduces the required form-work to a minimum while maintaining a large degree of geometric freedom.3 This pavilion used the idea of biomimicry, the design team discovered that the characters of elytron could be applied to the design. The structure of the elytron is light and strong and, moreover, the form of elytron made the fabrication highly material efficient. Also the development of this project comes through the effort of not only architects but also engineers and biologists. Computational tools are used widely among this project, the group used these tools simulated the project before it came to the fabrication stage. Therefore, ‘both the robotic fabrication characteristics and the abstracted biomimetic principles could be simultaneously integrated into the design process.’3The fabrication is all done by the collaborating-axis industrial robots.

Overall, the project highly relied on the computation technologies, multidisciplinary collaboration and industrial robots. With all this characteristics, this project made a perfect precedent for this studio.

FIG.4 ICD/ITKE RESEARCH PAVILION

A.1.1DESIGN COMPUTATION-PRECEDENTS

FIG.5 LA VOÛTE DE LEFEVRE INSTALLATION

This project is interesting for it connects the modern technologies with ancient ideas. The design was done by computational tools and the digital fabrication is used as ‘a modern equivalent of ancient stone carving’.4 This amazing combination ‘marrying the two major architectural parameters – surface and volume’.4 The whole design is so dynamic from top to bottom. The geometry used in this project is irregular but regular. The different hexagons support the whole. Also the form of the project is against most of the buildings in the world - the volume of the superstructure is larger than the foundation. Therefore, with the help of digital computation (and the support ahead), the idea becomes true.

3.JUSTIN MCGAR , COMPUTATIONAL DESIGN: BUILDINGS DESIGNED AND BUILT BY ROBOTS (2014) <HTTP://SOURCEABLE.NET/> [ACCESSED 19 MARCH 2015].4.LIDIJA GROZDANIC, LA VOUTE DE LEFEVRE INSTALLATION INVESTIGATES STEREOTOMIC DESIGN THROUGH DIGITAL FABRICATION (2012) <HTTP://WWW.EVOLO.US/> [ACCESSED 19 MARCH 2015].

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A.2.0COMPOSITION/GENERATIONThe shift from composition to generation started as the popularization of digital computation technologies. Here the computation technologies are more likely to refer to the software like Grasshopper but not AutoCAD. Among previous sections, I have discuss the difference between computerisation and computation. Here, the basic function of AutoCAD is basically computerisation but not actually generating anything new. But in Grasshopper, after the algorithm is set, the computer will self-generate a result which can be a point, a surface, a mess, etc.

Through this whole different method, architects are somehow ‘generating’ by using these parametric design tools. And as the developing and maturing of the technology, real-time rendering enable the architects make new changes to their designs at anytime. So, the design process is becoming totally different than ever before.

However, can parametric modelling replace the traditional way of design? Absolutely not. Generally, computer-generated models seem nice, but somehow, always similar with each other. Maybe, it is the characteristic of parametric design. But not all of them could fit in the context very well. Many of these designs could be placed into a complete different context and still ‘looks nice’ itself, but not actually interact with the environment. Thus, one possible solution is designing through a more active collaborative work between architect and parametric modelling specialist. The architect will focus on designing based on the context while the specialist will help him/her generating models based on the need of both the context and the design brief.

Overall, the shift from composition to generation has a huge impact onto the industry with both advantage and disadvantage. And even though the model is computer-generated but the core of design is still the architect him/herself.

FIG.6 AN EXAMPLE OF THE ALGORITHM IN GRASSHOPPER

FIG.7 AN EXAMPLE OF ALGORITHMIC DESIGN

FIG.8 KING ABDULLAH FINANCIAL DISTRICT METRO STATION

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A.2.1COMPOSITION/GENERATION-PRECEDENTS

FIG.9 LOOM HYPERBOLIC INSTALLATION

The aim of this project is to ‘attempting to assume a fresh approach to digital fabrication’.5 This is also a project incorporate modern technologies with traditional techniques which is called ‘Moroccan weaving techniques’ to create the wavy form. The design team used Rhino and Grasshopper the generate this wavy shape on computer. The main structure of this installation is its irregular cellular grid which is inserted into the platform. The parameters of each element of this project is strictly controlled, indeed it seems abnormally but the actually construction ‘translated this irregularity from precise digital design into reality’.5

The FLUX installation is a parametric landscape design done by the CCA Architecture/MEDIAlab. This design is a reflection to the high-tech parametric design. This exploration design was trying to being representative to the emerging technologies and how they have ‘transformed the ways in which we both conceive and configure space and material’.6 This is one of the key point of parametric design and this project was trying to discover this. The team has explored the form, the function, the context of this project and the possibilities through parametric design. Therefore, this is one of the projects that worth study.

FIG.10 FLUX INSTALLATION

FIG.11 GRASSHOPPER DEFINITION OF FLUX

5.LIDIJA GROZDANIC, LOOM HYPERBOLIC INSTALLATION / BARKOW LEIBINGER ARCHITECTS (2012) <HTTP://WWW.EVOLO.US/> [ACCESSED 19 MARCH 2015].6.MATSYS DESIGN, FLUX: ARCHITECTURE IN A PARAMETRIC LANDSCAPE (2009) <HTTP://MATSYSDESIGN.COM/> [ACCESSED 19 MARCH 2015].

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A.3CONCLUSION

Through the study and research among Part A, it comes to my mind that parametric design is now representing the general trend of the architectural industry. It is a revolutionary design approach which enables the architects become increasingly creative. The computer-generated model is so unique that is distinguished them from the past designs.

For myself, I am totally a fan of parametric design. As mentioned before, I admired Zaha Hadid’s design a lot for her beautifully combination of all the elements. And her parametric way of design has put marks on every single one of her architectures.

Parametric design is significant to the industry for it has redefine the traditional process of create a

building. And reform the structure of the industry.

Another benefit of computation is its ability to simulate the performance of a building before it gets built. This is just so amazing that it will save millions of dollars for the company if they can eliminate the design imperfection and redesign it before the construction of the building.

Overall, digital computation is a revolution to the industry. To adapt the increasing need from tenants and environment, the adjustable design method is just critical to the situation. However, parametric design is somehow limited by the software, so it is important that the architect should not only attached to the computation but also focus on the beauty of architecture because architecture is an art after all.

FIG.12 A CONCEPTUAL PARAMETRIC ARCHITECTURE

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A.4LEARNING OUTCOMES

FIG.13 LINCOLN PARK PAVILIONS

The learning process about these theories was enlightening and revolutionary. It has changed my previous idea of architectural design process and architectural industry. I find the architectural computing is so advancing and has even permeated into our life stealthily. I have noticed several ‘precocious’ building before, but only after I studied these theories, I started to re-appreciate those designs and research those of the same kind.

In less than one month, I believe this studio has entirely change the approach to my later projects. It brings the knowledge of the cutting-edge area of

this industry, and brought new design ideas to me.

The techniques and knowledge that I learnt from this studio will be so helpful to my previous designs especially the project of Virtual Environment. The parametric design fit the brief of a ‘wearable shelter’ so well. I might probably used a similar form of the Lincoln Park Pavilion (shown above) to create a elastic form to improve my old design. This shape will be very portable and easy-to-wear.

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A.5.1APPENDIX - ALGORITHMIC SKETCHES

FIG.14 RENDERING OF THE SPONGE EXERCISE FIG.15 LINE-WORK OF THE SPONGE MODEL

FIG.16 GRASSHOPPER DEFINITION OF THE SPONGE MODEL

FIG.17 RENDERING OF THE TREE BRANCH EXERCISE FIG.18 LINE-WORK OF THE TREE BRANCH MODEL

FIG.19 MAJOR GRASSHOPPER DEFINITION OF THE TREE BRANCH MODEL

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A.5.2APPENDIX - BIBLIOGRAPHYBrady Peters, ‘Computation Works: The Building of Algorithmic Thought’, Architectural Design, 83.2, (2013), 08-15.

Justin McGar , Computational Design: Buildings Designed and Built By Robots (2014) <http://sourceable.net/> [accessed 19 March 2015].

LIDIJA GROZDANIC, La Voute de LeFevre Installation Investigates Stereotomic Design through Digital Fabrication (2012) <http://www.evolo.us/> [accessed 19 March 2015].

LIDIJA GROZDANIC, Loom Hyperbolic Installation / Barkow Leibinger Architects (2012) <http://www.evolo.us/> [accessed 19 March 2015].

MATSYS DESIGN, FLUX: ARCHITECTURE IN A PARAMETRIC LANDSCAPE (2009) <http://matsysdesign.com/> [accessed 19 March 2015].

Rivka Oxman, Robert Oxman, Theories of the Digital in Architecture, 1 edn (London: Routledge, 2014), p. 1-10.

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A.5.3APPENDIX - BIBLIOGRAPHY FIGURE.1 Heydar Aliyev Center, ZAHA HADID RETRIEVED FROM http://www.arcspace.com/features/zaha-hadid-architects/heydar-aliyev-center/

FIGURE.2 WATER CUBE, PTW Architects, CSCEC, CCDI, and Arup RETRIEVED FROM http://planyourcity.net/2013/03/13/beijings-happy-magic-water-cube/

FIGURE.3 Metropol Parasol, Jürgen Mayer-Hermann RETRIEVED FROM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropol_Parasol

FIGURE.4 ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion, ICD-ITKE University of Stuttgart RETRIEVED FROM http://sourceable.net/computational-design-buildings-designed-built-robots/#

FIGURE.5 La Voûte de LeFevre Installation, Matter Design RETRIEVED FROM http://www.evolo.us/architecture/la-voute-de-lefevre-installation-investigates-stereotomic-design-through-digital-fabrication/

FIGURE.6 An Example of the Algorithm in Grasshopper RETRIEVED FROM http://www.rhino3dhelp.com/tutorials/grasshopper-box-frame/

FIGURE.7 An Example of Algorithmic Design RETRIEVED FROM http://www.grasshopper3d.com/photo/ghinc02-1?xg_source=activity

FIGURE.8 King Abdullah Financial District Metro Station, ZAHA HADID RETRIEVED FROM http://www.telegraph.co.uk/luxury/travel/15458/zaha-hadids-travelling-life.html

FIGURE.9 Loom Hyperbolic Installation, Barkow Leibinger Architects RETRIEVED FROM http://www.evolo.us/architecture/loom-hyperbolic-installation-barkow-leibinger-architects/

FIGURE.10 FLUX Installation, CCA Architecture/MEDIAlab RETRIEVED FROM http://matsysdesign.com/2009/06/25/flux-architecture-in-a-parametric-landscape/

FIGURE.11 Grasshopper Definition of Flux, CCA Architecture/MEDIAlab RETRIEVED FROM http://matsysdesign.com/2009/06/25/flux-architecture-in-a-parametric-landscape/

FIGURE.12 A Conceptual Parametric Architecture RETRIEVED FROM https://leconfident.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/parametric-design.jpeg

FIGURE.13 Lincoln Park Pavilions, Studio Gang Architects RETRIEVED FROM http://www.archdaily.com/83676/lincoln-park-zoo-south-pond-studio-gang-architects/

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PART B.1RESEARCH FIELD - BIOMIMICRY

Biomimicry is an interesting, broad and promising area to be explored. The idea of biomimicry has been used multi-disciplinarily. My first precedent is the ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion. The project developers were inspired by the skeleton structure of the sea urchin. The main material is plywoods and they were joint together just like the way that the sea urchin’s shell plates notch into one another. This biomimicry design provided the project a durable and stable performance.

The second precedent is the Spanish Pavilion built for the 2005 EXPO in Aichi, Japan. The project is obviously a imitation of the structure of honeycombs. The hexagons on the exterior walls provided some of the characteristics of honeycombs, for instance, light-weight, solidity. But this project more likely mirrored the appearance of the honeycomb instead of using its properties.

For my own project development, biomimicry is quite suitable for designing a ecological facility. And I would like to integrate some researches about structure together with biomimicry.

These two research areas could provide me a flexible choice of development. The geologic environment of the Merri Creek is very complex, therefore, I might need to develop a flexible structure with the capability to follow the trend of the creek. I still got some inspiration from the Saville Metrapol, the organic form of the structure may be one of the solutions to my project.

However, there are still few points need to be fixed. First of all, the migration of the aquatic organisms. The Dights Falls has set up a bad precedent for us already as interrupting the natural activities of aquatic life especially fishes. So this wont be the Dights Falls No.2.

FIG.1 THE ICD/ITKE RESEARCH PAVILION

FIG.2 THE SPANISH PAVILION

FIG.3 SEVILLA METROPOL

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PART B.2CASE STUDY 1.0 - EXPLORING THE SPANISH PAVILION

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PART B.3CASE STUDY 2.0 - REVERSE-ENGINEERING

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