Concept form Sydney

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Research Matrix

The Adaptive - Future - Interactive

Theoretical issue:

As a reaction to the unpredictability of the future and the rigid programming constraints of functionalism, the era of flexible architecture arrives. Flexible buildings respond easily to change throughout their lifetime. They accommodate user’s experiences/intervention, adapt to technical innovation more readily, and offer the potential to be economically and ecologically more viable.

Experiment:

Investigate computer technologies that may be of value in the recent shift toward a new generation of contemporary, flexible buildings and flexibility within the design process.

Schedule:

Weeks 12-13/15

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
-George Bernard Shaw

“OMA’s work… are perceived firstly, to recode traditional typologies and to tease out the lore of the aesthetic of commodity fetishism, without turning against the temporality that is essential to modernism.” (Gervork Hartoonian, Skyplane)

Scholarship:

‘Flexible; Architecture that responds to change’ Robert Kronenburg

Tony Owen – 3D software to achieve radical curved forms that are translate into buildable laser-cut structures.

‘Skyplane’ – Richard Francis Jones (particularly Gervork Hartoonian’s essay…)

Precedents:

Rotating Tower, Dubai, David Fischer

Rem Koolhaus (OMA) works – Seattle Library, Museum Plaza Tower & CCTV Building

Method of investigation:

1. Explore the flexibility within the design process through the understanding of the capabilities of Revit 2010 software and its opportunity for generative components.

Modes of representation:

Revit 2010 (uses generative components)

3D computer models & videos

Vertical - Present - Consumerism

Theoretical issue:

The present capitalist era thrives on consumerism – the measure of success is determined by material acquisition of desired commodities. This cyclic desire for the latest technology results in a gluttony of excess and an infinite accumulation of the obsolete.

Experiment:

Reinvigorate the obsolete…

Schedule:

Weeks 10-11/15

“Waste equals food, whether it's food for the earth, or for a closed industrial cycle. We manufacture products that go from cradle to grave. We want to manufacture them from cradle to cradle.” (William McDonough)

Scholarship:

‘Tall Building: Imagining the Skyscraper’ – Scott Johnson

‘Cradle to Cradle’ William McDonough

Precedent 1-2:

Ensamble Studio’s “Truffle House” – rapid construction, strawbale house & filmic presentation

‘Shipping Container buildings’ – Weekend House, Keetwonen Complex & Container City

Method of investigation:

1. Research current uses for obsolete materials

2. Develop appropriate film editing skills & software expertise

3. Use an obsolete material to construct a vertical structure in a specified timeframe, documented by film.

Modes of representation:

Creative filmic presentation of our research and the experiment.

Horizontal - Past - Individual

Theoretical issue:

A major concern at present is the loss of the ‘individual’ in the present digital age. Industrialisation has extinguished the presence of the human touch in design. Movements in the past, such as the Arts & Crafts Movement and Organic Architecture have sought to assert haptic expression and reject the machine-made.

Experiment:

Inspired by these past movements, we respond with ‘survival’ tactics for the digital age…

Schedule:

Weeks 8-9/15

“Computer imaging tends to flatten our magnificent, multi-sensory, simultaneous and synchronic capabilities of imagination by turning the design process into a passive, visual manipulation, a retinal journey. The computer creates a distance between the maker and the object, whereas drawing by hand as well as model-making put the designer into a haptic contact with the object or space.” (Juhani Pallasma)

Scholarship:

Steven Holl / Juhani Pallasmaa ‘The Eyes of the Skin’

Precedents:

Steven’s Holl’s ‘Horizontal Skyscraper’

“A horizontal megastructure, lifted to a variable height of nine to fourteen metres off the ground, will stretch over an invented landscape designed - as Holl himself states - "like a scribble'.”

Method of investigation:

1. Artistic exploration within digital reproduction

2. Artistic exploration of the ‘horizontal’ within the typical vertical city, using image-capturing media

3. Artistic Exploration of the unexpected side effects that personalise an otherwise standardised form

Modes of representation:

3D Models & images