JOURNALJOSHUA GRAF 587672

ARCHITECTURE STUDIO AIR

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Contents

Introduction

Part A: ConceptualisationA.1. Design Futuring

Urban Algae Pavilion - EcoLabStudio Table Cloth - Ball Nogues A.2. Design Computation

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My name is Joshua Graf, a final year Un-dergraduate Environments student, ma-joring in Architecture. Along side archi-tecture I study a diploma in Japanese, and in my 3rd year I spent that year on exchange in Edinburgh, Scotland, focusing on architecture history and seeing a lot of it. I also got to spend Christmas in Poland with some long lost family and make my first ever snowman!

INTRODUCTION

A BIT ABOUT ME

WHY DESIGN?

DESIGN HISTORYThe core of my design work has formed during my time at university but my first attempt at it really began in high school. In my final year of school I opted to take a Visual Communica-tion class over a calculus one because I wanted to practice these design skills. I designed a very aestheti-cally based Art Gallery and made a model to prove it. I then moved onto Univer-sity and took my first stu-dio Virtual Environments where I got stuck into rhi-no and its panelling tools and left the subject with a hanging, papercraft lantern emulating the skin patterns of a snake. My second stu-dio that year left me de-signing a very theoretical tactile “judgement tower” which was my first time properly engaging with a site and immersing myself in developing and respond-ing to ideas. Then came the Architecture Design Studio water where I learnt to fa-miliarise myself with the work of Architectural Mas-ters, designing a boathouse using the formal strategies of my chosen architect Her-zog and De Meuron.

I derive a passion for design from 2 per-spectives. The first is just part of me. I have always liked to draw, make paper mache, construct pyramids of lego, or help my dad build things. I suppose you could see this side of me as the desire to create both for the sake of aesthetics and out of enjoyment for the process.

A ABOUTBIT

ME

The second perspective is that I have come to realise that design can have a purpose and actually be useful, and so in turn I can have a purpose and be useful. And I be-lieve it is this side of the 2 that is stronger in driving my passion for design because it itself grows as I slowly pick up and un-derstand more about the world and how design can help and inform it.

How’d I get up there?!

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

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URBAN ALGAE CANOPY - ecoLogicStudio A.1. DESIGN FUTURING

THE PROJECT

THEORY ENGAGED

FUTURES IMAGINED

large is the possibility of considering ar-chitecture almost as a literal organic structure. As portrayed by ecoLogicStu-dio, “it is now time to overcome the seg-regation between technology and nature typical of the mechanical age, to embrace a systemic understanding of architec-ture”. This “systemic understanding” is an attempt to frame architecture through a glass that acknowledges that what we choose to construct should not only serve people and their needs but should too be integrated into, and have integrated into it systems that can work to negate the destructive effects our societies unques-tionably create for the environment we inhabit. The Urban Algae Canopy attempts to engage this theory of natural integra-tion and give a tantalising example of how technology like that developed in “algae-tecture” could be effectively assimilated into the general urban fabric.

It is not so radical an idea as ideas for adapting algae for various uses in archi-tecture have been developed in the past (such as algae panels to generate electric-ity). However it is definitely very timely and very effective in getting people to properly imagine a future where organic life is intricately comwbined into the built environment. the qualities of a place like a forest could be established, with variable lighting and shade, generated oxygen and a response to visitors and beings within its presence.

The Urban Algae Canopy is designed by the team at ecoLogicStudio for the World Expo 2015 in Milan as part of the Future Food District Project. Whilst being a canopy, the structure involves a bio-digital system de-veloped by the team over the past 6 years which runs a flow of algae, water, energy and CO2 through the structure which not only generates the equivalent oxygen of 4 hectares of woodland and up to 150kg of biomass per day but also responds to user presence via increasing the flows within the system to dynamically alter the avail-able shade and its intensity. It is this union of nature and parametric design that drew me to this project.

The relevance of this project to society at

ecoLogicStudio. 2014. ‘Algae Canopy’. ecoLogicStudio < http://www.ecologicstudio.com/v2/project.php?idcat=3&idsubcat=59&idproj=137 > [accessed 3:19pm 12/03/2015]

Testado.J. 2014. ‘The Urban Algae Canopy shows the power of “algaetecture” for Milan Expo 2015’. Archinect News. < http://archinect.com/news/article/98218917/the-urban-algae-canopy-shows-the-power-of-algaetecture-for-milan-expo-2015> [accessed 3:35pm 12/03/2015]

Image 1 < http://www.ecologicstudio.com/v2/medias/imgs/projects/1746-P-137-20141020073418.jpg>

Image 2 < http://cdn.archinect.net/images/514x/wv/wvemft8agvhqy7bd.jpg>

Image 1 - Urban Algae Canopy Render

Image 2 - System prototype currently be-ing showcased at the University of Milan. The prototype depicts the algae system and the shading reaction to visitors.

Image 2 - System prototype currently be-ing showcased at the University of Milan. The prototype depicts the algae system and the shading reaction to visitors.

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TABLE CLOTH - Ball Nogues Architects

The base of the design develops from Ball Nogue’s research into the reuse of tempo-rary structures and installations. Instead of destroying or disposing of the installation after its purpose has been served, they have developed a manufacturing meth-odology they call “Cross Manufacturing” that constructively critiques the three R’s of sustainability (recycling, reuse and re-purposing), processes that normally down-cycle material into less valuable states. Cross Manufacturing defined by Ball

As a symbolic gesture of sustainability and a reminder that the buildings we construct are impermanent, the installation envis-ages a less deterministic view of products, buildings and materials into the future. Table Cloth questions single-purpose or un-adaptable creations almost with a view that waste for the sake of ‘something we don’t want to use anymore’ is unacceptable.

THEORY ENGAGEDFUTURES IMAGINED

Table cloth by Ball Nogues is an archi-tectural installation designed for a music school courtyard that creates a “fabric” from tables and stools collectively linked together. Each of these low, coffee-style tables and 3 legged stools are unique and are designed specifically for the installa-tion but also to be used day to day. Table Cloth serves as an “integrated set piece, backdrop, and seating area for student musical performance and everyday social interaction”.

THE PROJECT Nogues is “an integrated design and manu-facturing strategy that harnesses digital computation and fabrication technologies to make architectural scaled installations that become collections of smaller scaled products”. In the context of this project, at the end of the installation period the ‘fabric’ was broken down into its ‘smaller scaled products’, i.e. tables and chairs, and distributed out to the local commu-nity. As such, in the one action the project is making a comment both on how we think about building and reusing architectural installations, and one-purpose-consumer products we manufacture.

Ball Nogues. 2010. ‘Table Cloth for courtyard at Schoen-berg Hall’ < http://www.ball-nogues.com/#project-87> [accessed 6:15pm 12/03/2015]

Image 1 - Top View of Table Cloth

Image 2,3,4 - Detail Views

Image 5 - View from behind installation

A.1. DESIGN FUTURING

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Computing itself cannot design, we the au-tonomous must still provide the rules, al-gorithms and intent to make the computer generated relevant to real life. But as ar-gued by Kalay (2004) computing as a form of untiring and exact calculation influences the design process by allowing us to create things our easily distracted and

often mistaken minds cannot. By utilizing contemporary programs and technologies, such as grasshopper, there is greater po-tential for geometrical and formal theoreti-cal exploration via the program’s ability to flesh out visual form based upon the com-plex algorithms we have not had the ability nor time to comprehend. A great example of this exploration is shown through the studio Biothingy, whose projects such as Climath demonstrate an application of very complex and algorithmic based forms to enhance and inform the creation of a real space.

As such, computing has re-defined practice in architecture (and design in general) par-ticularly in the past 20 years, with docu-mentation for example shifting from hand drawn to digitally drawn and now even to BIM methods for distributing construction information. In the past 5-10 years, the el-evated level to which complexity can be achieved through computation has begun effecting the industry and has led to in-creasing the variety and scope of designs. In addition, the advent of new

fabrication technologies has changed the way construction too is thought about. Projects and installations such as Hotel Puerta America by Plasma Studio, or Soft-lab’s GAUD13 are good examples of this, where the scope of 3D moves beyond the linear and into a realm of complexity and distortion. This computation also has the potential to begin imbedding into the complexity systems for evaluating sustain-ability and assessing things like material use or structural integrity.

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DESIGN COMPUTATION

Image 1: Climath by Biothingy Image 3: Hotel Puerta America by Plasma Studio

Image 2: GAUD13 by Softlabs

Kalay, Yehuda E. (2004). Architecture’s New Media: Principles, Theories, and Methods of Computer-Aided Design (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press), pp. 5-25 Image 1: http://plethora-project.com/complete-works/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/20c-hires-mod.jpg Image 2: http://softlabnyc.com/wp-content/up-loads/2015/02/guad_2013_17.jpg Image 3: http://www.plasmastudio.com/work/im-ages/architecture/Hotel_Puerta_America/PS_HPA_PHOT_BILT_02.jpg

A.1. DESIGN COMPUTATION

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