Journal (Studio Air)

STUDIO AIR2016, SEMESTER 1, CANHUI CHENJIELUN YANG (692329)

CONTENTS

4 INTRODUCTION

6 A1 DESIGN FUTURING

10 A2 DESIGN COMPUTATION

14 A3 GENERATION & COMPOSITION

16 A4 CONCLUSION

17 A5 LEARNING OUTCOMES

17 A6 APPENDIX

4 CONCEPTUALISATION CONCEPTUALISATION 5

INTRODUCTION

My name is Jielun Yang, this is my third year commencing architectural major in Bachelor of Environments. I was born in Fuzhou, China, a coastal city right next to Taiwan Channel. Due to its special coastal weather and environments, there are huge contrasts and differences in architectural practice compared to inland cities. Gradually, the building comparasion becomes my interest in architecture, and i am keen to explore during the university studies.

Before Year 2, I have not yet convinced myself to choose civil engineering or architecture, because materials are the specific aspects that I am glad to spend time on. Later on, I found civil engineering was mostly doing the projects according to drawings given by architects, which is a sort of restriction of design skills. As a result, I fianlly choose architecture major, as I would prefer to be the man that hand out the drawings, but not simply follow the instructions.

Personally, I think architecture is a major that practise patience and self-esteem. Like those world famous architects, it is quite proud to see city landmarks are designed by themselves, because it is the stage to raise self-confidence. I would like to be the person like one of them, even though i am not so far, I am going to...

CONCEPTUALISATION 7

Garden City.

In the previous architectural design, fancy building facades were regarded as most critical aspects while juding beauty, but today architects start to turn around and think more about the relationship between design and sustainability, which performs dominant position in design future with respect to environmental issues.

FIg.1: gArdEN CITY, OFIS ArChITECTUrE

A1. DESIGN FUTURING

The idea of garden city is pointed out by OFIS architecture, which is composed by proposed buildings and landscape. It is aiming to create a sustainable environments for residents.This project combines both commerial and residential uses within one huge buildings, and provides easy access to overhang balcony and garden. In my opinion, design futuring should be created in this form, residential area could not only be the place where people sleep, but also a semi-openable space where people could touch the environments closely.

From the above space arrangement, the project is still mainly focusing on residents’ living quality. The ‘topography’ goes up and down illustrates different experiences of garden views from various orientatations. One advantage of this design is that each ‘block’ is piled up with eath other without restricting others’ sightseeing. The public access area also enhances and encourages people passing through, so that it conveys an idea that we live in the garden city, while we are also parts of the garden city.

FIg.2: ExTENdEd BALCONY,gArdEN CITY, OFIS ArChITECTUrE

FIg.3: PEdESTrIAN BrIdgE FIg.4: VIEwS FrOm INSIdE

FIg.5: gArdEN CITY BIrd VIEw, OFIS ArChITECTUrE

FIg.6: gArdEN CITY FOOTPATh, OFIS ArChITECTUrE hTTP://PhOTO.zhULONg.COm/PrOj/dETAIL55785.hTmL

hTTP://PhOTO.zhULONg.COm/PrOj/dETAIL55785.hTmL


FIg.7: mACAU SCIENCE CENTrE

Centro de Ciência de Macau (Macau Science Centre):

Centro de Ciência de Macau is designed by famous architect Ieoh Ming Pei, it was built through land reclaimation of 62000 squared metres. The main buildings include two different parts, which is science building and conference building.It attracts visitors by its creative curly facades as well as complex bulding shapes.

The way of Macau Science Centre’s design is quite unique compared with other archtectural projects, since the land shortage became the restriction that limits architects’ creativity. Similarly in other island cities like Hong Kong, land reclaimation is considered as the only possible solution.

Land reclaimation costs much in the early period of construction, but it is beneficial in the long term development. For example, one obvious advantage of this peoject contains excellent sea views and sightseeing, which reach nealy 270 degrees like extented peninsula. Also, the external cladding perfectly reflects blue sky and matches with surrounding ocean, which makes the whole unit act like being in the nature but not just a compostion of architectural elements.

The following model shows the detaild information of Macau Science Centre, including site plan and surrounding landscaping plan. It is observed that each building performs its maximum efficiency in taking up seashore spaces, which is the best spot of the project. The complex geometry also emphasizes the key term of design futuring, ‘creativity’. This architectural stype conveys the idea of modern architecture and people’s understanding of beauty.

FIg.8: mACAU SCIENCE CENTrE mOdEL

FIg.9: mACAU SCIENCE CENTrE PErSPECTIVE VIEw

SOUrCE: hTTP://PhOTO.zhULONg.COm/PrOj/dETAIL22121.hTmL SOUrCE: hTTP://PhOTO.zhULONg.COm/PrOj/dETAIL22121.hTmL


FIg.10 gUANgzhOU TOwEr, gUANgzhOU, ChINA

Guangzhou Tower’s lighting system is also designed by software using rendering and 3D effect. The color constrast between back and forward gives people strong vision impression through computation. Especially, the lighting system could also be moderated under different weather conditions. Computation is quite essential in illustrating complicated patterns and gradual changed patterns, as the difference of detail blocks is minor, computation could not only provide previews, but also minimise tolerance during designing process.

Technicians also used software analyais to indicate surrounding landscape and envionments using different layers. The main tower has been painted into blue showing wireframe. Wireframes allows us to observe everthing inside the stucture, including joints, it tells where element should be located in correct position. This action highlighted the importance structural elements as well as visibility from internal spaces. Generally, computating such a tower is not a tower itself, but also the relationship between itself and surrounding landscape.

A2. DESIGN COMPUTATION

The Guangzhou Tower could be illustrated as a excellent example desinged by computer technology. During the computation process, the tower gives a general expression of lightweight, curly and smooth surface from aesthetic perspective.

The general texture of Guangzhou Tower is impressive, as it is composed by upper elipse and bottom elipe twisting each other and compressing at the mid point in the mean time. There are 24 straight conic steel columns forming the external structural elements, and 46 welded toruses following the twisted patterns. One advantage of using straight columns is cheaper costs and and easy fabrication, in this case, the whole buildings forms a web stucture, which is good for ventilation and prevention of damage from earthquake.

conic steel column framings around the building.

surrounded torus

FIg.12 gUANgzhOU TOwEr SOFTwArE ANALYSIS

FIg.11 gUANgzhOU TOwEr STEEL FrAmINg

FIg.13 LIghT BELT 1 FIg.14 LIghT BELT 2

`By using computer technology, the upper elipse and bottom elopse are divided into 24 segments, while the centre also shifting 10m in north and west direction. This computation process allow 24 columns to be straight acrross the tower.

FIg.15 UPPEr ELIPSE ANd BOTTOm ELIPSE

SOUrCE: hTTPS://zh.wIkIPEdIA.Org/wIkI/%E5%B9%BF%E5%B7%9E%E5%A1%94

SOUrCE: hTTP://www.PANOrAmIO.COm/PhOTO/68729440

SOUrCE: hTTP://www.NIPIC.COm/ShOw/4009608.hTmL


FIg.19 UAE PAVILION UNdEr dAYLIghT FIg.20 UAE PAVILION ShANghAI ExPO 2010

FIg.16 UAE PAVILION, ShANghAI ExPO 2010

The UAE Pavilion in Shanghai Expo 2010 is another successful work finished by computational design. The consequent curve is made by lofting along specific directions, while the surface is hatched into triangular patterns.

In this example, cumputer technology allow this building to be spaned in huge and acceptable distance, and to have the ability to take distributed load from superstructure. The gridshell was also designed during computation process. Similar to Guangzhou Tower, straight supporting elements are used for the roof skeletons to divide UAE Pavilion into two part.

From the drawing on the right hand side, I also realise that computation process design the first part of building into water wave shape, this could only be done by computer since detailed calculation is required to ensure the internal ceiling height not to stress coming vistors.

The outer shell used web structure, the steel elements are divided into small segments and connected joints by joints.and form triangles within each region, which makes a more controllable surface according to geometric properties.

FIg.17 UAE PAVILION CONCEPT drAwINg, ShANghAI ExPO 2010

FIg.18 UAE PAVILION CUrVE ILLUSTrATION, ShANghAI ExPO 2010

South shell is different to north shells, similar to two different hills, one with one peak, and other with two peaks. The north shell applied symmetrical shell structure to expand the underneath spaces, but more importantly is to transfer the load into their edge beams (also called spine beams), and go downwards according to the load path.

FIg.21 UAE PAVILION ShANghAI ExPO ShELL STrUCTUrE

SOUrCE: hTTP://www.VIEwPICTUrES.CO.Uk/dETAILS.ASPx?Id=144690&TYPEId=1

SOUrCE: hTTP://PEICjPrIjN.BLOgSPOT.COm.AU/

SOUrCE: hTTP://hPSE.COm/NEwS/2

SOUrCE: hTTP://www.dESIgNBOOm.COm/ArChITECTUrE/

SOUrCE: hTTP://hPSE.COm/PrOjECTS/18

SOUrCE: hTTP://gULFArTgUIdE.COm/ABU-dhABI-2/ThE-UAE-PAVILION/ SOUrCE: hTTP://ASd-ddrS.Org/wILLIAm/2014/01/09/


A3.GENERATION AND COMPOSITION

During the recent years, computational technology has boosted the progress of generating ideas and construction stages, and consequently digital power becomes an advanced skills or tools to finalise the design projects.

Nympha Cultural Center in Bucharest is a concept proposal designed by Brasov-based upgrade.studio. In this project, computerational technology plays an important role in application of veins system, which is used to collect rainwater for both heating and cooling of the building. The veins system is indicated by red-shaded region on the left hand side.

The veins system is designed by computer software, it is comsist of combination of huge amount of irregular textures. By using digital tools, each texture can be precisely selected according to different pitches and orientations. After series of calculation conducted by computer, the general generated shapes become what we see today, it considered issues like sunpath, downpipe piches and electrical factors, and indirectly increase efficiency and effectiveness. In general, computation could help us generating new design ideas based on various purposes, I believe it can do more in the future.

FIg.22 NYmPhA CULTUrAL CENTrE, BUChArEST

FIg.23 NYmPhA CULTUrAL CENTrE VEINS SYSTEm

FIg.24 NYmPhA CULTUrAL CENTrE (CONCEPT drAwNg)

SOUrCE: hTTP://PArAmETrICgENErATIVE.BLOgSPOT.COm.

The Pudelma Pavilion is designed and constrcuted by Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture in collaboration with Finland’s University. Within this project, computation and digital fabrication are highly important during the shape generating stage.

Before actually doing this project, students have spent large amount of time in parametric design and scripting, especially on overhead dome structure. At that time, CNC machine was introduced, it allows each timber components to be cut into precise length and tilted angle, so that it made the assembling stage much easier. Personally, I think computation contributed a lot, for example, it knows how many segments required to make a curve without obvious sharp edges. The preview mode could also give instant feedback to minimise tolerance.

The most useful advantage is generating environments by computer. Since the project is not just a 1:1 model placed within classroom, it was left outside, so sun shadows as well as tree canopies are better to be stimulated under previewed mode. The above action can be achieved by computation, just few clicks, nearly 100% model has been done on the screen. Electronic models are also the essential reference for real constrcution, so I think digital power takes the dominant position in generating designs and projects.

FIg.25 ThE PUdELmA PAVILION (AT NIghT)

FIg.25 ThE PUdELmA PAVILION (INTErNAL SkELETON)

FIg.25 ThE PUdELmA PAVILION (UNdEr CONSTrUCTION)

SOUrCE: hTTP://www.AA64.NET/

SOUrCE: hTTP://CCgSAPP.Org/BrIEFS/2011/08/SUmmEr-dIgITAL-FABrICATION-PrOjECT-PUdELmA-PAVILION


Compared the first 3 topics in Part A, design futuring was relatively straightforward, as the term futuring is quite broad and simple to be explained and understood. However, it made me confused to distinguish between design computation and computerization in the beginning, but I became clear about the potentials in architecture practice after several precedents have been illustrated in class. Besides, by finding precedents, I gradually develop the ability to ask myself ‘what’ and ‘how’ questions to convince myself during precedent selections. Lastly, I think computation and digital power are not always better than traditional fabrication, since machines are produced by programs, one step wrong might cause failure of entire project, so we could choose design computation, but necessarily rely on them.

A4.CONCLUSIONS A5.LEARNING OUTCOMES

Design futuring, design computation and generation ideas are three important factors in architecture, and they link to each other closely at the same time. Design futuring could be seen as the stage of brainstorming, so that I can imagine what the general tends are going to be. Is it going to be sustainable? Or going to be modern and technological? In other words, design futuring pointed out the orientation I am working on. To finalise the product, design computation allows me to scan the informaton into digital forms, so that I can make good use of them for future reference while doing the real 1:1 model. In conlusion, the first three topic provides a general idea of design, by browsing precedents, I could pick up useful elements in my project and improve the aspects which are not good enough from others’ experiences.

A6.APPENDIX

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