Modern Translations, Contemporary Methods: DL-1...

212 ACADIA05: Smart Architecture

G. Luhan / Modern Translations, Contemporary Methods: DL-1_Resonance House®

Modern Translations, Contemporary Methods:DL-1_Resonance House®

Gregory A. Luhan1

1 University of Kentucky

Abstract

As the first design-build-fabricate-assemble experiment at our school, the intent of the studio was to design aframework from which to examine a “lived space” through digital-to-digital processes. Moving from digitalmodels and physical stereo lithographic models to hand-fabrication and digital assembly allowed the studentsto move from creation to completion. As part of our holistic design process, the studio fabricated almost allcomponents for the project. These elements include the wood flooring, the copper and wood skins, the building’sstructural panels, and the two-story light vortex.This single-family, in-fill house is located within an historic downtown neighborhood and is subject to historicdistrict zoning regulations, design guidelines, and Board of Architecture Review approvals. The project isanalogous to design challenges presenting themselves in historic districts throughout the United States includingthe Savannah, Georgia site for the 2005 ACADIA Conference. The scale of the project relates well to thehorizontal nature of this context and after a formal, televised review process with the local Board of ArchitectureReview, the project represents a dynamic, yet sympathetic architectural dialogue with the surrounding buildings.The project develops simultaneously from the exterior and interior resulting in two courtyards that mediatethe urban “front door” and the private “terrace.” The students designed these areas through a series of two-dimensional axonometric drawings, three-dimensional physical and digital models, and four-dimensionaltime-based animations. The building massing separates into two core elements: gabled copper volume andwood screen volume. These elements maintain their conceptual purity by using the same types of modulationson their skins. The copper form with its deep-cut reveals and proportionally placed light scoring patternsreflects the horizontal datum lines of the floor, sill, threshold, and ceiling. In contrast, the wood volumereflects these same lines as applied “shadow screens” which create depths that seamlessly tie together theside, rear, and front facades.The hinge point of the house is the light vortex. Designed in Rhino, translated in Catia, fabricated out ofaluminum, and clad in stainless steel, this two-story sculptural element will literally wrap light around itssurfaces. Like a sunflower, the light vortex, with its angel hair stainless steel finish, responds to the incrementaldifferentiation of light throughout the day. Photosensitive floor-mounted lights designed to augment the volumeof natural light will provide a continuous light rendition on the sculpture. The project, scheduled for completionat the end of the 2005 summer session, is at the time of this submission about 60% complete.

ACADIA05: Smart Architecture 213


In the last ten years, the profession has embracedexplorations in perception linked to the emergingarchitecture associated with digital technology. Asarchitects trained to synthesize a wide array ofconstraints and facts, when working with thedigital we must work at the conceptual level wherea framework exists. In order for new forms ofpractice to emerge, we must unite educatedknowledge with trained skill. With the greatreduction in cost of software such as Rhino, Catia,and Lamina as well as the increasing integrationof BIM (Building Information Management)software, it is no longer necessary to translatethree-dimensional digital models back into two-dimensional drawings to produce “conventional”working drawings. These types of software allowa very direct synthesis to occur between theoriginal idea and its formal application with a highlevel of precision and accuracy. The sites fordigital architecture are synthetic, ultimatelyproviding the architect a place to improvise withinspatial and temporal limits. I posit, that byaugmenting the traditional ways of knowing withthe more contemporary and technologicallyadvanced ways of seeing, architects willundoubtedly develop the capacity to visualize andunderstand spatial relationships that wouldotherwise be too time-consuming to discover. Thedigital design-build studio illustrated in this paperbrings this digital intersection into the field ofconstruction.

Software, technology, and industry are leading andshaping the architecture profession as neverbefore. In response, I established an all-digitaldesign studio in 1999 at The University ofKentucky (then the College of Architecture, nowthe College of Design-School of Architecture), tocombine the strong tradition of handcrafting in theexisting design program with thosetechnologically sophisticated tools shaping theprofession for the 21st century. Our primary goalwas to afford the students a greater flexibility indesign, and eventually as future practitioners,develop innovative solutions for design efficiency,affordability, and sustainability. The materialspresented here reflect a logical next step of asequence of comprehensive digital projectsproduced under my direction from 1999 through2004. These projects varied in scale, site, context,and material and represented a broad spectrum ofdesign execution, from experimental installationsto permanent inhabitations.

Figure 1. Synthetic Landscapes Studio, Publication Cover

Figure 2. Synthetic Landscapes Installation at Founder’sSquare in Louisville, Kentucky. Architecture’s In-betweenAppearance and Reality

In creating this digital studio at the University ofKentucky, I have forged relationships throughoutthe College of Design, the College of Engineering,the Center for Robotics and Manufacturing, andthe Center for Visualization. Within theseinterdisciplinary connections faculty from a wide-range of disciplines intersect to develop and furtherresearch initiatives. It is from this collaborativecontext that this project, DL-1_ResonanceHouse®, emerged.



Fall 2004 | DL-1 Resonance House: InfillDesigns for Historic Neighborhoods

Figure 3. Virtual Arrival and Departure Points within theinstallation (Student design by Lisa Neidhardt)

Figure 4. Spaces for Rave within the installation (Studentdesign by Aaron Anderson)

The goal of this fifteen-week design studio projectwas to generate a framework for fabricating infill-housing solutions in historic neighborhoods. Thiscollaborative studio comprised of historicpreservation, architecture, interior design, andengineering students proposed, “A volumetric

architectural response to public and private livedspace that was bridged by light.” This missionstatement provided a generative discourse thatproduced a set of design development drawingsfor a 2,800-sqft house, a series of digital andphysical models, and formal presentations atdesign reviews attended by local practitioners andthe local Board of Architectural Review. Thestudio separated into three distinct, yet intertwinedcomponents: design and detailing, fabrication andassembly, and documentation.

Figure 5. From Manual to Digital – Carving Foundation,Publication Cover

Figure 6. Hand-carving Alabaster Workshop with digital re-creations and visualizations used to translate the actual stonethrough point cloud data into digital models. The final digitaloutcome was a sequence of stereolithographic models usedas mock-ups for the design of full-scale structural bases forexhibiti

As the first digital-to-digital design-build-fabricate-assemble experiment at our school, theintent of the fall studio was to examine a “livedspace” through digital-to-digital processes.



Figure 7. The Deep-Time Probe, Investigations into LightArchitecture. A full-scale installation and digital laserprojection event

Figure 8. Digital-to-Digital Studio, Publication Cover

Moving from digital models and physical stereolithographic models to hand-fabrication and digitalassembly enabled actualization of the project. Thestudents created a series of flexible, open-wallstructural panels, which by the end of the springsemester were ready for placement on the site,tilting into position, and assembly. As part of theholistic design process, the studio fabricatedalmost all components for the project. Theseelements include the wood flooring, the copperand wood skins, the building’s structural panels,and the two-story light vortex. To understandbetter, how the pieces of the construction puzzlewould fall into place, the students produced asequential animation of the construction assemblyand a ½”=1’-0” scaled, laser cut, wood structuralmodel. For many of the students it was the firsttime that their incremental digital drawings,

manufacturer discussions, and hand-sketches wereactualized.

Introduction

This project is a work-in-progress that offersstudents from architecture, historic preservation,interior design, and engineering the chance toexplore a variety of digital software media and, ina collaborative framework, address issues ofdesign, fabrication, and full-scale assembly.Reflecting the realities of the profession today, thisreal world, single-family house venture activelyintegrates advances in software into the designprocess, allowing students to move beyond basicrepresentation and documentation of the designconcept to an advanced analysis and understandingof fabrication concerns.

The studio sought expertise for these projects fromthe professional design community and forged tieswith local and national industries. Practitionerswere involved not only in the formal jury reviewsbut dynamically integrated into the monthly designcharrettes. Students developed their designs in thecontext of a professional design team, whichincluded structural engineers, fabricators,contractors, architects, theorists, code enforcementofficers, and civic officials as well as members oflocal governing organizations, including our localarchitectural review board. Students displayedtheir work at a variety of exhibitions and atnational and international design and technologyconferences to contribute to and learn aboutemerging ideas in digital design and to witnessfirsthand how design affects communities.Participating practitioners also learned potentialuses for a variety of materials and gained greaterinsight into how increased and innovative uses oftechnology could transform their own designs andcareers.

While one emphasis of this all-digital studio wasto expand the students’ creative and visualizationskills, another was to develop technical knowledgethrough allied seminars and elective classes thatcentered on the fabrication process. Ultimately,the goal of this course of study was to develop acomprehensive design/build opportunity thatwould demonstrate that contemporary designcould not only enhance the historic context butalso create a dynamic resonance between thehistoric fabric and the methods of building today.



Figure 10. 1/2"=1'-0" Scale Structural Mode

Figure 11. Design/Review Charrette with local practitionersand industry experts, 02.18.2005

Figure 12. Historic Analysis and Growth Patterns of theWestern Suburb Historic DistrictFigure 9. ½”=1’-0” Scale Structural Model as Exploded

Axonometric



Schematic Design

In the fall 2004 semester, a comprehensive Collegeof Design studio encompassing students from theSchools of Architecture and Interior Design andthe Department of Historic Preservationcollaborated on various market-responsiveproposals for an in-fill site within the downtownLexington area. After resolving a sequence ofcomplex issues that ranged from understandinglocal building codes to implementing historicoverlay guidelines, student teams formulateddesigns for presentation that offered a proof-of-concept, real world construction experience forthe students. The competitive aspects of the twelvestudents and the divergent nature of the design

teams found a common ground in November 2004after they attended the 2004 ACADIA NationalConference in Toronto, ON. The project thatemerged by the fall semester’s end touted a designmission statement of “a market-driven,architectural response to public and private livedspace bridged by light.” The students presentedthis common proposal to the Lexington-FayetteCounty Urban Government (LFUCG) Board ofArchitectural Review (BOAR) for schematicdesign review and then to the College of Design’sall-school review. The lessons learned from theseexternal reviews shaped the design proposal.

Site

The location of this single-family, in-fill house iswithin a historic downtown neighborhood and issubject to historic district zoning, designguidelines, and Board of Architecture Review(BOAR) approvals. The project is analogous todesign challenges presenting themselves inhistoric districts throughout the United Statesincluding the Savannah, Georgia site for the 2005ACADIA Conference. The scale of the projectrelates well to the horizontal nature of this contextand after a review process with the local BOAR,it represents a dynamic, yet sympatheticarchitectural dialogue with the surroundingbuildings.

Design Process

The process of moving from digital-to-physicalmodels to stereo lithographic models to hand-fabrication and digital assembly was important toour studio investigation because it enabled thestudents’ opportunities to integrate quicklydifferent design solutions. The necessity for thisdigital-to-digital (D2D) approach stemmed fromthe narrowness of the existing site, the site’simmediate adjacency to surrounding historicstructures, and the temporal weather patterns thatoften plague construction schedules in the earlyKentucky springtime when the house was due tobegin construction. The strategy that emerged fromthe D2D process series of assemblies that couldbe pre-constructed in the shop, temporarily storedoff site, easily transported to the site, and then tiltedinto place as needed.

Figure 13. Photograph of 1/8”=1’-0” Scale Context Model



Figure 14. Images of Student Presentation at the Lexington-Fayette Urban County

Figure 15. Exploded Axonometric of Building Components

A thorough analysis of the historic patterns ofdevelopment in the area proved that the currentin-fill zoning guidelines were incompatible withthe immediate context. The studio presented thesefindings to the BOAR, which in turn, supportedour contextual assessment. The building’s

orientation now responds in part to two forces-the shift of the surrounding buildings to the railcarsthat served the Western Suburb in the mid-1800sand the prevalent solar angles in the region. Whileequally important, the vitality proposed by theseopportunities affected the building design inuniquely different ways. Like the storefronts thatline the street, the rotation of the building opensthe front façade to oncoming traffic. In fact, ourbuilding, anchors one of the Kodak moments alongthe historic streetscape at the intersection of OldGeorgetown Street and Ballard Avenue. Likewise,the building’s placement exposed the building toa wider degree angle of southern exposure, whichin turn allowed the students to examine the usesof applied shading devices and passive greensystems for blocking the sun’s rays during thecooling months while allowing the sun to passthrough during the typical heating months.

Over the ensuing weeks, a more formal designdevelopment package that responded to thereviewer’s comments began to take shape,including the building massing, the design of thefacades, and the selection of building materials.The building massing separates into two coreelements: a gabled copper volume and a woodscreen volume. These elements maintain theirconceptual purity by using the same types ofmodulations on their skins. Reflecting thehorizontal datum lines of the floor, sill, threshold,and ceiling as deeply cut reveals andproportionally placed light scoring patterns, thecopper form responds to both material limitationand spatial configuration. In contrast, the woodvolume reflects these same lines as applied“shadow screens” which create depths thatseamlessly tie together the side, rear, and frontfacades. The project simultaneously developedfrom the inside toward the outside and from theexterior through the interior, resulting in a designproposal with two courtyards that mediate theurban “front door” and the private “terrace.” Thestudents shaped these areas through a series of 2-dimensional axonometric, 3-dimensional physicaland digital models, and 4-dimensional time-basedanimations. At the beginning of the springsemester, the studio presented their completedesign development package work for finalapproval. The LFUCG televised this formalcritique and broadcasted it locally as a matter ofpublic record. The BOAR unanimously approvedthe scheme and issued the required Certificate ofAppropriateness (COA) on January 18, 2005.



Spring 2005, Design Development: Permitting-Fabrication-Assembly

Upon COA issuance, the structure, DL-1_Resonance House®, began to develop. Thestudio focus shifted from conceptual design anddesign development to permitting, constructability,and fabrication. Early in the semester, we wrote alegal easement between the adjacent propertiesgaining off-street parking for both 147 OldGeorgetown Street and our site at 151 OldGeorgetown Street. To facilitate the project, thestudio also enrolled in a construction methodscourse entitled Building Systems Integrationtaught by Professor Bruce Swetnam in the School

of Architecture. In this class, the methods ofmaking and realizing the project were pre-determined from our initial research. As acollective team, the studio completed a design andfabrication schedule, and (using the BIM softwareprogram REVIT) produced a comprehensive setof working drawings and digital visualizationmodels within the first five weeks of the springsemester.

Our original BIM models were further engineeredinto wood and steel fabrication shop drawings afterconsultation with Peyman Jahed, Ethan Buell, andGyles Winkler of Buell, Fryer, and McReynoldsStructural Engineers. Using these documents as a

Figure 16. Studio Visualizations, View From Rear Courtyard (top); View From FrontAlong Old Georgetown Street (bottom)



set of shop tickets, the students digitallydimensioned, cut, and assembled standardcomponents into open-wall wood structural panelsunder the supervision of Carroll Fackler, theDirector of the University of Kentucky, Collegeof Agriculture, at the Department of Forestry’sWood Utilization Center. From our digital models,the local steel fabricator, Fab Steel, fabricated therequired bearing plates, columns, angles, supportclips, and the structural tubes and beams for ourcurtain wall.

Figure 17. Panel Fabrication Shop Tickets for the First Floorand Second Floor Structure

In our initial planning schedule, I had allotted twoweeks to complete the 50+ panels, but once thefloor templates were established and cut sheetsproduced, the assembly took only three days tocomplete. The students transported the results ofthese efforts to a staging warehouse located lessthan one mile from our site. As part of our holisticdesign process, the studio fabricated almost allcomponents for the project. These elementsinclude the wood flooring (four days) and thewood skins (four days). While one group ofstudents was fabricating these materials,professional contractors surveyed and excavated

the site and poured the concrete foundation wallsand slab, while another group of students wassourcing the next set of building materials.

Figure 18. Images of CNC Milling scribing the WallTemplates and Views from the Wall Panel Fabrication

Figure 19. Roof Truss Fabrication



Figure 21. Photographs of the “Stone Slinger” and ConcreteReinforcement Mesh Inlay

Millwork and Interior Design

The students collectively detailed the millworkdrawings for the kitchen, bathrooms, study, andbedrooms. The details and layout of these elementsemerged from conversations with Ann Dickson,Director of Interior Design; Jennifer Eaton, aninstructor in the School of Interior Design; andlocal practitioners Brooks Meador (BrooksMeador Interior Design, Inc.) and Carey Spalding(BC Woodworking). Accompanying these detaileddrawings, were another set of cut sheets thatallowed the students to pre-manufacture the boxes,doors, and pre-drill the hinges of all of thecabinetry. This process started on April 11, 2005and by the end of the spring semester three weekslater, the students had constructed 75% of themillwork and 80% of the structure for the house.

Summer 2005, Project Erection

Site Construction

Even with the extremely tight tolerances of thedigital-to-digital process, the choice to use poured-in-place concrete rather than pre-cast concretefoundation caused a slight delay in the erection ofour project. Fortunately, the modulation of thebuilding was able to absorb the discrepancieswithout negatively affecting the design. Tounderstand better the deviations from the originaldimensions, the students digitally measured thebuilding and began developing an alternative as-built digital model to track the changes.

In the six-week gap between spring and summersessions, six of the original twelve studentscontinued to develop the project. We treated thefoundations, corrected surface irregularities,sealed the basement walls, poured the basementslab, set the steel columns, laid the TrusJoist Silentfloor system and Parallam beams, glued, andscrewed the OSB sub floor, backfilled theexcavation, and rough graded the site.

On June 9, 2005, the summer session began infull, with the tilting of the first floor wall panelsand framing of the interior walls. By June 15, thesecond floor sub floor was in place in the rearvolume and framing the stair tower was underway.By June 17, the “bridge between the two volumes”was set and work on the front volume’s secondfloor was beginning. We anticipate that the finishframing and that the enclosed black box will be

Figure 20. Photographs of Footing and Concrete Formwork



complete within two weeks. As of this writing,the framing continues and the students arepreparing fabrication documents for the building’scopper skins for a local fabricator. Localprofessional electrical, mechanical, and plumbingcontractors will complete work during late Juneand early July. As these contractors work inside,we will finish fabricating the interior millwork,detailing the material finishes, installing theredwood and copper siding, and fabricating thehinge point of the house - the “light vortex.”Light Vortex

“Metal is the material of our time. It enablesarchitecture to become sculptural; it also expressestechnological possibility as well as the time-honored characteristics of quality andpermanence.” Frank O. Gehry

In September 2004, my colleague, Robert Oglefrom the Center for Historic Architecture andPreservation (CHAP) at the University ofKentucky, and I formed Design Lab, Inc®. DesignLab is a private-not-for-profit company whose

Figure 22. Photographs of Concrete Slab Pour Prior to Finish

Figure 23. Millwork Shop Tickets for Kitchen Cabinetry



mission statement is to “enhance our builtenvironment through research and education” byenabling design/build projects, such as the DL-1_Resonance House® for the University ofKentucky and other schools of architecture. Toelevate the digital-to-digital processes that I havebeen developing over the last seven years and toexpand our links to industry beyond the regioninto the national level, we visited the fabricationplant for the A. Zahner Company, who hasfabricated a majority of Frank Gehry’s work aswell as Steven Holl’s Turbulence House amongothers. I wrote a proposal for them to assist us infabricating, engineering, and installing of a portionof our project, a 24-foot tall sculptural lightelement, and the light vortex. A small section ofthis sculptural element was on exhibit during the2005 ACSA National Conference in Chicago andthen installed at the all-College of Designexhibition in Lexington.

Designed in FormZ and Rhino, then translated intoCatia before fabrication, this two-story element,structured with aluminum fins and substructureand then clad in stainless steel, literally wraps lightaround its surfaces. Like a sunflower, the lightvortex, with its angel hair stainless steel finish,responds to the incremental differentiation of lightthroughout the day. Designed in collaboration withthe Cuban lighting designer, Joe Reybarreau,photosensitive floor mounted light fixturesaugment the volume of natural light so that its skinwill appear to change colors over the course ofthe day. In addition to lighting, the form creates afigural focal point enclosure that contains thefireplace box, and acts as a mechanical plenumthat conceals all of the mechanical ducts andelectrical conduits that rise to the second floor.Due to its placement, this object anchors the entrysequence and is visible in a variety of angles bothinside and outside of the house.

Opposite the vortex, a two-story curtain wallmarks the edges of the overall light void. In plan,the L-shaped curtain wall inversely relates to theadjacent single-story house on the south end ofthe site, while in section, it provides striated visualaccess from the second floor. A terraced areabeyond this glazed wall extends the axis of thekitchen and dining room beyond the living roomout toward the rear of the site. A water-jet cutcopper screen wall at the property boundaryterminates this alignment. Figure 24. Photographs of Basement and First Floor

Framing



Conclusion

Over a six-year period, this all-digital designstudio has developed from a pedagogical modelfor developing new ways of seeing and makingarchitecture to a “proof-of-concept” experiencethat blends state-of-the-art visualizationtechniques with contemporary expectations ofpractice and construction. Creating these links

between students, industry, and the profession hasallowed the College of Design to provideleadership for practicing architects, to create adialogue between industrial and designprofessionals, and to integrate design pedagogywith the technological applications that will shapethe future of architecture practice. The resultingeffect has been a series of virtual studies with real-world applications and an increased role for

Figure 25. Design and Fabrication Process of the Light Vortex with the A. Zahner Company (Kansas City)



students in shaping a new reality for practicethrough advances in technology and industry.

Much strength associated with this multi-disciplinary partnership has enabled a rethinkingof the traditional teaching of design studio so thatit can align with the pursuit of research, fundingopportunities, and a deeper understanding of themarket place that would not have otherwise beenpossible. Further, this relationship has celebratedthe dynamic relationship between visualization,representation, and fabrication-both by hand anddigital making without compromising either one.An innovative partnership between Design Lab,Inc®, a private not-for-profit company, and theUniversity of Kentucky facilitated the DL-1_Resonance House® design build studio.Founded to facilitate design build projects forschools of design and historic preservation DesignLab, Inc.’s mission to enhance the builtenvironment through research and educationallows for a unique approach for students to workon real world design, fabrication, and constructionsolutions while receiving academic credit. DesignLab’s professional volunteers manage all of thebusiness end of the transaction with the client andhelp source financing for the project throughcorporate sponsors and other donations. DesignLab also provides grants to their partner schoolsand scholarships to students of design andpreservation. The creation of Design Lab, Inc®and its affiliation agreement with the Universityof Kentucky, has given the students invaluable realworld learning experience that narrows the gapbetween the design drawing process andactualization methods. It has allowed architecture,interior design, and historic preservation studentsto form sets of teams with a wide range ofpractitioners, industry-specialists, and researchers(inside and outside of academia) and it hasafforded them access to technologies that wecurrently do not have within our program. Thisprocess will continue to develop as this projectnears completion at the end of the 2005 summersession in mid-August.

Figure 26. Design Lab, Inc. Logo

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