Architecture of Transition

Topic

Architecture of Transition

Our daily life can be characterized by the complex range of activities that we partake in.  We are inevitably on journeys, both long and short, to and from activities.  In movement. We spend a large amount of our time coming and going from one place to another, which presents an incredible opportunity to choreograph inspiring and dynamic experiences in even the most fleeting of transition spaces. 

Issue

As our buildings today get more and more complex, involving a multitude of mixed-use programmatic requirements, spanning across numerous levels with various connections above and below ground in between, it can be extremely challenging to navigate and move through various spaces. The lack of consistency with human spatial cognition processes can lead to difficulties in orientation and way-finding and have a negative effect on one’s well-being, as well as result in functional circulation deficiencies.

Position

Using architecture as the primary guiding medium to navigate through and between spaces has the potential to trigger a powerful positive impact on one’s perceptions and provide an enhanced and intriguing spatial experience.

Strategies

1. The role of narrative structure in architecture – spatial cognition and interdependent relationships; how messaging and meaning are conveyed to the viewer through the architecture

2. The Body in Motion – Sensory and tactile relationships; perceptual experience of the moving user

3. Spatial Hierarchy and landmarks – unique nodes marking significant moments along the journey 

Architecture for De-materialized Man (update 1)

Following my previous post, here is a rough sketch showing a non-mass produced/customized neighborhood.

       

Bio-Logic Driven Architecture

"Buildings are living organisms" - Moshe Safdie

"A building functions like an organism therefore it could be organised to comply with similar laws to those that regulate living systems." - Marcos Cruz on Le Corbusier

Issue

Buildings are filled with incompatible systems that entwine and scale the horizontal and vertical surfaces, usually quite visible and unattractive. The building envelope, structural members, electrical systems and mechanical ducting are all various parts that form the organs of the building, yet are completely different and separate entities.

Thesis

Architecture can benefit from being thought of as living organisms whose functions and behaviors are determined by the relationship between the parts within a whole. The process of adding a bio-logic to both the make up of the "intestines" and the "skin" to deal with energy transfers and maintaining the internal quality resonates with the efficiency and self sustenance that is abundantly evident in nature.

Strategies

1. Regulate Homeostasis (Regulation of the internal environment)

Using the envelope of the building to transport air to various locations of the building thus removing the need for separate duct work that would be typically required in contemporary buildings.

2. Self Organization through Inherent Intelligence (Dynamic shifting of the architectural spaces due to internal stimuli.)

Intelligence allows for the structure to morph the spaces within depending on the internal requirements of the occupants. The numerous the individuals residing in the space, the larger the volume of air for comfort is required. This can also change during the seasons as in the winter, smaller spaces will be conducive to less energy required to heat the spaces. While during the summer, the larger spaces allow for heat to rise easily.

3. Passive methods for generating energy

Passive strategies which utilize external sources for energy generation that support the architecture so that it is less reliant on the grid and largely self sustaining.

Architectural Precedents

Radiant Hydronic House - Tom Wiscombe Architects


This precedent project is an example of how an architect is trying to integrate various building services to function in new ways. This is a theoretical building that illustrates the ability to combine services in such a way that allows for greater expression of the interior spaces while providing the necessary services in a combined manner.

Khan Shatyr (Kazakhstan)

I am interested in how ETFE panels work at extremes and this project is sited in a region that experiences 80 degrees of temperature changes, from -40 degrees celcius to +40 degress celcius. 

Testing the Site...In progress..

 Responsive creatures bring life to our sedentary buildings that fail to do so.

I've been trying to avoid "plopping" this responsive creature just anywhere. Trying to avoid falling into the trap of it becoming an "architectural gimmick." What if this space could begin to 'infect' our sedentary buildings, educate others about its importance of embodying empathy in response to an individual's wellbeing.

As a universal room, let it infect our city skyscrapers both condos and office towers. It will become a space that caters to an individual who ever so needs an environment that perceives, adapts and changes in relation to his/her emotional response and needs, within a building that is merely a static insensitive object.

A spectator - both within the building and on street level - would be able to witness the narrative of movements and experience motion's emotional contagion ("inner mimicry"). When unoccupied, the responsive space returns to its minimum state, blending into the existing structure. 

Please note these are just quick renders beginning to illustrate the concept. (Users would be able to enter the space from the interior of the existing building)

Water as Life

"Innovation does not consist in loading a building with technology and complicated systems but in developing simple, passive, yet sophisticated means that can be easily communicated to the people who use it and are intuitively operated." - Francesca Galeazzi, Arup Associates, London


Thesis Statement

The number of people who lack access to safe drinking water suffer and are killed needlessly from curable waterborne disease every day are daunting; nearly half of all people in developing countries suffer at any given time from a health problem caused by water and sanitation deficits. Architecture has the potential to integrate crucial water collection and storage strategies to make a significant improvement in this growing global phenomenon.

Strategies

1.     Develop multifunctional building components and spaces with sensitivity to vernacular and cultural implications.

In a slum condition, it is essential that all building elements have multiple functions. Efficiency is absolutely crucial to the success of the building: efficiency of resources, of materials, of space, etc. For example, there are no separate spaces for sleeping, eating, washing, and leisure as in North America. It is instead more suitable to design spaces for living, resting, and washing that allow for flexibility of space and of use. It is also crucial that the tactics used are sensitive to both the vernacular and cultural traditions of the site.

2.     Integrate and enforce connectivity of resources.

It is necessary for architecture in impoverished informal urban settlements to be completely void of active systems, and to collect or provide adequate resources for a building’s occupants. Informal urban settlements lend themselves to interconnected networks and systems. These systems can range from the intangible to the tangible, from social capital, to natural resource management. It is critical for all members of a community to combine their efforts to ameliorate living conditions for the whole community.

3.     Maximize surfaces for water and vapour collection.

The collection of water is typically limited to horizontal surfaces. I propose utilizing both the horizontal and vertical surfaces of the building to maximize the collection of rainwater and fog. Fog harvesting is being most widely practiced in South America, though there is experimentation in South Africa. Through the use of meshes and textures surfaces, the potential volume of fog harvested per square meter of surface area in South Africa can surpass 50 litres per day in the winter.

Architectural Precedents

Druk White Lotus School - Arup Associates

This precedent project located in Ladakh, India makes use of "innovative, clever low-tech" design strategies in the design of this school. The school is located in a fragile ecosystem, so the site strategies implemented achieve a nearly zero-impact system for water, energy, and waste management. In addition, the buildings are designed to celebrate Ladakh culture while being simple to build and operate using local materials.The specific tactics I am taking from this precedent are the design and arrangement of the compost toilets. The compost toilet block is clad with metal and painted black causing it to heat up and fumes to rise, which keeps the toilets well ventilated.

Grotão Community Centre and Park - Urban Think Tank

This precedent project located in Sao Paolo, Brazil integrates water collection and retention strategies into the site design at every level. The project fundamentally expresses a belief in universal access to infrastructure, water, sanitation, lighting, and public space. Each building element has a dual purpose and the project acts as a beacon to the peripheral community.

Thesis Precedent

Rachel D. Pressick

Architecture & Legitimacy: Strategies for the Development of Urban Informal Settlements

2010

Pressick’s thesis posits that for those engaging in constructive acts within the informal settlement, any architectural intervention must be a result of the preservation of the integrity of the informal fabric; a strategy that legitimizes the settlement’s density and scale, ensures the urban poor’s stake in the city, and maintains the settlement’s underlying networks that are vital to the life of the settlement.

Pressick’s thesis is most useful in her analysis of urban informal settlements at a variety of scales and contexts. She looks at the causes of urbanization and the effects that globalization are having on these informal settlements. She also uses an interesting strategy of categorizing architectural precedents and applying them to her intervention as networks (communal sanitation), lines (mixed-use warehouse buildings), and points (programmed amenities). I appreciate her urban design perspective in tackling the issue of improving informal urban settlements. Though the thesis does not focus specifically on the collection and storage of rainwater, Pressick implements a variety of applicable strategies throughout her proposal, from communal sanitation blocks to storm water management. Her bibliography has also proven to be an invaluable basis for my research.

Architecture, Body and Perception

Just came across this video of two spanish architect and their work relating to the Body and Perception of space. Though this might be useful to some people looking into the subject area of architectures effect on the body and space perception.

  

An Architecture of Atmospheric Typologies

Issue:

Architects fascination with form has limited architecture to the representational qualities of drawing and its ultimate built construct, thus confining the dynamic environmental conditions of both atmosphere and user needs to an inactive formal design.  This fact has ultimately mitigated the effectiveness of architecture and its systems to address the constant shifting atmospheric and user based needs in habitable buildings.

(Systems within a form)

Position:

Architects should move beyond their fascination with form and representation to design and integrate performance related systems that address the dynamism and nuances of atmospheric conditions and user needs with that of formal design.

(Systems determining a form)

Strategies:

1. Design to Integrate

                Designers should be conscious not to separate performance systems from architectural               

                aesthetics.  Integrate and consider systems in formal design choices.

2. Design for and with the invisible

                Design tasks should focus on the atmospheric conditions affecting spaces and their users needs.                     Most importantly one must consider and design the resulting affect the architecture will produce on                 the environment and user.

Situation:

My project will be looking at the atmosphere of Shanghai, China as a test bed for this thesis idea.  Shanghai was chosen due to several environmental and meteorological factors that I believe architecture should be engaging in for the benefit of its user and city at large.  Specifically the large amount of pollution within the city of Shanghai that affect both air and water qualities are concerning atmospheric condition that this project will seek to address in its design.

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After several hours of working on various design ideas I began to realize that I had muddled the concept I was working on with too many cliché architectural techniques and ideas, and was moving away from the pure concept of my design.  I then decided to revisit my Issue and Position stated above and sketched out a simple comparison of the two ideas.

 The notion of Systems within a Form and Systems Determining a Form

Further I looked to distill my previous concept down to its essence

Finally I quickly sketched a concept for my building in Shanghai  that will aim to address air and water pollutants, as well as thermal comfort by integrating a material technology system within the design of the building envelope.

There will be further resolution and explanation of the proposed design in the next post.

DfD for (not against) Architecture

"The whole is to the part as the part is to the whole.” Frank Lloyd Wright

Background

“DfD is a new concept for the design and building community and is an important contributor to Design for Environment (DfE). DfE is a comprehensive consideration of design related to environmental and human health impacts over the life-cycle of a product. Design for disassembly (DfD) is a growing topic within manufacturing industries as greater attention is devoted to the management of the end-of-life of products. This need is driven by the increasing disposal problems of large amounts of consumer goods, and the resultant pollutant impacts and loss of materials resources and energy that is embodied in these products.” [Guy and Nicholas]

DfD should be applied to life-cycle of buildings due to the huge amount of material resources consumed annually around the world in their construction, renovation and destruction.

Principles of DfD

Typically, there are about a dozen or so principles of DfD. They include the following:

·      Accessibility,

·      Documentation of disassembly information,

·      Durability,

·      Exposed and/or reversible connections,

·      Independence,

·      Inherent finishes,

·      Recyclables,

·      Refurbish ability,

·      Re-manufacturability,

·      Reusability, and

·      Simplicity.  [http://www.sabmagazine.com/blog/2009/10/27/design-for-disassembly/]

It is possible to divide these principles into two broad groups: those that promote keeping components separate, safe and easily re-usable; and those that demand simplicity, exposed and accessible connections and standardization of parts and design.

Hypothesis

“In the more recent past, the International Style of architecture has embodied many concepts of DfD, albeit with significant failures regarding aesthetics, occupant control, and overall sustainability.” [Guy and Nicholas]

It is possible to implement DfD without having to compromise design principles. Current DfD principles unduly restrict the architect to simplistic designs with joints that are necessarily visually, physically and ergonomically exposed. When DfD is applied to the manufacture of other products (e.g., cars, electronics, appliances, etc.) there does not appear to be a similar need to sacrifice design complexity for ease of disassembly. It is possible and necessary to develop a DfD methodology for architecture that is devoid of these three principles.

Detailed Strategies

“God is in the detail” Mies van de Rohe 

Beyond the main DfD principles, there are more detailed strategies that are advocated to encourage the re-use and recycling of materials. These include minimizing the different types of materials in order to decrease the complexity and number of separation processes; allow for parallel disassembly to reduce the time required to disassemble; and separating the structure from the cladding. [Guy and Nicholas]

It will be argued that these detailed strategies can be respected without having to adhere to simplified and standardized design principles.

 "In details are the possibilities of innovation and invention and it is through these that architects can give harmony to the most uncommon and difficult or disorderly environment generated by a culture.”  Marco Frascari

Architecture requires that we preserve detail. Detailing is the most important means of avoiding building failure. In essence, detailing is the joining of building materials, components and parts in a functional and aesthetic manner. [Marco Frascari]

STRATEGY 1: Integrate advanced computational techniques into DFD principles in order to maximize the material potential and to push design exploration of connection detail.

STRATEGY 2: Creating a meeting point for top-down and bottom-up approaches where the idea of the building as a whole will be affected by the smallest components of the system.

STRATEGY 3: Transition the design from mass-production to mass-customization by creating parametric relations between each building component which, ideally, will result in visual diversity of the building as a whole.

Progress in Neuromorphic Architecture

The kinetic architecture embodies an ever-changing narrative of arriving and departing from stillness.

When does a kinetic building stop moving? What is the importance of stillness in kinetic architecture?

Stillness is an apparatus that allows a closer proximity between built form and its user, one that excludes an excess of visual stimulation and distraction. This apparatus gives the spectator specific conditions of time and space to re-focus their attention on the micro level of his/her environment.

So...

When does stillness commence? When the user needs to decrease his/her stimulus levels.

When would the user need to lower stimulus levels?

Recover from a stressful experience

Later hours in the day when the body requires rest

The user needs to focus on a specific task (i.e. working)

When is movement re-awakened? When the user needs to increase his/her stimulus levels.

When would the user need to increase stimulus levels?

When habituation is reached

To wake the body up

To  create interest

__

In order to understand the change of stimulus, one must acknowledge the importance of emotional response to stimulus in our environment. The circumplex model of emotion, first developed by psychologist Dr. James Russell, argues our emotional response to a stimulus occurs along the two dimensions of pleasure and arousal as a single, integrated response rather than two distinct responses.

I.E An environment that we call stimulating is one that is both arousing and pleasant, while a space that is relaxing rates low on arousal but high on pleasure.

So...

How can pleasure become embodied within our built form? By adopting neurological theories of aesthetic experience for our spaces. (I.E Spaces that emulate contrast in form and unpredictability - strategies utilized to spark interest in the spectator)

How can our built form create arousal? Through an ever-changing space. (As humans we have an aesthetic preference for biological motion. Let us adopt the human body's movement to enable a stimulus within the inhabitant.)

Understanding the foregoing, the architect can now begin to define how neuromorphic architecture can appropriately acknowledge the user, perceive his/her needs and adapt accordingly.

The building will read the user, define whether he/she requires an increase, decrease or maintenance of stimulus levels. Depending on the degree, the architecture will acknowledge the need for a relaxing, sleepy, pleasant or exciting environment, in response to the user's current state, and change accordingly. 

Note: The user's functional needs would be satisfied simultaneously for each environment. (I.e.: Relaxing = Reading, Sleepy = Nap, Pleasant = Work, Exciting = Play) The interiors would deflate and inflate to form surfaces that satisfy these functional needs. --> 

Stay tuned for below 

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How does one establish parameters for a kinetic space?

The physical extents of the human body was utilized to establish the constraints for the built form.

Max & Minimum Constraints utilizing hydraulic pistons and hinge joint for corner connections.

Maximum Constraint. The image below illustrates the interior fabric to deflate and inflate for functional needs. (I.e. Chair & Desk)

Contrast  in Form + Motionless = Relaxing 

Function = Reading Environment

5 Different models showcasing relaxing, pleasant, exciting and sleepy environments will be illustrated... and hopefully animated ;)