ADSAIR

ART IN PROGRESS

DHANIKA KUMAHERI

We live in a very exciting time of change.

As a young architecture student developing design thinking and design skills , this period in time offers

us fantastic “adventures”, opportunities, dreams, visions and ideals. Essentially, the revolution of

computational and digital tools has lured us down the rabbit hole, to the magnificent Wonderland, full

of untapped resources and unexplored possibilities. It is also the cocaine of the self-proclained avant-

garde architecture, so far pleasing only a significantly small portion of the international stage, but causing an ongoing addiction for research and progress for its cause. It is the purpose of this semester’s design

studio to focus on, and contribute to, this ongoing architectural discourse, and to do so not only through

meaningless form-finding, but more importantly in developing mastery in designing with these new

tools where creaitivity is not “instant” but traceable and runs through the whole project.

What this studio will not be, essentially, is

“...an onanistic self indulgence in a cozy graphic envi-ronment. Endless repetition and variation on elabo-rate geometrical schemata with no apparent social environmental and technical purpose whatsoever.”

-John Frazer, in M.Burry’s ‘Scripting Cultures’-

DOwNThE RAbbIT hOlE

DOwNThE RAbbIT hOlE

DOwNThE RAbbIT hOlE

ADvANcING ThE ARchITEcTuRAl DIScOuRSE

cOmPuTATIONAl INNOvATION

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CONTENTSARchITEcTuRE DESIGN STuDIO

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design for a viewing screen, 2010. Dhanika Kumaheri

ARCHITECTURE AS EMOTION

Here, Architecture is about emotions. It is about a set of overflowing dialogue of feel-ings from the object to the subject.

Architecture becomes a visual cue for an emo-tional reaction. More importantly, architecture became a medium for emotional communica-tion. There is a silent, frozen quality in this image that speaks out loud. It is that indeci-pherable element, much like that of a piece of music, that cannot be accurately described with words, but can be instantly sensed, with emotion.

And that is one of the many wonderful enchantments of architecture. One can be tranced with awe, lost in fear, trembling with happiness as one walks into a significant build-ing of one’s choice. Architecture has that po-tential to overwhelm, drown, evoke, inspire.

Through the careful orchestration of elements, light, space, form and composition, architects control, select and dictate certain emotions

ADvANcING

ARchITEcTuRAl

DIScOuRSE

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ADvANcING

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1. Victor Enrich, “Medusa”, Original Print Size:

124 x 120 cm ( 49” x 47” ) Edition of 1+1

2. Victor Enrich, “VEF Remonts”, Original Print

Size: 120 x 120 cm ( 47” x 47” ) Edition

of 1+1

3. Victor Enrich, “Deportation”, Original Print

Size: 120 x 129 cm ( 45” x 51” ) Edition

of 1+1

4. Victor Enrich, “Tango 1”, Original Print Size:

134 x 120 cm ( 53” x 47” ) Edition of 1+1

5. Victor Enrich, “Tango 2”, Original Print Size:

134 x 120 cm ( 53” x 47” ) Edition of 1+1

6. Victor Enrich, “Tango 3”, Original Print Size:

134 x 120 cm ( 53” x 47” ) Edition of 1+1

7. Victor Enrich, “Tango 4”, Original Print Size:

134 x 120 cm ( 53” x 47” ) Edition of 1+1

ARCHITECTURE AS IMAGINATION

“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere” - Albert Einstein

A significant proportion of archietctural dis-course throughout its history relies on teh power of architecturew as an imagery. A piece of powerful driver, a primer, to evoke, produce and ignite new possibilities- new discourses. This type of archietctural discourse has been avail-able long before digital tools became popular. Using digital toools to create these images, however, provide images that are increasingly scary in terms of their resemblance to real life conditions. This very quality allows ecperimen-tation in digital architecture to have a very solid impact on the way we think and react to new architectural ideas as well as the old architec-tural entities that we are already familiar with.It forces us to question things like : “Is it real?”, “Is it buildable?”. But more importantly, as a discourse, the question we should be asking is “ Does it matter if it’s real or not?”

These images are so important because of their raw power to instigate something that could potentially advance archietctural discourse to a whole new level, without being cincerned about it’s applicability, or its pragamtism. It is pure expression. In it seltf, it coudl also be a pure question. One contribution from one individual, to later be taken, analyzed, and pushed forward by others. This particular field of discourse could only be assessed as a chain of progression, as a chain of influence, not against how unrealistic or unpragmatic it may seem.

What’s interesting about Victor Enrich’s work is that it attempts to make something that surreal-real. In fact, he did so in a rather whimsical way. It is that quality that I think all desgners should have. Project your soul into your work. Your take about life. Your view. Victor Enrich has succeeded in provoking the masses, and getting them thinking about directions of potential gold

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PACkAGING DYNAMISM WiThin sTATic form

Before the invention of structural building frames of steel and curtain walling, façades were characterised by window arrangements, its orna-mentations or patterns. They often featured surface relief with archi-tectural elements from the relevant period or style. The structure of the façade also determined the ground plan; the greater the number of win-dow axes in a room, the more public the use, or the more important the

room is. The expression of openings in a building were limited by the con-struction technology, materials avail-able at that time, and adherance to a certain architectural style and rule. Society changed, innovations sprang up. Larger sheets of glass were pro-duced, enlarging window frames and mullions.Then breakthroughs in the construction industry devised a new way of propping the structure of the building in such a way that will freed the facade of the building from performing a structural load bear-ing duty. Modernity came, and sud-denly, buildings have lost its facade. They all become masks, canvases of experimentation of design intent, a revolution from its structural history.

Architects like Le Corbusier, Louis kahn, Tadao Ando and Mario Botta have exploited this opportunity and created inspiring products that are neither facade nor opening, but a romantic tango between the two. However, their work face an inevitable dilemma of being inexplicably static, frozen in the dimensionality and frozen within the time and space of the context of architecture being a product of construction. As a result, building inhabitants were not only powerless to control the amount of sunlight or views they get ac-cess to, but buildings also have a static, clear ‘face’ cre-ated for it from its birth to all the way to its death.

The kiefer Technic showroom came into being to chal-lenge , and possibly answer that dilemma of accomo-dating the need for dynamism in a static product. This showroom’s facade components can be adapted indi-vidualy to changing conditions and needs of the inahbi-tants, giving a more compliant and flexible architecture.

The result is a building whose façade gracefully morphs in a series of concer-tina folds depending on the light require-ments and warmth tolerance of those in-side. The system can be programmed to display countless patterns and configura-tions, giving what could have been a hum-drum office a fascinating animated façade.

These façades change continuously; each day, each hour shows a new “face” - the façade is turning into a dynamic sculpture.

The final result is a breattaking architecture that morphs and changes, and best of all, re-flects teh life, emotions and situations of its inhabitants, fostering a passive social com-munication with its direct environment.

kiefer Technic Showroom 8344 Bad Gleichenberg, Steiermark Ernst Giselbrecht + Partner ZT GmbH

Graz, 2006-2007. Awarded with the Austrian Architecture Award 2008

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week.02 COMPUTATIONAL INNOVATIONS

BAROQUE DETAILING: RE-DEFINED

A SEARCH FOR PURE OR-NAMENTATION

Michael Hansmeyer. “A New Order”. neo-baroque collumn prototype. 2010

We are familiar with the use of generative grammars, L-systems or other recursive procedural frameworks, such as Roland Snook’s swarm based models that references natural processes or organic structures. What is extraordinary about the work of Michael Hansmeyer is the fact that Hansmeyer does not seek to reference the same processes as analytical tools to investigate nature. Instead, Hansmeyer is directly interested in creating an outcome purely for the purpose of synthesizing and pro-ducing ornamentation. One can argue that Hansmeyer is in fact taking a geometrical ornamentation path much like that of Islamic religious orna-ments that defy any references back to nature, and derive its insipiration, beauty and complexity purely from geometrical forms. In his latest, and most famous work, his structures make reference to the foundational discourse of the architectural order of columns, in which systems of deal-ing with issues of articulation and junction have been negotiated from antiquity through to the architetcure of the early 20th century. And not just in Western cultures and architecture, but also seen in ither architec-ture cultures around teh world. And yet, his approach is not intended to add criticisim or to expand or modulate this discourse in any way - he does not intend to seek a modified new order, but rather is interested in something like the orderability, the ability to arrang pareticular orders out of all potential ways of doing so.

How far is Hansmeyer’s work advancing the architectural discourse is rather debatable. While it is true that it is a brilliant innovation from the mundane types of traditional ornamentation, and offers a viewing experi-ence and rich engagement with the viewer’s sense of touch in ways that could never have been achieved without computational tools, let us not forget the fact that it is, in fact, only a shell of fancy ‘clothing’ wrapping around a rather simple and traditional architectural column. A full-scale, 2.7-meter high variant of the columns was fabricated as a layered model using 1mm sheet. Each sheet was individually cut using a laser cutter. Sheets are stacked and held together by poles that run through a com-mon core. There is still an apparent disjunct between the column’s tra-ditionality of functioning as a supporting structural element and its new state-of-the-art add-on ornamented function, and no effort, despite the advanced computational tool at hand, has been made to marry the two.

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michael hansmeyer: a new order

week.02 COMPUTATIONAL INNOVATIONS

1. Michael Hansmeyer. “A New Order”. neo-baroque collumn prototype. 2010

2. Michael Hansmeyer. “A New Order”. neo-baroque collumn prototype. Close up zoom

9x. 2010.3. Michael Hansmeyer. “A New Order”. neo-

baroque collumn prototype. Tangibility. 2010.4. Michael Hansmeyer. “A New Order”. neo-

baroque collumn prototype, on display at Gwangju design Bienalle, 2011.

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On this note, Hansmeyer’s columns have failed to launch itself at a more futuristic projection. To a certain extent it has succeeded advancing the meaning, shape, form and feel of what architectural ornamenta-tion in the digital age can potentially be in contrast with its Baroque predecessor. However, for it to really push the architectural discourse forward it needs to advance its attempt of merely ornamenting a structural entity and approach this high level of visual and textural complexity not merely from and aesthetics point of view but also from a structural standpoint.

"The shapes of Michael Hansmeyer present themselves, as ornamented columns, very self-confidently as the produces of artificiality - even though there is a strong touch of alien organicity proper to them.''- Vera Buhlmann

Comprehended like this, as genuinely procedural shapes that articu-late a certain figurality of the of the form, evoke a certain alien-like feeling - they indeed share some key features of Baroque rational-ity - namely the radically abstract interest in aesthetics by calcula-tion. Apart from that, the same love for curvilinear decoration and the same effect of theatricality are achieved.

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The calculation of the cutting path for each sheet takes place in several steps. First, the six million faces of the 3D model are intersected with a plane representing the sheet. This step generates individual line segments that are tested for self-intersection and subsequently combined to form polygons. Next, a polygon-in-polygon test deletes interior polygons. A series of filters then ensures that convex polygons with peninsulas maintain a mininimum isthmus width. in a final step, an interior offset is calculated with the aim of hollowing out the slice to reduce weight.

While the mean diameter of the column is 50cm, the circumference as measured by the cutting path can reach up to 8 meters due to jaggedness and frequent reversals of curvature. The initial prototype uses 1mm grey board. Tests using ABS, wood, as well as metal are under way.

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manufacturing

5. A new Order. Initial intersection with line segments

6. A new Order. Formation of Polygons7. A new Order. Polygon Filtering and vertex

adjustment8. A new order. interior offset/ hollowing out