pneubile

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PNEUBILE

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Material matters

The title of this project is a conflation of pneumatic and nubile. Pneumatic generally describes an object filled with air; in this case, I use as Frei Otto does to describe the condition of a thin, flexible membrane containing a substance. Nubile evokes the “ripe” or “fertile” physicality of the plaster casts in this project.

While the following experiments began with a fascination with the voluptuous forms yielded from fabric casting, the project has become more concerned with an interrogation of the formwork as an assemblage of heterogenous elements. It begun as a pouch, in this case, the most rudi-mentary fabric formwork. A square wooden frame freed the hands and added a repeatable and measurable element. The frame was expanded and partitioned by twine, whose physical qualities worked between those of the rigid frame and the flexible fabric. Every new element compelled a new negotiation, and an increasingly complex choreography of the armature. The formwork was no longer a fabric pouch or a wooden frame, or the sum of the two, but an intricate assemblage of contingencies between the fixed and the flexible, as well as controlled forces and the forces of gravity.

Material context

The Brazilian street market or feira livre (literally “free fair”) has its roots in Iberian, Moorish, and African traditions. The first African slaves in Brazil came from Portugal with their masters and brought with them a well-developed practice of street hawking. Many enslaved women had worked as skilled food traders in Africa, and their prowess in commerce was an essential skill in the rapidly growing colonial city of Salvador, whose construction and daily functionality largely re-lied on slave labor. This project studies the Feira de Sao Joaquim, a historic Salvador street mar-ket famous for its commercial and cultural heritage, as well as for it decrepit condition.

Pneubile

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Materialmatters

The first part of this project is concerned with the articulation of the fabric formwork and the intricate choreography between rigid, flex-ible, liquid to solid elements under the forces of gravity negotiated by the armature.

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Formsand forces

The experimental process articulates the relationship between form-work elements, ranging not only from rigid to solid, but from material to immaterial. The formwork is no longer a mold to be filled, but a responsive conductor of dynamic relationships of time and pressure, forms and forces.

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Regular rectilinear grid Voronoi gridRegular curvilinear gridHexagonal grid

This is an index of the development of experimental armatures, starting from the square frame in the center.Index of

armatures

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Regular rectilinear grid Voronoi gridRegular curvilinear gridHexagonal grid

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Pneubeginnings

These early pneus were created by applying funicular point load at the center of eadh flexible form. The experiment on the following page introduces the “pneu within pneu”. A rectilinear twine grid is at-tached to the armature frame.The slack and mallleable twine negoti-ates a variable deformation with the heavy load of plaster within the changing delimitations of each cell. The resulting cast is a fossil of these negotiations, occuring between rigid frame, flexible fabric, mal-leable twine, and gravitational point load.

a.

b.

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a. b.

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Pneus within pneus

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Pneu insmocked form

Here the flexible armature is modifed by “smocking”, a traditional method of fabric manipulation. At this scale and application, the method produces a subtle surface modulation, but it might be ap-plied with greater deliberation, e.g. to modify the bulging behavior of the fabric under liquid pressure.

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Structuredinfill

A system of rigid plastic rods is sewn into the fabric form in order to internally modify the bulging of the liquid within the fabric. While this piece deviates from the overall focus of experimentation, it is an important expression of the dialogue between rigid and flexible ele-ments in the armature.

Rods of alternating lengths are sewn into the fabric membrane at regular intervals. Under certain parameters, these could be variable elements.

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Boardvaulting

This investigation reexamines the role of the wooden frame in the form-work. Two plywood boards are perforated with a grid of reference points, and a fabric membrane is sewn into the perforations. The plaster is poured either over an open membrane or into a closed membrane. The purpose of the perforated boards is to coordinate the construction of the armature, which, like a jig, is meant to ensure repeatability, accuracy, and

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interchangeability in the fabrication process. The system of measurement has been integrated into the formwork and poses an interesting possibil-ity for a low-tech modular parametric fabrication. Pictured below is one perforated board retaining the imprint of the plaster cast, an embedded document of the artifact.

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Previous: Fabric form, hydrocal castBelow: Assembling open-top armatureBottom: Vaulted cast in black tubeOpposite: Flexible tube armature

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Frozenundulations

These casts which evoke the morphology and motion of marine creatures were formed in suspended flexible tubes.

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Variablecatenarystudy

These speculative drawings were made in order to understand the immutability of the catenary curve. When the angle of a line con-necting two endpoints of a hanging curve is adjusted, the shape of the catenary itself cannot change (as the shape of a circle cannot change), only the scale and the location of the segment along the catenary, as demonstrated on the right.

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Hanging chain drawings

These drawings examine the nature of the catenary curve and its use as an analog formfinding tool. Paper was attached to the wall, 12” chains with variable numbers of links were attached over this,v and their profile manually transferred to the paper. This method of graph-ing the curve as a polyline was inspired by simple catenary simula-tions in Kangaroo Physics. The drawing depicted below has been reoriented to suggest the form of a canopy.

Hanging chain drawing #1Graphite on yellow trace 12” x 9”

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Hanging chain drawing #2 Graphite on yellow trace 12” x 9”

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Hanging chain drawing #3Graphite on vellum 18”x24”

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Derya Diril M.Arch.I ThesisFreehand speculationGraphite on paper 8” x 6”

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Virtualvaulting

The first model (below) simulates the conditions of the board vaulting experiment, creating a regular zig-zagging vault. The second model speculates on an irregular vault, yielding a freely undulating form from the same Kangaroo Physics simulation. It should be possible to create an irregular vault physically in a variation of the board vaulting method.

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An equal count of connection points is maintained in both “formwork simulation” models.

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Digitally modeled “casts” and respective longitudinal cross-sections.

a.

b.

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a. b.

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The seductive curvatures of a ghosted wireframe elevation evoke the sensual experience of such spatial configurations.

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Suspended hypar armature

In this armature, the relationship between rigid frame and flexible formwork has radically departed from that of the early experiments. Here, the frame no longer plays a definitive role, acting more as a distant scaffolding for fixed points of the fabric form.

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Structuralstitching

Synthesizing Pneus within Pneu and Pneu in Smocked Form, this experiment embeds constrictions within the fabric, exploiting the fabric’s continuous field receptive to three-dimensional information through traditional methods of fabric manipulation. Both fabric forms are manipulated with continuous pin-tucking, which embeds struc-tural rigidity and self-thickness into the fabric. The first form uses interrupted cross-tucking to create pouches of excess fabric.

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3 x 3 square grid

Sew and gather along dotted lines

And grows depth

Sew crease along dotted lines

Square shrinks when gatherered

Tracing of excess fabric formations

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Sinusoidformwork

This form uses a continuous pin-tuck around a closed pseudo-sinusoid curve. Some inflections of the curve are tucked together to create rounded, segregated pouches, while others are left untucked to allow a continuous deformation. The closed curve is reproduced in the rigid frame and is aligned with the sewed seam. The next step of these investigations would be to incorporate a rigid frame in 3-di-mensions, as in Board Vaulting.

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Material context

History has shaped South America not as a single cultural territory, but one where many temporalities are simultaneously operating with many different threads connecting the symbolic practices. Any attempt to frame this constant shifting field under one fixed perspective would result [in sophism]. It demands an open conceptual approach, an analytical grid as flexible (and arbitrary) as its reality is funda-mental, in order to grasp the issues at play.- Gustavo Crembil

The second part of this project proposes a new design for Sal-vador, Brazil’s Feira de Sao Joa-quim, a traditional street market that originated in the early 1900s and is now the largest feira in northeastern Brazil.

Digital collage of hypar spray-cast and historic Agua de Meninos market.

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Carlos Juliao’s paintings provide unusually diagrammatic observa-tions of slave life in colonial Brazil. In this painting, the market woman reappopriates the what is depicted as the blank slate of colonial space with her commercial activity. Many enslaved women used the wages from their commerce to purchase freedom. During colonial times, they typicallly carried produce shipped from the Reconcavo plantations up to the residential Cidade Alta, the high city from the ports of Cidade Baixa, the low city (depicted on p 56-57). As the population grew, a massive elevator was constructed between the

Carlos Juliao, Enslaved Marketing Women, 1770s.(slaveryimages.org)

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Marketing women with Quitandas, digital collage

high and low cities, and streets increasingly filled with marketing women. The indispensability of their activity and the need to situ-ate it was recognized by the municipality, and permanent marketing spaces were eventually allocated. Salvador’s Feira de Sao Joaquim evolved from one of these provisional spaces, and is now the largest feira in Northeastern Brazill.

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SALVADOR

RIO DE JANEIRO

ANGOLA

BIAFRA

Saudi Arabia

LISBON

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SALVADOR

RIO DE JANEIRO

ANGOLA

BIAFRA

Saudi Arabia

LISBON

Transatlantic slave trade, 16th - 19th c.

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BAIA DE

TODOS

OS SANTOS

ATLANTIC OCEAN

BAHIA

SALVADOR

RECONCAVO

Salvador, Brazil Salvador, Bahia is located on a peninsula flanked on the east by the Atlantic Ocean and on the west by the Bay of All Saints or Baia de Todos os Santos. On the other side of this bay is the Reconcavo agricultural region, whose plantations shipped crops across the Bay.

Lisbon, Portugal, 1598, by Braun and Hogenberg(Image source: Penn Fine Arts Library. Web.)

Salvador, Brazil 1671 by Arnoldus Montanus(Image source: Library of Congress. Web.)

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CENTRO

ITAPAGIPE

SAO CAETANO

LIBERDADE

BROTAS

BARRA

RIO VERMELHO

PITUBA/COSTA AZUL

BOCA DO RIO/PATAMARES

ITAPUA

TANCREDO NEVES

PAU DA LIMA

CAJAZEIRAS

IPITANGA

VALERIA

SUBURBIOS FEROVIARIOS

ILHAS

ILHAS

CABULA

BAIA DE TODOS OS SANTOS

ATLANTIC OCEAN

ATLANTIC OCEAN

CIDADE BAIXA

CIDADE ALTA - PELOURINHO

ELEVADOR LACERDA (1873)

85m

SALVADORRECONCAVO BAIA DE TODOS OS SANTOS

COMMERCIALCENTER

(Map source: IBGE.)

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(

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1

24

5 6

8

7

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Special zones of social interest1 Vila Conceição2 Baixa da Mangabeira3 Antonio Balbino4 Nova Divinéia5 Alagados / Uruguai6 Baixa do Cacau7 Fazenda Grande do Retiro8 Bom Juá / Fonte da Bica / Calafate

Municipal administrative regions

Zones

CENTRO

ITAPAGIPE

SAO CAETANO

LIBERDADE

CABULA

FEIRA DE SAO JOAQUIM

Industrial zone

Municipal center

Wooded areas

Residencial zone

Municipal subcenter

Special use zone

Zones andtransit systemsThe Feira de Sao Joaquim sits at the northern edge of a municipal center, directly adjacent to the Port of Salvador special use zone, a mu-nicipal subcenter, and residential zone. Techni-cally located in Calcada/Centro, the Feira is associated with the Afro-Brazilian culture of Liberdade.

(Demographic maps: IBGE.)

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Areas of environmental and cultural value

Maritime zone boundary

Protected areas of culture and landscape

Wooded areas

Open urban spaces

Protected areas of natural resources

CONSTRUÇÃO DOCOMPLEXO VIÁRIODA CALÇADA

DUPLICAÇÃO DARUA LUIZ MARIA

Road systemsCargo transport systems

Collective passenger transit systems

Expressway (existing)

Expressway (under construction)

Arterial road (existing)

Highway (existing)

Highway (under construction)

Arterial road (existing)

Commercial supply

Primary corridor (under construction)

Municipal subcenter

Primary corridor (existing)

Municipal center

Railroad

Secondary corridor (existing)

Secondary corridor (under construction)

Regional tram

Elevator

Terminal

Low capacity urban line

Nautical line

Line 1 - Lapa/Cajazeiras

Linha Urbana Sobre Pneus - media capacidade

Linha Urbana Sobre Pneus - baixa capacidade

Linha Sobre Trilhos - Fuzileiros / Paripe (VLT)

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FEIRA DE SAO JOAQUIM

Site/Program:Feira de Sao Joaquim

Google Maps

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PETROBRAS

CALCADA

CALCADA RAILROAD

CALCADA RAILROAD

LIBERDADELIBERDADE

PETROBRAS

PORT OF SALVADORPORT OF SALVADOR

FERRYBOAT TERMINALFERRYBOAT TERMINAL


PRACA SAO JOAQUIMPRACA SAO JOAQUIM

FEIRA DE SAO JOAQUIMFEIRA DE SAO JOAQUIM

HIGH SCHOOLHIGH SCHOOL

UNNAMED FEIRALATE 1800S

FEIRA DE AGUA DE MENINOS1934 - 1964

FEIRA DE SAO JOAQUIM1964 - PRESENT

UNNAMED FEIRALATE 1800S

MERCADO MODELO1912

ELEVADOR LACERDA

PORT

OF S

ALVA

DOR

PORT

OF S

ALVA

DOR

FEIRA DO SETELATE 1800S - 1934

FEIRA DE SAO JOAQUIM1964 - PRESENT

FEIRA DE AGUA DE MENINOS1934 - 1964

Several distraous fires and exclusion from municipal modernization projects gradually pushed the Feira one mile north of its origin over the course of a century. Dislocated from Salvador’s commercial center, the Feira lies just north of the Port of Salvador and Ferry Boat passenger transit terminal. It is part of a system of coves shaping Salvador’s westen coast.

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Inside the Feira

Artisan crafts

Meat

Confections

Fresh produce

Seafood

Beverages

Storage

Bar/restaurant

Baiano products

Cereals

Clothing

Restrooms

Other

Household items

Since its 1964 relocation to Calcada, Salvador, the Feira de Sao Joaquim has grown into a compact commercial cen-ter with a network of wide and narrow streets that weave between deteriorating edifices, accomodating pedestrian traffic, delivery of goods, permanent stalls, and itinerant vendors. The Feira comprises a partially enclosed both fixed and mobile. Neglected by the municipality, the Feira evolved with little planning. As such, the Feira de Sao Joaquim is known as much for its poor construction, disorganization, and uncleanliness as it is for its massive trade and its cul-tural heritage.

pedestrian accessvia streetboat access

via cove

vehicular accessvia feira perimeter

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pedestrian accessvia streetboat access

via cove

vehicular accessvia feira perimeter

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Historic significance of the canopyThe canopy is a predominant architectural typology in Brazil’s tropical climate. It provides shade from the high sun, channels airflow, and describes volumes of three-dimensional space without fully enclosing them. The signifcance of the canopy in the history of Afro-Brazilian street markets owes to the quality of unenclosed and provisional spatial delimitation of the quitanda canopy. The quitanda, as pictured below, was the simple shack from which Feiras such as Sao Joa-quim evolved. Even before they were permitted by the municipality to build fixed quitandas, Afro-Brazilian street hawkers commanded the space around them with the large baskets and trays balanced atop their heads--a kind of prosthetically emobided architecture. The prosthesis not only served the pragmatic function of freeing the hands and providing shade to the hawker--it concretely expanded her presence and the significance of her work.

Above: Venedores de fruita a Lapa, c. 1820.Opposite: Feira de Sao Joaquim canopies and roofs

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Speculative market drawingGraphite on vellum 17”x12”

A Feira Nova

This concept drawing describes the organizational parti, a spatial choreography of discrete ele-ments intersecting within given constraints. It recalls the concep-tual and procedural approach developed during material inves-tigations such as board vaulting. Discrete elements of the Feira are the docks at the lower level, the suspended network of paths in the mid-level, and the clus-tered shops at the upper level, all mediated by vertical lifts. A given material will circulate through all these levels, but the activities around this material change from level to level.

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passenger transit hubconnected to feira

connection toliberdade

semi-distributed networklinks feira centers

grow intersecting canopiesover retail centers

boat path forksinto distinct docks

set distribution points alongdocks and grow marketaround expanding centers

expand feiraout into bay

feira centers bridgedby sinuous walking path

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passenger transit hubconnected to feira

connection toliberdade

semi-distributed networklinks feira centers

grow intersecting canopiesover retail centers

boat path forksinto distinct docks

set distribution points alongdocks and grow marketaround expanding centers

expand feiraout into bay

feira centers bridgedby sinuous walking path

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The Feira Nova establishes a general organizational logic, leaving the program to be determined by users. Distinct levels within the Feira are treated as distinct elements in an interconnected system, giving the sense of porous and interwoven spaces to the visitor, while maintaining necessary radial networks for efficiently organized back of house operations, prioritizing ease of accessibility for the stallholders and workers. Until the new Feira is reappropriated by the stallholders, workers, and visitors, it is incomplete. The program, in this case, follows the form, which will be further elaborated by the program in an endless feedback loop.

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InsideSao Joaquim

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DERYA A. D IR IL5 DANA CIRCLE, EDISON, NJ 08820

(732) 910 3832 [email protected]

education

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 2011–14• Master of Architecture I • Thesis on fabric formwork and Brazilian street markets

Rutgers University 2004–08 • Bachelor of the Arts in Art History and Film Studies • Coursework in Landscape Architecture and Urban Design

work experience

Kucuk Atolye Architectural Models, Istanbul 2010–11 Intern• Surveyed undocumented historic industrial buildings• Prepared technical drawings and assembled laser cut models

•

Oxford House College, Istanbul 2010–11ESL teacher, SAT and GRE specialist

Prepared and taught lessons to individuals and large classes

Troy M.A.T. Survey Services, Istanbul 2010–11Document editor and translator- • Revised and translated survey/inspection reports and protests

Peak Performance Tutoring 2007–10 Private SAT tutor

The Forum Theatre 2009Stage Manager• Prepared schedules and prompt book• Supervised production running crews