Digital Architectures

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Digital Architectures

• Computer Graphics for Architects in 2003-04
  (Arch5302)
• Marc Aurel Schnabel
• Wednesday, 23 September, 2003

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Introduction

• Having abandoned the discourse of style, the
  architecture of modern times is characterized by
  its capacity to take advantage of the specific
  achievements of that same modernity the
  innovations offered it by present-day science and
  technology.
• The relationship between new technology and new
  architecture even comprises a fundamental datum
  of what are referred to as avant-garde
  architectures, so fundamental as to constitute a
  dominant albeit diffuse motif in the figuration
  of new architectures.
• Ignasi de Sola Morales 1997, Differences
  Topographies of Contemporary Architecture, MIT
  Press, Cambridge.

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Quotes

• Integrating computer-aided design with
  computer-aided fabrication and construction ...
  fundamentally redefines the relationship between
  designing and producing.
• It eliminates many geometric constraints imposed
  by traditional drawing and production processes
  making complex curved shapes much easier to
  handle, for example, and reducing dependence on
  standard, mass-produced components. ....
• It bridges the gap between designing and
  producing that opened up when designers began to
  make drawings.
• Mitchell, W. and M. McCullough. (1995).
  Prototyping (Ch. 18). In Digital Design Media,
  2nd ed., 417-440. New York, Van Nostrand Reinhold.

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Digital Architectures

• Digital architectures refer to the
  computationally based processes of form
  origination and transformations. Several digital
  architectures are identified based on the
  underlying computational concepts such as
• topological space (topological architectures)
• isomorphic surfaces (isomorphic architectures)
• motion kinematics dynamics (animate
  architectures)
• keyshape animation (metamorphic architectures)
• parametric design (parametric architectures)
• genetic algorithms (evolutionary architectures)

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Digital Fabrication

• Implications of new digital design and
  fabrication processes enable the use of (vii)
  Virtual Environments (VE), (viii) rapid
  prototyping (RP) and computer-aided manufacturing
  (CAM).
• Technologies, which offer the production of
  small-scale models and full-scale building
  components directly to and from 3D digital
  models. Mass-customization is a development of
  repetitive non-standardized building systems
  through digitally controlled variation and serial
  differentiation.
• Geometries are precisely described and their
  construction is perfectly attainable by a
  computer numerically controlled (CNC) fabrication
  processes.

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i Topological architectures

• In architectural curvilinearity Greg Lynn
  offers examples of new approaches to design that
  move away from the deconstructivisms logic of
  conflict and contradiction to develop a more
  fluid logic of connectivity. This is manifested
  through folding that departs from Euclidean
  geometry of discrete volumes, and employs
  topological, rubber-sheet geometry of
  continuous curves and surfaces.
• In topological space, geometry is represented by
  parametric functions, which describe a range of
  possibilities. The continuous, highly curvilinear
  surfaces are mathematically described as NURBS
  Non-Uniform Rational B-Splines. What makes NURBS
  curves and surfaces particularly appealing is the
  ability to easily control their shape by
  manipulating the control points, weights, and
  knots. NURBS make the heterogeneous and coherent
  forms of the topological space computationally
  possible.

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Guggenheim Bilbao by Frank Gehry
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ii Isomorphic Architectures

• Blobs or metaballs, or isomorphic surfaces, are
  amorphous objects constructed as composite
  assemblages of mutually inflecting parametric
  objects with internal forces of mass and
  attraction. They exercise fields or regions of
  influence, which could be additive or
  subtractive. The geometry is constructed by
  computing a surface at which the composite field
  has the same intensity isomorphic surfaces.
• These open up another formal universe where forms
  may undergo variations giving rise to new
  possibilities. Objects interact with each other
  instead of just occupying space they become
  connected through a logic where the whole is
  always open to variation as new blobs (fields of
  influence) are added or new relations made,
  creating new possibilities. The surface boundary
  of the whole (the isomorphic surface) shifts or
  moves as fields of influence vary in their
  location and intensity. In that way, objects
  begin to operate in a dynamic rather than a
  static geography.

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Cardiff Opera by Greg LynnBMW-Pavilion by B.
Franken
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iii Animate Architectures

• Animation software is utilized as medium of
  form-generation. Animate design is defined by the
  co-presence of motion and force at the moment of
  formal conception.
• Force, as an initial condition, becomes the cause
  of both motion and particular inflections of a
  form. While motion implies movement and action,
  animation implies evolution of a form and its
  shaping forces.
• The repertoire of motion-based modeling
  techniques are keyframe animation, forward and
  inverse kinematics, dynamics (force fields) and
  particle emission.
• Kinematics are used in their true mechanical
  meaning to study the motion of an object or a
  hierarchical system of objects without
  consideration given to its mass or the forces
  acting on it. As motion is applied,
  transformation are propagated downward the
  hierarchy in forward kinematics, and upward
  through hierarchy in inverse kinematics.

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House in Long island by Greg Lynn

• Kinematics

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Port Authority Bus Terminal in NY by Greg Lynn

• Dynamic simulations take into consideration the
  effects of forces on the motion of an object or a
  system of objects, especially of forces that do
  not originate within the system itself. Physical
  properties of objects, such as mass (density),
  elasticity, static and kinetic friction (or
  roughness), are defined. Forces of gravity, wind,
  or vortex are applied, collision detection and
  obstacles (deflectors) are specified, and dynamic
  simulation computed.

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iv Metamorphic architectures

• Metamorphic generation of form includes several
  techniques such as keyshape animation,
  deformations of the modeling space around the
  model using a bounding box (lattice deformation),
  a spline curve, or one of the coordinate system
  axis or planes, and path animation, which deforms
  an object as it moves along a selected path.
• In keyshape animation, changes in the geometry
  are recorded as keyframes (keyshapes) and the
  software then computes the in-between states. In
  deformations of the modeling space, object shapes
  conform to the changes in geometry of the
  modeling space.

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Offices of BFL Software ltd. by Peter Eisenman
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v Parametric Architectures

• In parametric design, it is the parameters of a
  particular design that are declared, not its
  shape. By assigning different values to the
  parameters, different objects or configurations
  can be created. Equations can be used to describe
  the relationships between objects, thus defining
  an associative geometry. That way,
  interdependencies between objects can be
  established, and objects behavior under
  transformations defined.
• Parametric design often entails a procedural,
  algorithmic description of geometry. In this
  algorithmic spectaculars, i.e., algorithmic
  explorations of tectonic production using
  mathematica software, architects can construct
  mathematical models and generative procedures
  that are constrained by numerous variables
  initially unrelated to any pragmatic concerns.
  Each variable or process is a slot into which
  an external influence can be mapped, either
  statically or dynamically.

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algorithmic spectaculars by M Novak
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vi Evolutionary architectures

• Evolutionary architecture proposes the
  evolutionary model of nature as the generating
  process for architectural form.
• Architectural concepts are expressed as
  generative rules so that their evolution and
  development can be accelerated and tested by the
  use of computer models. Concepts are described in
  a genetic language which produces a code script
  of instructions for form generation.
• Computer models are used to simulate the
  development of prototypical forms which are then
  evaluated on the basis of their performance in a
  simulated environment. Very large numbers of
  evolutionary steps can be generated in a short
  space of time and the emergent forms are often
  unexpected.
• The key concept behind evolutionary architecture
  is that of the genetic algorithm. The key
  characteristic is a a string-like structure
  equivalent to the chromosomes of nature, to
  which the rules of reproduction, gene crossover,
  and mutation is applied. Optimum solutions are
  obtained by small incremental changes over
  several generations.

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pseudo-organisms by J. Frazer
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vii Virtual Environments

• The use of computer modeling and simulation to
  enable a person to interact with an artificial
  three-dimensional visual or other sensory
  environment. VR applications immerse the user in
  a computer-generated environment that simulates
  reality through the use of interactive devices,
  which send and receive information and are worn
  as goggles, headsets, gloves tracking devices,
  CAVES and other media.
• ? Augmented Reality

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Immersive VE
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viii Rapid Prototyping

• Computer Numerically Controlled (CNC) fabrication
  processes are cutting, subtractive, additive, and
  formative fabrication.
• Rapid Prototyping (RP) involves incremental
  forming by adding material in a layer-by-layer
  fashion. The digital (solid) model is sliced into
  two-dimensional layers the information of each
  layer is then transferred to the processing head
  of the manufacturing machine and the physical
• product is incrementally generated in a
  layer-by-layer way.

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CNC

• Bernard Caches Objectiles
• Gehrys "Zollhof" in Duesseldorf
• Bernard Frankens "BMW Pavilion"

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Movies

• Open folder movies

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End

• Wednesday, September 9, 2002 marcaurel_at_hku.hk