This is the final studio (Border Conditions) project for msc2. Though quite a lot of parametric techniques went into the making of it, they were subservient to rather than defining the project’s outcome.

This project embodies a virtual study of the process of folding with its conjectural actions (re-folding, unfolding).

The shift from a deterministic view of the world to one dominated by chaos and complexity has had (and still has) huge implications in both philosophy and science – two main tools of architecture. Before, we thought the sphere as being the perfect shape – now we consider it a mere theoretical possibility. Architecture used to be deeply rooted in the smooth, unchanging and abstract Cartesian space, described by its three axes meeting at 90^o angles in an universal Origin point who’s meaning different religions didn’t hesitate to speculate and impose upon it various connotations[i]. Jumping over a few decades of history, we now no longer understand space as the previously pure, abstracted medium.

Space is filled up by potentials. Space folds, bends and warps around itself and into itself into a topological revelry. We now no longer differentiate space with fixed, impossible boundaries: we have renounced the mathematical constructs of lines and planes as being limitations which we now no longer need to perceive the world. The demarcation mechanism is now based on differences of intensities, on gradient fields merging one into each other. As DeLanda notes, there are no different entities per se, just different manifestations of one modulation coexisting and relating to each other in a field of intensities (DeLanda, 2000).

There is much more to it that can be published here – basically a semester’s worth of branching, merging and killing explorations and various experiments, both digital and analog. You can maybe catch a glimpse in the following time-line, which tries to schematically represent and trace the overall design process.

Here’s the final portfolio booklet, which goes into more detail and shows a more coherent picture of the project:

Here are some pictures of the model(s):

Assembly: Bogdan Badila, Vlad Pop, Georgiana Hlihor, Denisa Lula, Robert Veber, Zoltan Vaida, Imre Vekove, Ciprian Colda, Mihai Pascalau, Calin Negret, Bogdan Borbei, Iustin Nechiti, Dan Ioanici, Razvan Luca, Stefan Grosariu, Ioana Suceava, Alexandra Man, Andreea Darac, Irina Mates, Oana Bogatan, Andrei Varga, Radu Badila, Elza Sandor, Alex Greceniuc, Oana Matei, Alex Vladovici, Marcel Oprean, Ioan Pop, Vlad Rusu, Ioana Tomoioaga.

Location: Cluj, Romania Date: 4-7th May2011

Photographs: Patrick Bedarf, Georgiana Hlihor, Daniel Bondas, Georgeta Macovei Text: Dimitrie Stefanescu

Intro

The project started out as an ambitious student-powered endeavor to design and fabricate at a 1:1 scale the flagship pavilion for the ZA11 Speaking Architecture event in Cluj, Romania. While at the same time integrating into its historically-charged context, the design (which was elaborated to a concept stage during a week-long workshop) boasts a strong representational power which was much needed in order to fulfill its main goal: attracting passers-by to the event. At the same time, the object, through its tectonic characteristics, tries to make legible the new ontology which is slowly defined by computational architecture and thus becomes a showcase for the design processes empowered by digital tools.

Process

The design was elaborated during a week-long parametric design workshop (CLJ02) specifically geared towards its production which, in theory, was seen as a continuation of the previous event (CLJ01: Parametric Desing Workshop, organized by Ionut Anton and myself). We were faced with the harsh requirements of creating an actually working design with just the material and tools available from sponsors (over which we hardly had any choice) while at the same time fitting costs inside a budget dwarfed by its expectations. Subsequently, the creative exploration agenda was constrained to a relatively limited approach which, most importantly, was scalable in terms of materials and fabrication techniques. The realization of the design was made possible by advanced use of parametric design techniques (using Rhino+Grasshopper), with the help of which the whole process was controlled from exact geometry generation to piece labeling, assembly logic, actual fabrication (CNC milling) and, of course, cost control.

SuperConnect in action. We have plans for releasing the whole Grasshopper definition and Rhino file used for the project – stay tuned!

Here’s a time-lapse video of the assembly process:

As an educational exercise it completed the design phase and proved to be invaluable in terms of actually understanding and working with the constraints encountered in real-life. Varying material thickness (and subsequent extra flexibility and less joint stiffness), rain and wind posed many challenges which had to be resolved on-site as quickly as possible so as to meet the assembly deadline.

Conclusions

The ZA11 Pavilion emerged as a powerful urban attractor which managed to engage the local society on all levels. Interest was aroused in both young and senior citizens, both professionals and non-architects by the completed pavilion as well as during the act of its construction, thus proving to be more than an indifferent temporary shelter. Furthermore, it successfully provided a flexible and comfortable space for the different events pertaining to the event (temporary bookshop, open-air cinema, tea party, jam sessions and a small concert + sleeping in the sun) to unfold.

The first of its kind in Romania, the ZA11 Pavilion can be definitively called a successful architectural experiment. Designed and assembled only by students (with little preliminary outside help), it successfully met all expectations and proved to be an invaluable experience in blending avant-garde design techniques on a relatively large scale with a low budget and a skeptical professional context.

construction

construction photos

Special thanks to: Mircea Stefanescu, Dan Brasoveanu [Graphtec], Nejur Andrei, Rares Dragan [Atelier RVD]
Sponsors: Graphtec, Holver

A few weeks ago CLJ02,  the second workshop centered around parametric design, happened in Cluj. Setting it alongside previous similar events in Bucharest and Iasi, we can clearly see an increasing attention being dedicated to this ever expanding side of architectural practice and theory in Romania. Though still yet to be adopted in the official curricula of the local architectural schools, the response we got was quite staggering – while last year for DTAL’s CLJ01 workshop we barely filled up the 20-odd places, this year we had to stop counting around 60 and were forced to disappoint one third of the applicants.

The event itself was organized by ASTA Cluj (by Bogdan Hambasan and Anamaria Androne) as an integral part of the Zilele Arhitecturii 11 event which will take place at the beginning of May. It was tutored by Patrick Bedarf and myself, both of us being heavily involved in the computational architecture scene since its early days. The main goal of the workshop was to produce a working design for the ZA lounge pavilion. This assignment with its inherent very strict feasibility requirements was mainly the key to the success of the workshop. It is said that creative ideas sprout from constrained freedom and we didn’t prove the saying wrong. To elaborate on the feasibility requirements mentioned before, I would like to start by first saying that parametric design or, more generally speaking, computational architecture can prove to be an architecturally treacherous space. The creative freedom allowed by computers and subsequent software packages is immense and, left to itself, can generate results which, though aesthetically pleasing to the eye, are unbuildable architectural objects. On the other hand, we were faced with the harsh requirements of creating an actually working design with the material and tools available while at the same time fitting inside a budget dwarfed by its expectations. Therefore we constrained the creative exploration agenda to a relatively limited approach which, most importantly, is scalable in terms of materials and fabrication techniques. I won’t go into technical details, since “adaptive surface subdivision”, “diagrid-based deep facet” or “multiple facet intersection connectors” would probably start to bore a few people, and usually I try not to beat people into submission by using complicated jargon. Suffice to say, we enforced and detailed some effective parametric techniques which would have the highest chances of producing manageable projects. Participants gained the knowledge to create their own tools to manage complex geometry from a design phase all the way to fabrication phase – or what is called a file-to-factory process. This implies that you create the design which is then directly fabricated using different CNC machines and digital crafting techniques. Assembly becomes thus a giant 3D puzzle. These techniques scale up from models to the most innovative airport designs and have basically reshaped the construction industry throughout the world and, on a theoretical level, have prompted some to state that reality becomes a diagram and the diagram becomes reality (Deleuze) due to the seemingly free of interference translation from a digital, virtual, product to a real, material object.

Computational techniques have been and still are undergoing a serious settling-in process inside architectural practice and education. Though still in a “volcanic” stage, both theoretically and practically, parametric design has been widely adopted throughout the world and almost all universities consider it an essential part of architectural education. Romania can now benefit from all the advantages of a late adoption of these practices – essentially skipping out several steps in the formation process and embracing the already proven and tested ways. Furthermore, the statement mentioned above regarding reality as a diagram and vice-versa, has to be treated with caution – more often than not we see projects which amount to little more than disembodied data. Given the local “no-bullshit” economic and social scene, where better to start finding meaningful computational approaches than here? As a final word of wisdom, with which I would like to conclude this text, I will mention a phrase coined by Douglas Rushkoff regarding the current information age in which we seem to be: “program or be programmed” – extrapolating from this we can say that, as an architect, you can either let yourself be controlled by the software you use or you can control it to your own ends.

Dimitrie Stefanescu, Delft, 2011

Does what it says on the tin.

What’s nice is that there are a lot of embedded parametrics inside: the canopy structural system, terrain modding (site), shape cracking of the canopy. Sometime ago there even was a def for controlling room sizes in respect with planar geometries.

Floor plan:

Second and third floor plans:

UPDATE:

Here are some pictures of the final model i built:

Hope you’ll like and love.

The line-up includes:

Ioulietta Zindrou, Maite Bravo, Verena Volger, Luis Fraguada (of Barcelona/IAAC fame);
Yours truly Dimitrie (of Bucharest fame);
Henning Rambow, Patrik Bedarf (Leipzig crew);

I haven’t been that productive lately due to the many things happening all the time, but hopefully I’ll be able to get back on the research track in summer.

(27.05.09) The Symposium takes place at 18:00 in the Geodätenstand 6 O.G. TU Berlin Hauptgebäude, Straße des 17. Juni 135, 10623 Berlin.

The Rule Based Design Symposium highlights contemporary academic and practice based research employing CAD, CAM, Coding/Web tools in addressing & communicating architectural design intents & constraints. The research spectrum ranges from theory to the digital crafting of buildings and their components.

Organized by Christophe Barlieb.

Flexibility in thought and expression is vital to all creative fields. The power of a new generation of parametric and bespoke CAD tools lies in the ability to negotiate and communicating the design intent clearly. This streamlining saves time, materials while integrating architecture, engineering and fabrication over the course of the entire architectural design process.

The symposium features research works by young contemporary academics in the fields of mathematics, architecture and fabrication

Schedule:
Time Speaker Affiliation Theme
18:00 Gisela Baurmann TU Berlin RBD Opening Statements
18:05 Kristoffer Josefsson TU Berlin Mathematics in Architecture
18:25 Dimitrie Stefanescu U.Bucharest Scripting Architecture
18:45 Christophe Barlieb TU Berlin Integration of Engineering & Design
19:05 Norbert Palz CITA Rapid Prototyping in Architecture
19:25 Martin Tamke CITA Fabrication of Architecture
19:45 Baurmann, Barlieb, Pfeiffer TU Berlin Discussion with Speakers & Public
20:00 PARTY

Deprecated. Here’s the new version.

More as a scripting experiment, when i was mucking about trying to make the delaunay triangulation work in grasshopper i somehow found the wonderfully complex qhull library which i promptly set to push and pull to get it to work with grasshopper. As advised on their website, the best way to do it is to call it as an external program, which is exactly what i’ve done:  no files are written or read, no dos windows pop up, everything’s smooth.

Given that you don’t have many complex operations in grasshopper after the solution is generated, you’ll be able to handle quite an impressive amount of points (say 200 on my three-year old toplap) in real time. If you add the simple planarSrf operation, then say 60-70 and it gets sloppy.

What you’ll need to do to get things rolling:

0. Download the 3dvqhull definition and example file, and remember not to use it for commercial purposes, share-alike whatever you do with it and take the time to give the proper credits: 

1. Download qhull, and unzip it in a folder of your choice.

2. Get going and search for “System.dll”. What you’re interested in is the 2.0 version which you’ll usually find in here: “C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.5[...]\”. If you can’t find it, I’m amazed grasshopper works for you. Anyway, you can find and install it from here.

3. Add the newly found System.dll version 2.o as a referenced assembly of the qhull component in the definition file.

If it turns orange, it’s cool.

4. Write in the panel that is linked to the “path” input the full path to the qhull program qvoronoi. You don’t need to add the .exe extension, but you can do it if you feel confortable.

5. There’s just one more thing you should know: facets that contain the infinite vertex are omitted altogether, without remorse. So as to have as little facets tending towards infinitum, I always add the corners of the points bounding box to the input sites.

You can scale the bounding box in respect with its center, or you can just call the whole thing off – it’s your choice.

I think this just about covers everything. Take care and have fun.

didi out.

PS: Qhull does more than voronoi. So if you have the time to explore and test, please do – the package is very powerfull and it can be used for more than this.

For those who really like to play with voronoi regions and stuff, here’s the final grasshopper definition file (right click, save target as – else you’ll get a ~250kb of useless xml in your browser window).

The vcell component outputs now individual cells as closed polylines and closed nurbs curves. This is useful if you are using this for some urban project like i am i would have liked to, mostly due to easy offsetting and area calculation possiblities – included in the definition file – or height extrusion – included as well. You can even go further and color (using shaders) each cell coresponding with its mass/area/height etc.

(board 1)

(board 2)

(board 3)

{input}

The project required us to design an archeological center consisting of one conference room (75 seats), three workshop spaces and a bar/buffet [+ reception and service spaces]. Adjacent we will have to design a small hotel/pension, so our projects will have to be able to scale up formally (and function-wise).

{output}

My project is based on the act of cutting open the ground and inviting people and light inside pays tribute to a defining part of archeology “per se”: excavating sites in order to recover cultural remains and other artifacts in order to better understand mankind.

The overall form of the building emerges in a subtle way from the surrounding landscape, inviting its discovery in a less violent manner. Not choosing to mark its presence in a classical/standard way was a decision taken so as to echo the fact that archeology has the task of surveying areas in order to find new sites – information is never out in the open and its artefacts are hidden – at the same time not disrupting the surrounding beautifully curved landscape. 

The space inside curves gently around three interior courtyards, following the natural terrain. Luminaries assist the inerior courtyards both formally (composition-wise) and functionally (in providing natural sunlight).

{model}

3D Print and cardboard:

——

3d printing done on a  nice ZCorp 510 at Spot Desing – thanks for the flexible payment option and patience!

Boards printed at duostudio (Y!: studio.plot) inside the English passage – thanks for the longlasting quality, 15% early bird price cut and friendly staff

Also thanks to our assistant teacher (andra panait) which happily provided help and counseling during her private (spare) time.

The assembly of roughly 486 ribs into an alien-looking 1/500 terrain model generated quite a nice social event…

We still owe the laser cutter guys some obscene amount of money, but we hope to repay our studio’s debt asap.

First run:

The results were nice, so I decided to share:

Here’s the bugged up script (it’s quite useless, but people may find inspiration where I didn’t):

Option Explicit
‘

‘Script written by Dimitrie Stefanescu
‘Released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0
‘№ 5:28:35 AMW ednesday, May 21, 2008

Call Main()
Sub Main()

Dim surf : surf = Rhino.GetObject(“sel surf “, 8, True)

Dim detailLevel : detailLevel = Rhino.GetInteger(“det lev “, 10, 5, 50)
Dim matTh : matTh = Rhino.GetReal(“mat thickness “, .4, .1, 2)
Dim hght : hght = Rhino.GetReal(“rib height “, 1.5,  matTh, 10)

Dim uDomain : uDomain = Rhino.SurfaceDomain(surf, 0)
Dim uStep : uStep = (uDomain(1) – uDomain(0))/detailLevel

Dim vDomain : vDomain = Rhino.SurfaceDomain(surf, 1)
Dim vStep : vStep = (vDomain(1) – vDomain(0))/detailLevel

Call rhino.enableredraw(False)

Dim pts : pts = Array()
ReDim pts(detailLevel)

Dim i, j, k : k = -1
Dim rib

‘
‘U direction
‘

For i=uDomain(0) To uDomain(1) Step uStep
For j=vDomain(0) To vDomain(1) Step vStep
k = k + 1
ReDim Preserve pts(k)
pts(k) = Rhino.EvaluateSurface(surf, Array(i, j))
Next
rib = addRib(pts, matTh, hght)
k = -1
Next

‘
‘V direction
‘

‘k = -1
‘For j=uDomain(0) To uDomain(1) Step uStep
‘    For i=vDomain(0) To vDomain(1) Step vStep
‘        k = k + 1
‘        ReDim Preserve pts(k)
‘        pts(k) = Rhino.EvaluateSurface(surf, Array(i, j))
‘    Next
‘    rib = addRib(pts, matTh, hght)
‘    k = -1
‘Next

Call rhino.enableredraw(True)

End Sub

Function addRib(pts, matThickness, height)

Dim crv, crvPlane, norm, ppp, art, crvOff, arrCrvs, ribb, perpFrame, fff, dirV, extSurf

crv = Rhino.AddInterpCurve(pts)

crvPlane = Rhino.CurvePlane(crv)

If Not isArray(crvPlane) Then
Call rhino.print(“Surface not ribbable by this script. SORRY!”)
End If

norm = Rhino.CurveNormal(crv)
ppp = Rhino.AddPlaneSurface(crvPlane, 1, 1)
art = Rhino.SurfacePoints(ppp)

crvOff = Rhino.OffsetCurve(crv, art(1) , height , norm)
arrCrvs = Array(crv, crvOff(0))

ribb = Rhino.AddEdgeSrf(arrCrvs)

perpFrame = Rhino.CurvePerpFrame(crv, 0)
fff = Rhino.AddPlaneSurface(perpFrame, matThickness, matThickness)
art = Rhino.SurfacePoints(fff)
dirV = Rhino.AddLine(art(0), art(2))

extSurf = Rhino.ExtrudeSurface(ribb, dirV)

Call Rhino.DeleteObjects(Array(fff, ppp, dirV, ribb))

addRib = extSurf
End Function

Veronica and me (Dimitrie). This could have looked better, but alas, we had to make a 1m x 1.3m model in the same time.

The project’s challenge was to transpose the notion of perfume in an architectural form. Wikipedia suggests many trails. Chevalier’s Dictionary of Symbols suggests some more. Balzac: “Tout parfum est une combinaison d’air et de lumiere.”; Hugo: “Le parfum est de la lumiere.”. Floral motifs, blobitecture, incense and religion, drugs – it was up to you to decide on how to visually speculate perfume.

I was fed up of the meanings and interpretations of perfume. Perfume nowadays is synthetic. Leave me be. Smell chemistry. You can’t contradict that.

I broke the visual representations of the chemical components of a standard perfume (chemical representations have very strict geometric rules – 120 deg angles, pentagons and hexagons) and got voronoi regions.

Ahhh, sweet metaphor of computational architecture. Isn’t it beautiful? Elegant? Yet it has nothing to do with architecture. Form is detached from function and we are approaching a similar crisis of that of modernism, when the exact opposite happened. People don’t find themselves included in such designs. Computation that strictly refers to form/ellegance alienates architecture from its goals. I don’t trust the starchitect theory as being the solution; it won’t last or it will split us into sculptors and engineers. 

(Please do read that article. It’s a must. It shows past (as in blobitecture and zaha), present(not the “so last year” deconstructivism or – worse even – post-modernism) and pushes through to the question posed by the future.)

Enough theoretical blabber. I’m giving all this computational business some thought. Code in architecture is nice, as long as it serves the people, not just ellegance. (Please do notice I didn’t use the term “function”. I prefer the much more accurate and revelatory word “people” = complex emergent system.)

Here are some pics of the model:

Programmed in Rhino. Finished in Sketchup. Model made in ManualManufacturyCAD(hand glued). Laser cutting here.