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

COMP{M}UTATION: Parametric design workshop @ Faculty of Architecture, Brno (CZ) for architecture students, starring Patrick Bedarf, Dimitrie Stefanescu, Rhinoceros and Grasshopper. Thanks to Thomas for the invite!

Check here for more information on registration (Czech only).

Team: Patrick Bedarf, Tomas Kozelsky & Dimitrie Stefanescu.

This is our entry for the Evolo ”11 competition. Update: We seem to be among the finalists. I’ll leave you to judge for your own: you can see the winning projects on their website. It is a consciously speculative project in which our main goal was to push parametric design techniques as much as possible into an as experimental direction as we could allow.

From the competition statement:

The deforestation rate of a country describes the annual destruction of natural forests. With 11.5% in 2004, Brazil lost over 10.722 square miles and marks therefore the highest rate globally. This massive destruction of local woodland area has many different causes and brings negative impacts on local and global ecosystems. Besides the irreversible destruction of the natural environment, diverse ecosystems and rare animal species, deforestation is mainly driven by and feeding the status of poverty in rural regions. Furthermore, in socio-political dynamics of high population pressure and stagnating economic conditions, the sale of land is mostly the only option for poor farmers.

Confronted with this acute challenge of solving the phenomena of deforestation we propose a high-rise building as prototype for the usage of wood in a sustainable and innovative manner and the raise of global awareness of the problem at hand. In combining the two realms of research and tourism, the projects aim is to act as stimulating keystone for establishing a vital loop of raising global awareness and supportive funds as well as educating visiting interested parties and local natives.

The introduction of the novel technology of laminated wood construction acting as load-bearing and space partitioning thick lattice, displays the vast possibilities of the natural resource of wood while underlining a sustainable application of long-lasting flexibility. Specific programmatic and technical requirements are provided by a modular system based on conventional and easy transportable shipping containers and are selectively integrated. Therefore, the symbiotic system demonstrates the sensible usage of material resources and their inherent performance capacities in addressing sustainable use, reuse and recycling cycles.

The aim of the week long workshop is to produce a working model for the fabrication of the ZA lounge pavilion, which will be placed in Unirii Square, Cluj. The design process will explore different computational techniques which will all work together towards the actual building of the pavilion. The material goal of the workshop is to have a 1:1 working prototype by the end, whilst the final fabrication and assembly will take place before the ZA event.

The software used will be Rhino3d and Grasshopper. Participants are expected to have some experience using the tools mentioned above, though this is not mandatory.

The workshop will take place during the 7th to the 13th of March 2011. If you want to participate, please fill in the form below. Please note that the participation fee is 50 RON/12 EUR for students and 211 RON/50 EUR for graduated individuals, payable to ASTA Cluj at the beginning of the workshop.

For more information please direct your questions to the organizers.

Registrations are now closed. We will notify registrants regarding their participation status by 12:00pm on the 2nd of March.

During the 15-17th of December I will be tutoring at the automatic architecture event at the TU Delft. Here’s some info from the official site:

Automatic-architecture is a three-day workshop (15th-17th December 2010) open to architects and students in order to show the use of computational design for architectural development by cross-fertilization of knowledge. The cases for the workshops has been collected from a real estate developer and, in cooperation with the University of Delft this case has been translated into workshop material.

Costs: Euro 75,- for three days.

Automatic-architecture offers room for thirty participants. The workshops will be held at the Technical University of Delft starting Wednesday December 15.

I talked about some projects I did (some together with Veronica Popescu) over the last two years, always insisting on the computational approach and detailing the techniques used.

I presented scripting approaches and more interactive (parametric) grasshopper based modeling. Some  Processing based approaches were presented and I insisted on the necessity of using multiple open tools that can be made to communicate between one another.

I tried to clearly mark out the relationship between fabrication and the overall design – how material properties and building techniques inform the design and viceversa.

Reactions were good, and it seems computational approaches are definetively stirring people up.

Thanks are required to Patrick Bedarf, who made this possible and is proving to be an excellent host in Leipzig, and also to prof.  Henning Rambow for all the support.

Also if you are reading this from Leipzig and are interested in joining us tommorow at 16.oo @ HTWK computer pool for some hands-on grasshopper work, there’s  no one stopping you.