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

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.

My vision concentrated on issues relating to the poor visibility/readability of the overall area (and the necessity of a landmark) and the lack of “free” public urban space. The functional program was mainly derived from the observation that most historic centers (Lipscani being a prime example in this) loose their initial cultural and traditional economic value in favor of the over-dominant bar/cafe. This leads to a certain repetition of fluxes (economic, cultural, pedestrian) which harms the respective area.

Geometry-wise, my proposal respects local aspects of the area, namely its porosity and the way the urban tissue coagulated around narrow winding streets and small interior courtyards in a constantly surprising lattice.

In respect to this approach, i considered the lot as a solid volume on which forces are applied in respect with the openings and general director lines of the site. Performing a “structural” analysis on the site revealed the patterns by which these forces would naturally flow towards given points of rest (namely the designated openings of the courtyards).   Using topological optimization techniques these patterns were transformed into geometry which was later subtracted from the original body thus giving the overall shape of the building.

By following this design method I ensure an optimal circulation flow through the built site, encouraging interaction and furthering the development of the local urban tissue in a manner very close to its characteristics (gained by spontaneous evolution) thus fully integrating the new implant.

That’s wrapper of the last month, give or take.

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.

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.