Rendering by Michael Ahlers
Final reviews in DIP16, with interesting new progression that deals with urban conditions. Students have at this stage initiated their investigation of a 1 hectare area, in which their material system, based on particular fabrication techniques will be deployed. This year our students are selecting their own sites around the world, but an initial urban understanding has been built up collectively through a Beijing study trip.
Background image Claudia White, AA DIP16
I presented the work of AA DIP 16 at this event which gathered researchers, entrepreneurs, decision makers and architects for a focused discussion on Biomimetics and Biomimicry in a symposium at KTH Albanova, Stockholm. Additional speakers included Christopher Allen and Denise DeLuca from the Biomimicry Institute, Vincent Bulone and Lars Berglund representing Biomime at KTH, Richard Bonser from the University of Reading, Ulrika Karlsson of Servo and KTH, Antonia Ax:son Johnson as founder of Antonia Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Sustainable Development as well as a number of researchers and representatives from the city of Stockholm. My focus was partly on giving examples of biomimetic references in the work of the students at AA DIP16, but also to introduce the student design project as a platform for collaboration and a testbed that could prove beneficial to interests outside eduction. My hope is that this event will lead to new collaboration in student work as well as in my own research.
Background image by Haen Suk Yi, AA DIP16
I was invited b y Tim Anstey to lecture in the Architecture and Technology series for the 4th years, presenting ideas around technology as a driver for innovation. The lecture featured international references, work fromAA DIP16, as well as my own work.
Co-ordinated by Marie-Ange Brayer (FRAC Center Orleans) and Claudia Pasquero (AA INTER10/ecoLogicStudio), this symposium was inspired by the YOUNIVERSE exhibition curated by M-A Brayer in Seville for the BIACS3 and by research work done in the AA by various undergraduate units and postgraduate programs. I presented the work of Krets, in which I put focus to the fact that the concepts explored in the symposium are as valid during collaborative project development as in the final proposal.
The final panel was moderated by Brett Steele, director of AA.
“The relationship between architecture and science has been evolving throughout history mainly reflecting the ever-changing relationship between society and nature. The last century was shaken by a sudden jump in human’s understanding of his surrounding environment: from an intuitive/philosophical/mathematical understating of complexity and the turbulent dynamic of natural processes we moved into a measurable, material one; supported by our ever-increasing computational power we can now feel, measure, read and visualize complexity; this condition has allowed a direct material engagement with dynamic processes to escape the restricted field of science and permeate society at many levels. In architecture the effect is becoming evident and, most of all, nuanced: from purely metaphorical and figurative the new relationship between architecture and science is emerging as material and, ultimately, prototypical.
Moreover the ‘material’ of architecture has radically expanded its meaning, incorporating aspects that are virtual, potential, dynamic, and informational: we can now perhaps define this expansion as the most noticeable and important effect of computation in architecture and design. The symposium should present this emerging diverse palette of ‘material’ approaches indicating strands of research that are redefining both the relationship between science and architecture and between architecture and the architect itself.”
Excerpt from symposium brief
I was an invited critic in the Performative Design studio at the KTH School of Architecture. The work was quite impressive, with proposals for a Marine Biology Field Station, and a strong focus on geometry, parametric systems and fabrication. The very suggestive proposals allowed a in-depth discussion on issues of project specific system development. Other invited guests included Tim Anstey, Johanna Bruce and Mats Brodén. The studio share the site in Simrishamn with AA Dip16, but we will introduce the brief after the christmas holidays.
Excerpts from the brief:
3D print of detail from one of the proposals
In the context of a Marine Biology Field Station that mediates and acts as an interface between sea and land, student groups will develop a theory of superficial depth operating at multiple scales in their proposals primarily through the use, transformation and exploration of selected surface geometries. Superficial depth, a modulation of surfaces moving from the smooth and undifferentiated to those that are infused with substantive qualities, will be used to generate a series of microclimatic regions in the project. A microclimate is a local atmospheric zone where the climate differs from the surrounding area. Each group will introduce microclimates as sites of exchange in the project and each proposal will consider issues of programmatic (spatial and temporal organization), formal (pattern, texture, color, aperture, shape and mass), structural (material tolerance, load bearing capacity) and environmental (microclimatic modulation capacities, thermal, water, light and acoustic modulation) performance.
Studio Responsible: Prof. Marcelyn Gow and Prof. Ulrika Karlsson
Teacher Assistants: Jonah Fritzell and Adam Lind
Background image PARCEL parametric variations
As part of the education for engineers focusing on component design, I talked on the topic of Architecture and Technology at the University of Jönköping. The lecture was divided in two parts. In the firs half, I presented Swedish and international references of work in the field of parametric design as well as industrial production and Building Information Modeling. In the second half, I presented two Krets projects, and my own continued research based on these projects, as part of my licientiate thesis. Later the same day, I had another presentation for Design students from Jönköping and Växjö, at the office of Vandalorum in Värnamo.
The image Mark himself considers the most important; parallel work in physical and digital media, and strong collaboration between engineers and architects.
Mark Burry lectured on Gaudi as part of the current Sagrada Familia exhibition at the museum (also curated by him). As always, Mark´s lecture was packed with so many interesting issues of the Sagrada Familia development, from Gaudi´s times to now. The work is certainly very relevant today, as digital tools recreate the previously unseen models of Gaudi, and production of stone is advancing through 7 axis robots (5+2). The visual material presented by Mark communicates the potential pf parametric geometries in a very legible way, of course with a focus on the very particular geometries of the cathedral. They are now moving into a part of the project that has been described very little by Gaudi, but the principles of geometry have been set to the extents that the design work can be innovative yet conceptually follow his ideas.
As this lecture coincided with the Patterns lecture the day before, we had the opportunity to meet for dinner afterwards as a SA / Arkitekturmuseet joint thing, which provided the opportunity for in depth discussions also on the more social and political aspects of the Sagrada Familia project.
Marcelo Spina
I hosted Marcelo Spina and Georgina Huljich of LA based Patterns, who lectured at the KTH School of Architecture as part of the SA lecture program. Marcelo presented their work, with an emphasis on formal development, and physical prototyping. As many other young firms, they have been able to push their work by being part of ecxhibitions, often displaying material studies of formal variation. Most recently they also curated the Matters of Sensation show at the Artists Space in New york, featuring a number of practices of their generation. I found it interesting to discuss whether they would continue to use tha exhibition/gallery space as a venue, as part of their practice, or if this is becoming obsolete as they are moving into more built work. I believe they did recognize other aspects in these venues, as part of a discourse and experimnetaion, but it was also clear that building was very much in their agenda at the moment.
Dip16 visiting Robert Aish seminar in Stockholm. Photo courtesy of Robert Aish
Dip16 is examining current tendencies in spatial production dictated by developments in material science, digital manufacturing, processes of industrial production and economics as well as new organizational models and methods of procurement. This is directly aimed at deploying architecture as a customized consumer object as the premise for the production and realization of a frivolous space arising from a new environmentally conscious ecology of construction.
We will question the building industry’s short sighted view of the balance between quality, longevity, economy and environmental impact and investigate alternate economical systems in order to found an agile and adaptive framework for a an innovative and sustainable architecture exploiting key concepts such as parametric design, digital fabrication, localized production and ultimately mass customization.
The act of building is our planet’s largest polluting agent. In our view innovation in technology, material science, fabrication techniques and production methods is offering the only novel way of producing space capable of reducing waste, the carbon footprint and our dependency on fossil fuels without having to entirely rely on reductive models of optimization and performance. Dip16 will be researching this new ecology of industrialized building and looking for new solutions based on industrialized production deploying processes and procurement routes provided by NGOs and Open Source communities.
We are searching for an architecture of composites in which spatial quality, material performance, the design of fabrication processes as well as production processes are balanced means in the production of a highly site and context specific architecture with an inherit capacity for redeployment and re-adaptation.
Dip 16 will revisit traditional building concepts such as blocks, slabs, post and beams, shells, frames, tents and fibres as well as ecologies of fabrication and production through history. In the search for composite conditions we will investigate basic building taxonomy through means of fabrication such as milling, folding, laminating, sewing, stacking, interlocking, hanging, injection moulding, compositing, extrusion, weaving, bundling etc. Spatially and programmatically this will entail various degrees of articulation from the standardized low tech component to the highly articulated formal element, avoiding self similar repetition in favour for the diversity of the composite.
We will spring from the past years’ open exploration of parametric and computational techniques in the search for a more contextual and integrated mode of design, in which the rationality sought for in the industry, can meet formal, analytical and procedural experimentation across a range of seamlessly integrated scales managed via a building information model (BIM).
dip16.net is the blog for AA Diploma 16 taught by Jonas Lundberg, Andrew Yau, Jonas Runberger and Thomas Tong at the Architectural Association, London.
Project by Petra Lindfors, Robert Volz and Henric Wernefeldt
The AIF Articulations studio focused on the design, modulation and construction of new modes of transparencies and visibilities and their affects (with plural emphasis). What are transparency, visibility and semi-visibility today? What are their gradients? How do they grow and adapt to site and program and what aesthetic strategies do they produce? As a case for this endeavour the studio deals with the design of a series of independent media production buildings, where an interesting reciprocal relationship between technology and the material is active. This was paralleled by a rigorous investment and research into digital design, digital fabrication and industrialized production.
The Architecture InFormation studio had a continuous research agenda that re-considers the history of systems and components in post- war 20th century architecture and further re-examines the implications of a cellular or componental approach in contemporary architectural design practice and aesthetic discourse.
KTH School of Architecture 4th year design studio, 2007 – 2008
Examiner: Ulrika Karlsson
Tutors: Ulrika Karlsson and Jonas Runberger
