Archiprint Movement in Architecture
February 2014 \\ Volume 03 \ Issue 01
Editorial
Movement in Architecture Architecture is never at a standstill. There are always new developments in the field and architecture is therefore forever on the go and subject to change. This is more than good: it is vital. Change prompts us to reconsider conventional, contemporary thinking and practices in architecture. Change, consequently, is never merely based on what is ‘new’. It builds on what is there already, or forges relationships between different ‘old’ ways of thinking. The theme of this issue is Movement. We address various different ‘acts of change’ in the architectural design process as a continuous narrative. We focus on the way perspectives are currently changing in this process. Among other things, we touch on topics like sustainability, generative design, freehand drawing, user behaviour, education and designing in itself. In addition to this wide range of topics, we chose to add two highlights in this issue, which each focus exclusively on a single, specific subject. We singled out generative design and freehand drawing, because they are currently predominant in education, design methodologies and the public debate.
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The advent of computer aided design has been exerting a strong influence on the way buildings are designed for years. Increasingly, working with parameters and computer models – so-called generative design – is used to design complex projects and to meet every requirement. This often leads to surprising results and configurations. What the role of the architect is, in an age where computers dominate the design process, remains to be seen. Will it limit designers’ possibilities? Will it create new opportunities regarding the possibilities and formal language of buildings? On the other hand, we haven’t ignored analogous designing. The triangular relationship between design, body and the experience of space and time still plays an important part in the design process. The growing interest in phenomenology and the merit of freehand drawing for the design process, for instance, create new perspectives in architectural practice and education. The fact remains that by assessing the past and the present with a critical glance – not only with regard to the topics mentioned above – it is possible to catch up with the public debate. Is this a shift in contemporary design? Do we do things differently now than we did before? And if so, how does that benefit contemporary architectural practice? Are we creating a new movement? With this issue of Archiprint, we hope to equip architects and students of architecture with new perspectives and methods that will inspire and encourage development and change! Annemiek Osinga and Michael Maminski
Colophon
Archiprint February 2014 \\ Volume 03 \ Issue 01 Eindhoven Free publication ISSN 2213-5588 Journal for Architecture, created by students of the Department of the Built Environment of the Eindhoven University of Technology and architecture study association AnArchi. anarchi@bwk.tue.nl, www.anarchi.bwk.tue.nl/archiprint Editor-in-chief Michael Maminski Final editor Annemiek Osinga Editors Julie Bosch, Renée van Kemenade, Frank van Kessel, Hannaneh Sobhani, Kavitha Varathan, Peyvand Yavari Guest editors Sander Boer, Erik van Eck, Fátima Fernandes, Kristel Hermans, Herman Hertzberger, Joren Hoogeboom, Laurens Jan ten Kate, Frank van Kessel, Zubin Khabazi, Edoardo Mentegazzi, Ricardo Ploemen, Jouke Post, Dennis Rietmeijer, Christiaan Rijnen, Roger Tan Contributors Mahsa Bagheri, Luuk van den Elzen (AnArchi), Léon Tonnaer Advisory committee Bernard Colenbrander, Jacob Voorthuis, Gijs Wallis de Vries, Maarten Willems Layout design Michael Maminski Translation and language correction D’Laine Camp Printing Drukkerij Van Druenen, Geldrop www.vandruenen.nl Address AnArchi association Eindhoven University of Technology Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning Vertigo Building Den Dolech 2 5612 AZ Eindhoven The Netherlands facebook.com/pages/AnArchi issuu.com/anarchi This magazine cannot be republished or reproduced without the permission of the publisher.
Generative Design
Contents
Erik van Eck and Roger Tan 6
Generative Design is the Future Sander Boer 19
Towards a (De)contextual- Tool-Based and ization Self-Organizing Architecture The Revival of the Architect EXp[at] HOME
The Importance of Sketching Christiaan Rijnen 29
Freehand Drawing
A Holistic Approach Towards Architecture
I Draw (with) the Body FĂĄtima Fernandes 31
Kristel Hermans 9
Dennis Rietmeijer 21
Jouke Post 11
Joren Hoogeboom 23
Design Digitally, Make Digitally A Disembodiment of Today’s Image-Based Architecture Parametricism: Practice The Act of Change in Architecture Zubin Khabazi 14
Ricardo Ploemen 26
The Future of Architecture
Herman Hertzberger and Laurens Jan ten Kate 34
Born from Sensibility Frank van Kessel 37
AnArchi Agenda
The 5th Board of AnArchi 38
Edoardo Mentegazzi 17
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Generative Design
Parametricism: The Act of Change in Architecture Parametricism is a relatively new term in architecture. What does it mean and how does it influence the development of architecture? In this essay architect Edoardo Mentegazzi describes the growing role of generative algorithms as a parametric method used especially to create complex freeform structures, such as Gridshells.
1, 2, 3 Patrik Schumacher, Parametricism as Style, 11th Architecture Biennale, Venice 2008 4 Rivka Oxman, ‘Digital architecture as a challenge for design pedagogy: theory, knowledge, models and medium’, Design Studies 29 (2008), p.109 5 Zubin Khabazi, Generative Algorithms, Concepts and Experiments, 2_Porous shell, 2011. Form Finding is the search for optimal shape. In Architectural design: ‘form finding can be seen as shape finding with the optimum being rather subjective to the opinion of the architect. In structural design, the shape itself is not optimized, but the optimum is found in an optimal structural behaviour. For finding the optimal structural shape, different techniques can be used’ (analogical, digital, algoritmical). Toussaint, A Design Tool for Timber Gridshells, MSc Thesis, Delft University of Technology, 2007, p.69 6 ‘The name of grid shell commonly describes a structure with the shape and strength of a double curvature shell, but made of a grid instead of a solid surface. ...Long continuous bars are assembled on the ground, pinned between them in order to confer on the grid a total absence of plane shear rigidity which will allow large deformations. The grid is deformed elastically by bending until the desired form is obtained and then rigidified.’ Douthe, Baverel, Caron, Form-finding of grid shell in composite material, IASS, 2006, p.1-2 7 John Shannon Hendrix, Topological Theory in Bioconstructivism, paper 28, 2012, p.1
Parametricism The term parametricism was used as a manifest for the first time by Patrik Schumacher during the 11th Architecture Biennale of Venice of 2008 and is without doubt the new design paradigm of today.
Generative Design
Edoardo Mentegazzi
Contemporary avant-garde architecture is addressing the demand for an increased level of articulated complexity by means of retooling its methods on the basis of parametric design systems. The contemporary architectural style that has achieved pervasive hegemony within the contemporary architectural avant-garde can be best understood as a research programme based upon the parametric paradigm. We propose to call this style: Parametricism.1 Schumacher defines parametricism as the new great style after modernism, while postmodernism and deconstructivism are seen only as transitional episodes in the course of research and innovation. According to him, even the term style becomes more complex and goes further than the traditional definition of the word. ‘My thesis is therefore: Styles are design research programmes.’2 Transforming itself into a ‘design-research-program’, style loses its traditional definition and becomes a complex design method. This method consists of methodological rules based on avoiding particular research paths or pursuing them. Schumacher calls these rules negative heuristics and positive heuristics. Negative heuristics avoid familiar typologies, platonic/ hermetic objects, clear-cut zones/territories, repetition, straight lines, right angles, corners… They do not add or subtract without elaborate interarticulations. Positive heuristics ‘interarticulate, hyberdize, morph, deterritorialize, deform, iterate, use splines, nurbs, generative components and script rather than model’, etcetera.3 This approach, becoming pervasive in contemporary design and architecture, has created a new paradigm in architecture, changing the design theory and methodology. Parametricism introduces new concepts such as continuous versus discrete, intricate versus hierarchical, topological versus typological, and structure versus form.4 Shifting from the spatial, formal and compositional terminology of postmodern architecture, parametric design allows new generations of skilled architects to understand and to replicate the complex and mutational rules inside nature. Nature as Model and Bioconstructivism Nature has always been a fascinating source of inspiration and ideas for researcher-architects and designers. One of these pioneers is German architect Frei Otto who, in collaboration with biologist J.G. Helmke, started his studies on Radiolaria microorganisms, looking for a structural design medium able to recreate the state of natural equilibrium of lightweight structures. As a result of these studies, he developed the so-called Form-Finding, a process in which a predefined material system in predefined conditions becomes naturally self-organized.5 Otto used analogic models, like hanging chains or nets of cables, to investigate the structural behaviour of Gridshell structures.6 These studies have become a series of publications published by the Institute for Lightweight Structures (IL). The form-finding technique has evolved since the analogic models of Frei Otto. Today, form-finding means form-improvement or even form-exploration. It no longer concerns a structural optimization, but a morphogenesis of free-form shapes. This approach, called bioconstructivism, involves the engagement in architecture of generative models from nature. This is in the tradition of natura naturans in architecture, which is the imitation of the forming principles of nature, as opposed to natura naturata, the direct imitation or mimesis of the form.7
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Generative Design
Computational Geometry and Generative Algorithms Computational Geometry is a branch of computer science that uses generative algorithms (GAs) for solving problems with geometrical aspects and outputs.8 In algorithmic processes various parameters that play a role in conventional design systems, like site, program, building type, facilities, beauty, structure, etcetera, are transformed into algorithms, to generate design solutions. The algorithm acts as a set of rules that provides instructions to calculate and process data and carry out a specific task, following a predefined step-by-step procedure. Any given input (the data) results into a calculated design output, which is performed by the algorithmic process.9 In computational geometry, generative algorithms need a design medium in order to perform geometrical operations. This is possible thanks to Grasshopper, a plug-in for design software Rhinoceros that combines script language with a visual interface. Using this platform, a new variety of Gridshell typologies, based on the control of self-organization and surface distribution, can be created.
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Porous Shell10 Porous Shell is an experiment published by architect, researcher and writer Zubin Khabazi, with the aim to share the knowledge of algorithmic design applied to specific subjects. It is based on the Radiolaria structure configuration and it is created within the Grasshopper platform using a specific generative algorithm. The author shows the process behind this experiment by dividing it into four phases. Starting from modelling a generic double-curved shape in the Rhinoceros program, passing through its organization and optimization with the use of ‘algorithmic morphogenesis’ and ending with the fabrication algorithm including the assembly process. Phase 1: Center Point and Contour lines The organization of chambers in radiolaria is center-oriented and radial. ...After locating a center point, several closed curves as contour lines should be generated around it up to the edges of the surface. The general scale of the surface and desired size of chambers define the amount and distance of the contour lines. This phase of the algorithm corresponds to the general geometry of the input surface. Phase 2: Surface Subdivision and Triangulation Basically the algorithm divides the contour lines into pieces and connects them to generate the base lines of triangulation. The number of base lines and the distance between them are all adjustable. Manipulation of them depends on the chamber sizes and local surface curvature. This phase corresponds to the physical behavior of the natural morphogenesis of the organism. Phase 3: Chamber Generation Each node of the net is a center point for a chamber to be drawn around it, using parameters of all net segments connected to that point. After all chambers being generated, these curves and their inside area should be subtracted from the main surface which makes a lattice shape surface which is porous shell. Phase 4: Fabrication All issues regarding size and number of chambers, thickness of lattice, etc. should be defined by the values coming from the product, design, material and fabrication necessities. While the design phase has been informed by such information, now the porous shell is ready to go to the process of fabrication and assembly. To conclude, it can be said that parametricism and its specific area of computational design gives skilled architects the opportunity to manage three important stages of a project at the same time: design, analysis and fabrication. Creating the rules and the susceptibility to let them interact with each other, like it happens in nature, all of the aspects of the project can be improved and controlled.
Radiolaria microorganisms. Image credits: Khabazi, Z. (2012). Generative Algorithms (using Grasshopper). [morphogenisism].
Porous Shell. Image credits: Khabazi, Z. (2012). Generative Algorithms (using Grasshopper). [morphogenisism].
8 ‘GAs are probabilistic methods of optimization that rely on random selection factors and probabilistic decision. ‘The basic principle is extracted from Nature and its selection method’, that is why Genetic Algorithms rely on on the collective learning paradigm and implement the principle of population, mutation, recombination and selection. ‘Charles Darwin showed that Nature uses random mutation and in that way creates a huge variety of designs.’ Miloš Dimčić, Structural optimisation of Grid Shells, Based on Genetic Algorithms, itke, Stuttgart, 2011, p.25-27 9 Zubin Khabazi, Generative Algorithms, using Grasshopper, Morphogenesism, 2012, p.7 10 Passages taken from: Zubin Khabazi, Generative Algorithms, Concepts and Experiments, 2_Porous shell, Morphogenesism, 2011, p.16
About the author Edoardo Mentegazzi studied architecture at the Polytechnic of Turin and he graduated in 2005. In 2006 he moved to the Netherlands where he established his interdisciplinary office: E M A (Edoardo Mentegazzi Architect), operating in the fields of Architecture, Design, Research and International Competitions, fully based on a digital and three-dimensional design method. Mentegazzi is also working on the book Behind Gridshells, Morphogenetic and Parametric Design Strategies, expected to be published in 2014.