Digital Craft in Architecture Portfolio 2

[Beyond Retroscale: pAlImpsest]

by Jahnavi J | 19272222 Tutors Adam Holloway, Sebastian Hicks, Chris Fulton

Hanjun Kim, Shahe Gregorian

MArchD Year 1: Digital Craft Studio Advanced Digital Practice Oxford School of Architecture

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ABOUT Beyond Retroscale: pAlImpsest is an explorative o昀昀-shoot of the Retroscale project

driven by AI and digital tooling. The project Retroscale in collaboration with Make Architects questions the possibility of retro昀椀tting new future funtionality into existing buildings with minimal intervention and thoughful re-design. Beyond Retroscale derives from the same brief but attempts to use AI in the process as a tool for design inspiration. By highlighting the crital understanding of digital tools through workshops conducted over the course of the project, it establishes a template for a unique work昀氀ow.

CONTENTS

Chapter 1: Digital tooling Workshops - Introduction and structure - Prompt craft for AI using Midjourney - Numerical Approach to Modelling - Itirative Approach - Topological modelling with SubD - Form-昀椀nding and Parametric Detailing

Chapter 2: Beyond Retroscale

- Introduction - Cultural context - Analysis - Tests - Design Iterations - Final Output - AI and the design process- a stand

CHAPTER 1

Digital Tooling Workshops

PART A

- STRUCTURE - PROMPT CRAFT WITH AI USING MIDJOURNEY

STRUCTURE The portfolio has pages with Ai promts and grasshopper wok昀氀ows. For ease of understanding, the pages with the red border represent the Ai promts and the pages with grey represent grasshopper scripts and understanding work昀氀ows.

PROMPT CRAFT This was a workshop conducted in week 0 of the course where the objective was to 昀椀ne tune prompting with midjourney and understand how ai and collage can aid in the design process. The conclusions at this step were leaning more towards the idea that AI is good for a quick reimagination of a concept but not for generating something speci昀椀c.

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Imagine

and lights within

pavilion

a

sprical

pavilion

with

light Blend with translusecnt fabric

structure, metal, translucent fabric

MIDJOURNEY EXPLORATIONS- LIGHT PAVILION

Imagine a sprical pavilion with light

Blend with image of pavilion with lights and fairy like e昀昀ect

Feeding collage into midjourney to reimagine

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FINAL COLLAGE 1 There were two collages as a group, one showing the form of the space and one showing the feel.

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FINAL COLLAGE 2 There were two collages as a group, one showing the form of the space and one showing the feel.

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FINAL AI IMAGE

CHAPTER 1

Digital Tooling Workshops

PART B

- NUMERICAL APPROACH TO MODELLING - UNDERSTANDING THE SOFTWARE - WORKFLOW PROPOSED - WORKSHOP OUTCOMES - ADAPTATIONS AND EXPLORATIONS

Establising a particle quelea and feeding it into grasshopper

Setting up the simulators for the fountain or 昀氀ocking simulations, includes the quelea engine and the rules or forces acting on the quelea

Understanding how the quelea functions allows one to understand what rules to manipulate to have control over the simulations

Forces act externally but the agent rules work within the cluster of quelea

Simplex noise is used to generate a height 昀椀eld or a magnetic 昀椀eld which can be used to further manipulate particles in a work昀氀ow

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NUMERICAL MODELLING STEP 1-Quelea

STEP 2

STEP 3

Setting up particle quelea and system for computation

Adding rules to the system

Adding constraints to the system Gravity and attract rule Attractor force Negative force/ gravity Positive force No rules

The above diagram illustrated the movement of quelea under di昀昀erent combination of forces which allows one to understand how the particles might behave for a given set of rules

QUELEA AND TUNDRA EXPERIMENTATION AND ASSIGNMENT 24

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NUMERICAL MODELLING STEP 4- Flocking Simulation Setting up particle quelea and system for computation

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STEP 5

STEP 6

Adding gradient based on the distance of each quelea from each other

Flocking with acctor and repel forces which makes it behave like birds in 昀氀ocks

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NUMERICAL MODELLING STEP 1- Tundra

Setting up a rectangular grid of points to manipulate with the noise 昀椀eld

STEP 2

Simplex purlin noise used to generate a 昀椀eld. Overlapping two 昀椀elds of di昀昀erent amplitude is possible through SumFractal

STEP 3

Creating a gradient on the surface created

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NUMERICAL MODELLING STEP 4

Setting up point 昀椀elds which attract the quelea

STEP 5

Adding di昀昀erent force magnitude to the points creates a variety of interesting forms

Diagram illustrating how the step by step movement of quelea happens. By restricting movement angles to multiples of 45 degrees, it gives a more geometric output, ridding it of the curves

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BENCH DESIGN ED THROUGH QUELEA AND TUNDRA

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CHAPTER 1

Digital Tooling Workshops

PART C

-ITERATIVE DESIGN APPROACH - UNDERSTANDING THE SOFTWARE - WORKFLOW PROPOSED - WORKSHOP OUTCOMES - ADAPTATIONS AND EXPLORATIONS

Establising an item to aggregate and giving it a direction for aggregation

Constraints added in the terms of 昀椀elds or mesh boundaries

Working of topos explained as a sketchestablishing load and support geometries along with a domain for the optimisation to happen

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WASP STEP 1

Setting up box for aggregation

STEP 2

Aggregation of a tetrahedron allows more play with the directions for aggregations

STEP 3

Combination of di昀昀erent type of input geometries for aggregation

STEP 4

De昀椀ning an attribute inside of the geometry such that once it aggregates, it can be replaced by said attribute

Constraints for aggregation in the form of curve or boundary representations

WASP EXPERIMENTATION 38

STEP 5

Diagram showing wasp dependency on direction for aggregation Jahnavi J | Beyond Retroscale: pAlImpsest | DCA

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TOPOS STEP 1 Setting up load and support for topos to opimise the geometry within a given boundary

STEP 2

Combination of wasp and topos to create a 昀椀eld at the load geometry and aggregate it with octahedron

STEP 3

Cretaing a joinery between three elements by assigning two as loads and one as support and giving a sphere inbetween as boundary for optimisation

Note: Refer to Chapter 2 for assignment on Topos

TOPOS EXPERIMENTATION 40

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CHAPTER 1

Digital Tooling Workshops

PART D

- TOPOLOGICAL MODELLING WITH SUBD - UNDERSTANDING THE SOFTWARE - WORKFLOW PROPOSED - WORKSHOP OUTCOMES - ADAPTATIONS AND EXPLORATIONS

UNDERSTANDING SUBD SubD refers to subdivided polyhedron or subdivided mesh geometry which allows for creation of smoot curves and organic work昀氀ow. Hence once shift between the subd smooth geometry and its control mesh by using tab

Chairs modelled in workshop with help from Shahe to understanding sculpting with subD

Diagram showing the wat subD relates to its control geomtry in 2D and 3D

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TOPOLOGICAL MODELLING

VITRA CHAIR ASSIGNMENT

STEP 1 Modelling one side of the chair intuitively with help from few guidelines

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STEP 2 Re昀氀ecing along the central axis

STEP 3 Re昀椀ning the geometry and creating the gaps in the chair and adding thickness to it

STEP 4 Diagram showing the re昀椀nded model in subD smooth format

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TOPOLOGICAL MODELLING

BONE CHAIR ASSIGNMENT

STEP 1 Using guideline to create a multipipe as the beginning geometry

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STEP 2 Varying the multipipe geometry intuitively to create the form required

STEP 3 Diagram showing the 昀椀nal re昀椀nded chair with the guides

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VITRA CHAIR ASSIGNMENT The modelling is more intuitive and is based on following the guiding image with a few dimensions

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BONE CHAIR ASSIGNMENT The process is statred by using guidelines which create a base geometry thats close to 昀椀nal product and is then varied to match output

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PARAMETRIC DETAILING

STEP 1 Using box morph anf twisted box to create columns

STEP 2 Using a mesh subdivided by catmullclark subdivisions as control geometry for subD

STEP 3 Creating bespoke joinery using the subd nodes and multipipe

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PARAMETRIC DETAILING Note: Refere Chapter 2 for application of excel organisation.

STEP 4 Using Kangaroo to circle pack on the facade and use this geometry to imitate the AI image

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STEP 5 Creating Excel sheet using TTToolbox for fabrication on site

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CHAPTER 1

Digital Tooling Workshops

PART E

- FORM-FINDING AND PARAMETRIC DETAILING - UNDERSTANDING THE SOFTWARE - WORKFLOW PROPOSED - WORKSHOP OUTCOMES - ADAPTATIONS AND EXPLORATIONS

Having a continuous mesh allows creatation of curves following the subdivisions on its surface as continuous lines which allows one to split the mesh into surfaces that can be unrolled

Any discrepency in the mesh does not result in continuous lines

Warp lines o昀昀set from the surface for the entire geometry

The warp lines are o昀昀set from the surface and then reduced in length from each side to create curves for lofting Issues with warp lines highlighted: Having unjoined meshes at the end allows for a more continuous warp lines - illustrated by having gaps in geometry

Lofting creates tabs on the surface

Unrolled meshes with tabs allow for fabrication in real life

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MINIMAL SURFACES STEP 1 Using SubD as a refernece to create a mesh divided by catmull clark subdivisions which is then fed into kangaroo create a minimal surface

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STEP 2 Creating tabs on the split mesh by o昀昀setting the surface and lofting the curves together

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MINIMAL SURFACES STEP 3 Unrolled surface with tabs and numbers which help with fabrication

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MINIMAL SURFACES STEP 1 Using SubD as a refernece to create a mesh divided by catmull clark subdivisions

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STEP 2 Feeding the geometry into kangaroo to create a minimal surface which can be unrolled after splitting

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MINIMAL SURFACES STEP 3 Creating tabs on the split mesh by o昀昀setting the surface and lofting the curves together

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STEP 4 Unrolled surface with tabs and numbers which help with fabrication

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CHAPTER 2 PART A

Beyond Retroscale - INTRODUCTION TO WELBECK STREET CARPARK - PROBLEMS WITH EXISTING CARPARK - CULTURAL CONTEXT

INTRODUCTION Welbeck Street Carpark

Welbeck Car Park was designed by Michael Blampied and Partners in 1970 for Debenhams Store and is well-known for its brutalist and iconic concrete facade.

The facade was made of tessellated concrete diamonds and had an important structural role in the building. The car park was sold to Shiva Hotels in 2016 and as they required a higher 昀氀oor height for the new use, decided to demolish the entire car park. Since the beginning, this decision was criticized by many, including architects, and at the time, JAA Architects also proposed an alternative that could save the building. Even though many tried to change this decision, the building was demolished in 2019.

Photographer Jo Underhill (2021), Ode to Welbeck

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Digimap, Edited by Alireza

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CONTEXT Then and Now The Carpark once served the Debanhams store and hence has the Basement 昀氀oor connected with the store but in the current context after its sale, it has been converted into BoTree Hotel. The photos below show the Welbeck street carpark in its context and the images on the right show the visual changes in the context between 1999 and 2023.

Google Earth, 1999

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Photographer Jo Underhill (2021), Ode to Welbeck

Google Earth, 2023

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Typical 昀氀oor plan with area Floor plan highlighting the structure and the 昀氀oor plates along with the stair and ramp cores

Level 8 Level 8 Level 7 Level 7

REASONS FOR DEMOLISHION

Level 6 Level 6 Level 5

Level 3

2560mm

Level 4 Level 4

2140mm

Level 5

Level 3 Level 2 Level 2 Level 1 Level 1 Level 0

Section of the Welbeck street carpark highlighting the fact that the 昀氀oor height is not feasible for human habitation

Once the carpark was sold to Shiva hotels, they wanted to convert it into a hotel but the 昀氀oor heights of the car park made that proposal impossible. Althought other architects like JAA tried to give proposals they were rejected keeping in minde the commercial pro昀椀ts and losses that would be incurred.

Proposal by JAA architects which deals with the roof height by removing 昀氀oor plates- Hence was rejected

Level 0

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DEVELOPMENT OF MULTISTOREY CARPARKS Parking Facility no.5, Chicago, 1952

Aeck Associates, Atlanta, 1954

Auguste Perret, Paris, 1905: Garage de la Societe Ponthieu Automobiles

Robert Law Weed, Miami, 1948

The very 昀椀rst multistorey carparks were extensions of warehouses but later they developed into their own type when the use of cars increased.

Now they are even combined with large scale infrastructure projects to de昀椀ne cities.

The Multistorey carpark typology developed from the warehouse but was adapted to the necessity of parking cars only.

Below: Precedents of the multistorey carpark type- left to right: infrastructure and architecture,Car park Rotundas-Hamburg airport, Parkhaus Haniel

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Louis Khan, City-centre Philadelphia, 1947-62

Intially the Carparks were solid but once they realised the importance of ventilation in the space, architects attempted to provide openings in the form of jaali on the facade. Since the car park had no functional requirement of a facade except for aesthetics, this gave immense freedom for exploration.

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The Stair cores and ramp cores along with the facade

Split levels

Central ramp core acting as a structural core

Why is Welbeck special?

The images below highlight how Welbeck street carpark, especially its front facade would have been a major view on London’s Maryleborne street

CULTURAL ICON

Although a Brutalist building, the Welbeck car park enjoyed a lot of attention from the public because of its intriguing facade.

Poems written on the walls of the car park once it shut down highlight how it held value in the local people’s everyday lives.

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If one were to adapt an existing building for the future, then the addition would have as much importance as the existing as well as aesthetic value

Brutalist building in concrete

BRUTALIST ARCHITECTURE CHARACTERS Brutalist building in timber Brutalist buildings were characterised by contrasting textured surfaces, unusual and massive shapes and most importantly, an expression of structure through the materiality. It is worth asking whether brutalist architecture would look the same if done in another material?

Collage of building showing merged use 80

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CHAPTER 2

Beyond Retroscale

PART B

- ANALYSIS - TESTS

LOAD STRUCTURE OF WELBECK CAR PARK The diagrams by the original architect of Welbeck street carpark reveal the development of facade geometry based on the load distribution in the facade

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The building had a horizontal bracing along with the v forms which took load from the top to the columns at the bottom

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Estimated structural detail of the facade panels attaching to the 昀氀oor plates- developed through a study of the images and photographs with 昀氀oor plans and details available

Below: Left- Cutting areas from the central shear wall highlighted Right- Method of lifting at the shear wall

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Possibilities of cuttingThe conclusion that a horizontal cut at the facade at the bottom of the panels and a vertical cut at the shear walls is the most feasible option looking at the structure

Loads on the additionsFor the scenario where an element is added to the structure after lifting, the loads considered were divided in the ratio of 70:30 between the shear walls and the facade since the facade is only responsible to avoid torque in what can be considered a cantilever structure.

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SCENARIOS EXPLORED

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concrete_slabs_held_together_

by_a_timber_lattice

by_a_timber_origami_inspired_

MIDJOURNEY EXPLORATIONS- BLUE SKY THINKING

concrete_slabs_held_together_

columns

concrete_slabs_held_together_ by_transluscent_etfe_bubble_ inspired_structures concrete_slabs_extended_by_

geometric concrete facade with

organic_concrete_additions

panels that are symmetric , made of concrete and timber

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a

facade

geometry

inspired by the japanese lantern, symmetrical, brutalist, concrete

blend welbeck facade with

blend welbeck facade with

refernece image

generated image

describing

the

MIDJOURNEY EXPLORATIONS-BLUE SKY THINKING

imagine

reference

image and using the text as prompts

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fabric geometry in the form of a tree, soft

REMIX

light, brutalist facade juxtaposed with

structure and fabric organic

organic forms

forms

timber

MIDJOURNEY EXPLORATIONS-BLUE SKY THINKING

extend the facade by adding soft organic lattice

REMIX Car park in london built in brutalist architecture style, with triangular geometric repetitive facade in concrete and timber lattice structure in the middle, contrast of organic forms and facade geometry

Blend with reference image

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Blend with reference image

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MACHANICAL LIFTING

MECHANICAL LIFTING METHODS

Concept of working

The 昀椀rst experiment at the farm was to try a system made of wood which could be deployed in the structure in its lowered form and then be extended with the help of external machine but with internal mechanism that would push the slab upwards. The element would then become part of the structure as a column.

Mainly done as an exploration of using timber with concrete more functionally.

The grasshopper work昀氀ow was to draft the geometry of the 昀氀oor by virtue of one input angle and a point of reference only. This allows for the system to move as desired.

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The study of a suspended bridge is interesting in terms of how the support cable works.

Left: Loads on the bridge and detail of members Top: Similar load in all three conditions of attachment of cable

Application of the theory to suspended roof forms

CABLE STRUCTURES Using the force diagrams to design the form of cables: The force diagram represents the forces in each member of the caternary curve as the sides of a triangle where the resultant force puts it in equilibrium. This is effective to design stable cable structure by virtue of a balanced load system

Diagrams illustrating how the difference in the force diagrams can change the form of the elements

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For the grasshopper script, the two adjacent panels are taken as a load along with the point loads from the slab and the bottom panel is considered as support with the end beam, the boundary domain is taken as the space inbetween and an attempt is made to get optimised geometry at all heights.

PROPOSED WORKFLOW WITH TOPOS The intension of using Topos initially was to generate an optimised addition to the facade once it is lifted off the 昀氀oor plates. The plan of action was to generate an optimised mesh for structure and then opitmised it for shape so it can be easily fabricated.

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ATTEMPTS AT THE GRYMSDYKE FARM The script when applied for the shear walls and the columns yielded desirable results but with the facade was not as successful as expected.

Results for running topos with the panels in the facade with the work昀氀ow that was proposed. The geometry was entirely dependant on the given boundary condition even at very little loads applied.

It was proposed that by attempting to run the script between more than just two panels, more interesting shapes would emerge but also the same could happen by removing some panels from the facade in a pattern which also responds to needs to sun shading and comfort.

Results for running topos with shear walls with the slab as load and wall as supports with region inbetween as domain for addition.

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GRASSHOPPER WORKFLOW-TOPOS

STEP 1 Feeding in rhino geometry to grasshopper

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STEP 2 Anemone looping used to repeat the fed data on all 昀氀oors

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STEP 3 Selecting the panels from the list of facade panels and replacing them with the V-structure which is structural

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STEP 4 De昀椀ning the load, support and boundary geometries for topos

STEP 5 Topos optimised geometry

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street carpark and then using describe to generate prompts

Blend with reference image

MIDJOURNEY EXPLORATIONS- TOPOS INSPIRED ORGANIC ADDITION

fed with a edited image of the welbeck

prompts given by remixing the descriptions given by midjourney

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STABLE DIFFUSION EXPLORATIONS- TOPOS INSPIRED ORGANIC ADDITION

Stable Diffusion with control net was used to understand whether having the control over the AI prompting will allow one to get closed to desired reults but they were not up to the expectations and also need google collab for functioning after running it on the laptop for a while.

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Since AI was not able to understand the exact context for the addtions, it was worth trying to prompt the additions on their own and then collage it back into the original image which would then give a desried result when remixed with AI. The idea was also to pull the additive element slightly back as shown to made it three dimentional.

PROPOSALS AFTER THE FAILED AI ATTEMPTS A script was developed for the creation of the organic lattice addtions through the use of geometrical and material constraints.

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UNDERSTANING STRUCTURE WITH TOPOS

Note:

Red- Load

Green- Optimised geometry Blue-Support

Note:

Red- Load lines

Green- Optimised geometry Blue-Opimisation boundary

Attempt 1 With two panels as load and bottom one as support and an inverted panel as boundary condition.

Result: The results for the opimisation look the shape of the inverted panel 114

Attempt 2 With two panels as load and bottom one as support and region between them as boundary.

Result: The results for the opimisation look the shape of the inverted panel connecting the centroids of the upper panels with the centre of the beam

Attempt 3 With four panels as load and two bottom one as support and an inverted panel as boundary condition.

Result: The results for the opimisation connect mid point to end beam

Attempt 4 With panel removed and the surrounding geometry used for optimisation Result: The results for the opimisation look the shape of the panel

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LOAD TRANSFERS AND LOAD POINTS From topos it was clear that the original building was optimised in terms of its structure and hence the running of the simluation would not return any wildly different results from the existing geometry.

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Each panel connects two load points from the upper slabs to one point on the bottom as seen in the image above.

Once the panels are disconnected from the bottom end beam, the panels no longer transfer the load from end to end and hence the best way to transefer the load back to the beam would be to connect the centrid of the element to the beam directly which is simoly what topos did everytime it was run on the structure in all its orientations. This also meant that the proposal of the organic laattice would not be possible with topos work昀氀ow.

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CHAPTER 2

Beyond Retroscale

PART C

- DESIGN ITERATIONS - FINAL OUTPUT - AI AND DESIGN PROCESS- A STAND

IDEAL HYBRID SOULTION FOR THE RETROFIT OF THE CARPARK In order to make sure that the number of 昀氀oors of the building, its facade and its identity is retained yet there is a change in its 昀氀oor height, whilst also making sure the cutting and demolishion was kept to a minimum, a hybrid solution was proposed.

The lower two 昀氀oors of the proposed building are hence supported by a mega truss made of low carbon materials and span a double height where as the upper 昀氀oors would retain the panels and would be lifted up by hydraulics.

Two additional 昀氀oors added on top would then take the panels removed from the bottom.

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massive mega truss and timber panels in the facade, brutalist architecture, timber architecture

blend with Welbeck street carpark facade

blend with staircase cutting through the centre

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MIDJOURNEY EXPLORATIONS-MEGA TRUSS

imagine a timber brutalist building with

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precast

concrete

panels

with a rough edge and a timber truss which appears like a lattice between the panels, brutalist architecture,

blend with the photoshopped

Japanese

image

timber

joinery,

london carpark facade

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of

the

joinery

inbewteen concrete panels

MIDJOURNEY EXPLORATIONS- ADDITIONS

architectural joinery between

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CASE STUDIES THE GALLERIA | OMA The creation of a lattice space frame around the circulation areas on the facade is considered as inspiration for future briefs.

This building too has the circulation wrapping around the building which is adding to its character but is already a present character in the car park.

CASE STUDIES WERK 12 | MVRDV To decide an AI image which closely related to the design imagined for the Welbeck street site, a few examples were looked at. In each of these, an image of the project was fed into midjourney and the prompts were used to prompt the facade for the carpark.

From Werk 12, its staircase wrapping around the building and brutalist aesthetic on the inside were considered as inspirations.

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CASE STUDIES RAMPS AND CARPARK ARCHITECTURE Owing to the function of multistorey carparks having to transport cars vertically, ramps are an inherent and important feature.

More importantly these ramps connecting all 昀氀oors of a building can be considered as a verical connectivity which is an element pined after by many architects in many other typologies.

Since the facade of the car park also had no other functionality, it was quite possible for the facade to successfully show the ramp structure within.

ELEMENTS FOR DESIGN Vertical connectivity Structural expression Low carbon material like timber

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MVRDV with welbeck street carpark with text from descriptions

MIDJOURNEY EXPLORATIONS- FACADE

blend reference images of OMA and

imagine a brutalist facade cut across by a staircase which is highlighted by a surrounding lattice structure in timber

blend with the welbeck street carpark facade

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blending with the welbeck street carpark

blending with the welbeck street carpark

brutalist building with symmetrical facade

facade and previously generated facade

facade and previously generated facade

with panels

images

images

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MIDJOURNEY EXPLORATIONS- TIMBER TRUSS

imagine a timber megatruss supporting a

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MIDJOURNEY EXPLORATIONS- LATTICE imagine a space frame lattice made of

blending with the Welbeck street carpark

timber

facade

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AI WORKFLOW Overall AI exploration mapped

AI WORKFLOW Failures with AI: Materiality and composition There was scope of AI integration in the design process in steps where a randomised output was favourable or more ideally was desired. The 昀椀rst point was when the choice was to be made of the material which can be used with the existing concrete façade

Where?

Working with the collaborative studio, after the research on the systems and context of the Welbeck street carpark was completed, there was a design challenge on how to extend such a building into the future. The collaborative studio requires minimal intervention but given the same brief and the possibilities of design, AI integration could positively bene昀椀t the 昀椀nal output.

Facade Formal explorations with AI result in some workable outputs of the façade. Subjectively, the output is very loosely tied to the collaborative studio brief.

Additions There were a few issues with using AI to generate images of a pre-imagined form as an insert in the design- Main issue is that the diagram points to a predicted formal output, the de昀椀nition of which defeats AI integration in the process 136

Why Collage?

After working with AI on multiple platforms, it was clear that the best way to prompt was to edit a sample image and then modify it. When working with AI, prompting in parts and creating sample images could streamline outputs.

Diagram showing the layering of AI inputs from different elements into one larger image to follow

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FINAL COLLAGE

Timber lattice for façade at voids created- addition to existing façade

Timber truss on lower 昀氀oors

Voids and staircase design 138

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AI WORKFLOW

READING THE VOIDS One of the main attempts of this research was to see the application of Ai in spatial design considering it is a 2D output. The attempt here was to read the AI image and rationalise it with the given building as the context. The process has been described and broken down in the next few images.

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DESIGN BREAKDOWN

DESIGN BREAKDOWN

ENTRY

READING THE VOIDS

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DESIGN BREAKDOWN

DESIGN BREAKDOWN

STAIRCASE

TRUSS

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Proposed Ground plan sketch

DESIGN BREAKDOWN LATTICE

Proposed Third plan sketch 146

昀氀oor

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CHAPTER 2

Column design

PART C

FORM FOLLOWS FORCE

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RECIPROCAL FORCE DIAGRAMS A STUDY

Diagram showing the equivalence of forces in a triangular form and how it is translated in a tetrahedron. If planes are drawn perpendicular to 3 forces , the normal to the resulting side of the tetrahedron is the direction of the equivalent and the area is proportional to its magnitude. Hence the pipe radii represent the force magnitudes proportionally. This also means that the node is always in compression, unless a force is moving away from the node in which case it can be replaced by a tension wire

Diagram showing how a tetrahedron can be considered the 3dimentional equivalent of triangular force diagrams

Effect and methods of varying force polygon

Subdividing a force polygon and how it had been used in design before 150

References: Juney LEEa*, Tom VAN MELEb, Philippe BLOCKb, ETH Zurich, Form-昀椀nding explorations through geometric transformations and modi昀椀cations of force polyhedrons Jahnavi J | Beyond Retroscale: pAlImpsest | DCA

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GRAPHICS STATICS STEP 1 Brep for the central connection- caternary curve jointing the centre

STEP 2 With two panels as load and bottom BRep for the double X top part of the bottom

STEP 3 Graphics statics could not combine the polyhedron and hence they needed to be analysed separately

STEP 4 Combination and mirroring to get column form

ITERATION OF COLUMN GRAPHICS STATICS 152

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Aligned Breps

Generated form curves

ITERATION OF COLUMN GRAPHICS STATICS Issues with Graphics Statics: - Does not combine Breps -No way to control the generated form - No way to control the proportion or scale as per the existing model

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Re昀椀ning the node to be a hexagonal section for easy attachment and remodelling

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3D NODE GEOMETRY GRAPHICS STATICS

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ITERATION OF COLUMNDESIGN PROCESS POLYFRAME

Using an asymmetrical X form- smaller on one side and deeper on the other

Using the lines to generate brep geometry

Double X form rationalised from AI

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Rationalisation of the asymmetrical form owing to the end beam depth from the column Jahnavi J | Beyond Retroscale: pAlImpsest | DCA

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ITERATION OF COLUMNGENERATING THE BREPS POLYFRAME

Brep curves drawn from the double x form needed- drawing normals and generating the form

Exploded brep geometry generated

Column form generated by constraining the end vertices and the edge length of the central part where the staircase passes through the column Three types of breps based on the three types of columns in the structure

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Form diagram given by polyframe without constraints Jahnavi J | Beyond Retroscale: pAlImpsest | DCA

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POLYFRAME STEP 1 Brep curves drawn in rhino fed into the system STEP 2

Form diagram is made perpendicular PFfoam to PFperp

STEP 4

Edge constraint is added to vary edge lengths to support the staircase STEP 5

Non-organic subD multipipe with a double bevel to create geometry of pipes

STEP 3

The vertex list that needs to be constrained is selected with the cursor and the point list is created in rhino around the column location

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GRASSHOPPER WORKFLOW POLYFRAME

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ITERATION OF COLUMNFINAL ELEVATIONS POLYFRAME

Diagramatic view of the addtions to the building

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Final elevation has a massive timber addition which alters the character of welbeck but preserves its past as well. By adding a low carbon element cutting through the facade in the form of a staircase and column also brings back the brutalist nature of structural expression and massive unusual forms Jahnavi J | Beyond Retroscale: pAlImpsest | DCA

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MODELLING THE COLUMN AND JOINERY Owing to the nature of the column with multiple structs and connectors, in order to model a 1:100 scale model of the same, it was 3D printed on a powder printer with resin. The process took approximately 6 hours.

Since the printer cannot print very delicate geometry, the entire column had to be fattened more than its actual scale. It is also more fragile than PLA 3D printing.

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JOINERY TYPE 1- CNC CUTTING

Geometry rationalised and cut into 4 parts for CNC cutting- follows from the excel sheet provided

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Process of CNC milling- had to be performed on foam since bit for wood was unavilable

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Joining the milled pieces together

Final node geometry

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NODE FABRICATION

EXCEL SHEET FOR FABRICATION - CNC CUTTING The excel sheet gives information on the Node name, its diagram, the angles needed for fabrication and the sizes of each section.

Step 1: Node names

Step 2: Node information 172

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JOINERY TYPE 2- NON-CNC JOINERY- KERF BENDING

Kerf bending a asymmetrical piece of wood as per the angles generated on the excel sheet

If plywood is not cut deep enough it will break with pressure- more di昀케cult to control in terms of the process

Di昀케culty of using the hand saw because the blade is too thick for the purpose 174

Experiments on hardwood were much smoother and easier

Depth of kerf cut for bending

Spacing of the cuts determined by online kerf cutting tool by giving the angle and radius required

Hand cutting wood pieces as per measurements

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Possibility of attaching connectors at ends because the script generates planar surface at node ends

Bent and joined pieces of wood

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Final node geometry without CNC or other machines Jahnavi J | Beyond Retroscale: pAlImpsest | DCA

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blending with the mvrdv staircase images

blending with the 昀椀nal collage output which

interior spaces

from Werk 12

was modelled

MIDJOURNEY EXPLORATIONS- INTERIORS

blending with the OMA reference images of

blending with diagrams from the parking book and interior of Welbeck car park

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MIDJOURNEY EXPLORATIONS- FURNITURE

imagine furniture inspired by this image

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MODELLING AI GENERATED FURNITURE

AI image generated

Rationalisation of the geometry 182

SubD Modelling Jahnavi J | Beyond Retroscale: pAlImpsest | DCA

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AI AND THE DESIGN PROCESS A STAND Through the process of designing something with the aid of AI tools, one can make a speculation about how it can a昀昀ect the design process. SInce the Ai generated image is 2D, it seems to be easier to model objects like furniture or facade or even a column that looks like the image but the spatial bearing of it is still questionable. The generations of interior space images shows that it is possible to an extent but it is best if AI images are used to quickly guage the feasibility of a design rather than becoming the design themselves.

There might an internalised process of collage making which has been brought out in this portfolio as an attempt. Nonetheless, it is an extremely powerful tool when combined with the digital software available currently.