Collective Cloud Assembly - DoArch Independent Research, Joseph Kenny

INDEPENDENT RESEARCH BY JOSEPH KENNY

COLLECTIVE CLOUD ASSEMBLY

JOSEPH KENNY Masters of Architecture Student South Dakota State University DoArch Independent Research Fall 2021 Instruction by Mary Begely and Drew Smith

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Initial Inquiry This is a research project that explores laser scanning as a generative tool for design. The primary focus of the project is a process not a specific design outcome.

As laser scanning is an emerging technology within the practice of architecture, the current primary function it serves is as a documentation tool to create exact digital replicas of existing structures or spatial conditions. It does so by using a revolving laser that records exact measurements and colors from existing surfaces of a built environment. However, since the laser cannot pass through solid surfaces it is unable to collect data from internal material assemblies, and this can be seen in the interior point cloud models shown in figure 3-4.

The primary questions that initiated this research were focused on exploring the intersections of technology, histories, and conditions of collective memory. Such as, how can laser scanning be used as both a documentation tool that records histories of material conditions and assemblies of a specific place, and a generative design tool that embodies those histories? How do components of historic constructions relate to conditions of modern constructions, and how can these histories compound on each other? How does the process of rearranging building components change an individual’s perception of vernacular construction methods, and spatial conditions that make up that place? How can buildings live on past the complete erasure of demolition without simply reconstructing the same building? These questions are synthesized into a process where the four primary methods of working are: collection and dissection, cataloguing, recomposition, and materialization.

This process developed from the research of two precedents within the field of art. The first being the work of Rachel Whiteread (fig. 1). Whiteread’s work is Acknowledgment Initial scanning and collection facilitated in part by Ian French.

Rachel Whiteread | House | 1993

Hans Arp | Collage of Squares | 1916

Rachel Whiteread | Untitled | 1999

Man Ray | The Gift | 1921

Rachel Whiteread | Stairs | 2003

Louise Bourgeois | Femme Maison | 1947

Figure 1 Rachel Whiteread Precedent Images. (Left) Dadaism Precedent Images.

(Right)

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primarily rooted in the method of casting. Casting much like laser scanning allows for the recording of surface conditions through the application of a material onto a form. Whiteread’s work plays on casts of domestic objects and spaces as a method of building on individuals’ perspective of space and the histories it holds. As the viewer’s perspective forces people to move around the space as an object rather than through it. The second precedent is works from the Dadaism movement, which developed in response to WWI when artists became frustrated with the structured conditions of art. They began to make art pieces based on specific methods of working, often including chance, existing materials, and ready-made objects (fig. 1). The Dadaists defined readymade objects as something that is prefabricated, often mass-produced objects isolated from their intended use and reimplemented in art pieces. The working methods of Dadaism and the change in perspective defined by Rachel Whiteread set a framework for the use of readymade architectural spaces that are specifically tied to the historical and collective memory of spaces in a specific location.

As a precursor to understanding the trajectories of the process, a definition of the term collective memory is essential. The term collective is a noun that denotes a group of individuals. Second, the definition of memory in this project refers to a cognitive recollection of a specific place. As Linda Zhang states in her journal titled Memory in Suspension, a memory is defined as an incomplete, non-static, and ever-changing cognitive process. As a compound term the project defines collective memory as a combination of existing fragments that define and make up that specific place for a group of people. However, these fragments can differ for everyone. The overall goal of the process defined by this project is a method in which collective memory of a location is built not from one specific building or place, but from all the fragments that define that place.

Figure 3 Dissection: Example building dissection images: Ag Heritage Museum, The Barn, Lincoln Music Hall, Bailey Rotunda, South Dakota Art Museum, Student Union, AME, and American Indian Student Center.

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Figure 4 Dissection: South Dakota Art Museum dissection process.

Figure 5 Dissection: South Dakota Art Museum: catalog series.

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Description of Process | Project Trajectory The first step of the process is the collection and dissection, and this process is visualized through figures 3-5. The collection started with the selection of eight example buildings that vary in age, scale, and usage.

Also, while being limited to the existing spaces on South Dakota State Universities campus. This allowed for a confined example of related buildings in a specific location for which collective memories and histories are sampled from. The primary goal of the dissection portion of the process is to examine the part to whole relationship for the existing example buildings and develop a collection of individual spaces that can be organized and used as components or found objects.

The second step of the process is cataloguing which can be seen in figures 6-8. The primary goal of the catalogue is to examine the part-to-part relationship between the eight example buildings. It is organized in a way that allows individual spaces to be arranged equally in terms of scale, spatial typology, and age to form a comprehensive set. The organization happens in three primary ways, each wedge represents the individual spaces collected from each building. Each of the concentric rings of the catalog represents a specific spatial typology: support spaces, vertical circulation spaces, horizontal circulation spaces, independent gathering spaces, and public gathering spaces. Finally, the condition of age is represented by the ordering of the wedges, starting with the Agricultural Heritage Museum constructed in 1918 and ending with the American Indian Student Center constructed in 2019.

In terms of collective memory and material histories, the catalogue serves as an amalgamation of eight individual moments across time that lead to the development of the existing condition of campus today.

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Figure 6 Catalog: Comprehensive existing spaces catalog.

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Figure 7 Catalog: Comprehensive existing spaces catalog close up.

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Figure 8 Catalog: Recomposition selections: Spatial Typology R2 (Top), Spatial Average R2 (Middle), and Spatial Average R3 (Bottom).

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The catalog serves as they primary catalyst for the next step of the process, recomposition, which can primarily be seen in figures 9 and 11. The cube served as the primary vessel for the recomposition of found objects because it is easily compoundable on itself and is multidirectional which leads to the nonstandard use of standard spaces.

The primary intentions for the cubes were to create adjacencies and exquisite corpse constructions of the existing building components, that create moments of adjacency for varying histories, constructions methodologies, and material conditions. Examples of these adjacencies can be seen in figure 10.

However, these adjacencies are limited by the spaces selected to be put in the cube, and this was defined by two methods of selection. The first being Spatial typology combinations, where input spaces were defined by the spatial typology it came from. This study was done as a method of exploration for historical development and variation of a single spatial typology. The second method of selection is spatial average, where an average number was taken for the total number of components in each of the spatial typologies and that set the input value. For example, 16 support spaces required 2 input support spaces, 40 horizontal circulation spaces required 5 input spaces, and etcetera. Other limitations to facilitate variation and combination were implemented in the use of operational rule sets, or rules that defined positioning of input spaces. The primary differences of these rule sets were orientation, relationship between openings like doors and windows, conditions of overlap or if components could intersect, and the use of partial spaces (rule set variations shown in figure 9). Each rule-set both creates variation and allows for focus on different things. For example the use of duplicates facilitates laser scanning as a design tool because it allows for repeated sequences. Where conditions of overlap and the use of partial spaces relate to the definition of memory, as they are both incomplete and intertwined with other spaces or memories.

Rule Set One 1. All input components must use entirety of spatial volume 2. Input components must be Isometrics oriented the way Additional that they were captured Rule Set One

3. Input components may be used more then once 4. It is not required to use all the components from catalog selection 5. Components can touch but cannot overlap, Additional Isometrics with preferred connection at openings Rule Set One

Additional Isometrics Rule Set One

Rule Set Two 1. Components may use partial spatial volumes 2. Input components may be oriented in any direction in respect to the way it was captured 3. Input components may only be used once 4. All components from catalog selection must be used 5. Components can intersect and overlap Additional Isometrics Rule Set Two

Additional Isometrics

Rule Set Three

Rule Set Two

1. Components may use partial spatial volumes 2. Input components may be oriented in any direction in respect to the way it was captured 3. Input components may be used more then Additional Isometrics once Rule Set Two

4. It is not required to use all the components from catalog selection 5. Components can touch but cannot overlap, with preferred connection at openings

Figure 9 Recombination: Spatial Average Iteration One: Rule sets 1 through 3.

Additional Isometrics Rule Set Three

Spatial Average Combinations Combination Series One through Three

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Fidelity

Temporality

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Figure 10 Recombination: Cloud Collective Memory Adjacencies and Memories.

Figure 11 Recombination: Cube Iterations: Spatial Typology Rule Set-2 (Left), Spatial Average Rule Set-2 (Middle), and Spatial Average Rule Set-3 (Right).

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Although the cubes serve as individual examples sampling varying histories and developments across campus, they are limited in terms of capacity for telling a multitude of histories of the campus’s architectural development.

However, the compounding of cubes serves as a method of expanding on histories and memories created by assemblies of both different spatial typologies and spatial average cubes. To further explore methods of compounding histories and represent the collective development of campus, towers were made from the different variations of selection and operational rule sets, which can be seen in figures 12-14.

The final step of the process is materialization, which can be seen and explored through the method of drawing.

This portion of the process involved various iterations of drawing that explore different methods of applying material conditions to moments of adjacency and conditions of memory, seen in figures 15-19. The first being the closest representation of laser scanning as a technology. Where the section was taken only through the assemblage and no additional material conditions were applied. Additional section iterations explore other drawing methods, such as relating to the works of Rachel Whiteread, the in fill of material into the interior form of the existing building component projecting the interior surfaces outward and solidifying the components (fig.

17 left). Drawing operations done by the architect when drawing an existing or new project, like the in fill of information based on standard material thicknesses (fig.

17 right and fig 18 left). Finally, the complete in fill of void space, that allow the individual components to be defined as fragments within a container (fig 18 right).

Figure 12 Recombination: Spatial Typology Assembly: Compounding cubes and histories rule set-2. QR Code for interactive web viewing. Also viewable at https://jckenny59.github.io/Spatial-Typology-R2/

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Figure 13 Recombination: Spatial Average Assembly: Compounding cubes and histories rule set-2. QR Code for interactive web viewing. Also viewable at https://jckenny59.github.io/Spatial-Average-R2/

Figure 14 Recombination: Spatial Average Assembly: Compounding cubes and histories rule set-3. QR Code for interactive web viewing. Also viewable at https://jckenny59.github.io/Spatial-Average-R3/

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The clearest connection to memory is made through the first section iteration, and it also serves as a critique of the technology (figure 15 left). It’s critique of laser scanning as a practice is because laser scanning is be seen as the most materially accurate method of digitally representing existing spaces because it captures all the imperfections and changes that occur throughout design and physical construction, but as a digital material it manifests itself as a collection of individual points not as a continuous surface. However, it aligns itself closely to the condition of memory for that same reason because there always elements and conditions that are forgotten within every individual recollection of a space and time. The second closest example being the last drawing, because it allows the fragments of information to be hosted within a container, much like the existing condition of each fragment contained on the South Dakota State University campus (figure 19 right).

The last example of materialization can be seen in figure 20. This drawing is used to stand as a synthesis for one possible outcome of a single variation of the process.

The section serves as an ideal tool for examination, as individual histories, and constructions from all the example buildings can be seen through a single momentary section cut. Materialization is shown through offsetting surfaces by a standard amount and in filling openings within spaces, individual components and cube arrangements are annotated and can be traced back to the original location of dissection, and new spaces are created by the voids between input spaces from the individual cubes.

Figure 15 Materialization: Section drawing iterations 1 (Left) and 2 (Right).

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Fidelity

Temporality

Figure 16 Materialization: Detail Drawing Collective Memory Adjacencies and Memories.

Figure 17 Materialization: Section drawing iterations 3 (Left) and 4 (Right).

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Figure 18 Materialization: Detail Drawing Collective Memory Adjacencies and Memories.

Figure 19 Materialization: Section drawing iterations 5 (Left) and 6 (Right).

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Statement of Claims | Identifying Limits and Opportunities The primary argument and outcome of this project sets up a dialogue between histories, memories, and how laser scanning as a technology can visualize these conditions as a method of generative design. The histories are represented through the choice of example buildings and the use of all building components as samplings from them as a part of its collective memory. This exemplifies an alternative understanding of the history of a place like a campus not being defined by one specific place or building, but rather a condition that develops over time.

This is also used to frame the connection to memories, as the process includes moments from various types of academic buildings, it allows every individual to connect to the project in different ways. The tension between laser scanning and conditions of memory come from the technologies desire to connect based on conditions of overlap and material exactness. Although, as previously stated, the outcome of laser scanning as an assembly of points instead of surface conditions sets a parallel connection to that of incomplete and fleeting memories.

This process proves as a specific method in which laser scanning can be used as a method for the memories and conditions of built space to live past the complete erasure of demolition.

Although, the primary argument of this process revolves around the idea of collective memory and history of a place, it also serves as a critique of modern practices.

Often in practice, details and conceptual designs are translated from project to project because of common programmatic and material conditions, and this translation leads to projects that are only similar in surface condition but are unrelated in both form and details conditions.

Similar to the idea that a copy of a copy will just continue to dilute itself and get further from the original, the project

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sets a new definition for the term precedent in which the design happens from the direct input of a ready-made architectural space. What this project suggests is the capturing of details and material conditions that already define that specific place and reinstalling those defining features. The difficulty in the process is that it alienates the architect, in which the architect no longer shapes the individual spaces, or the result it is simply a result of a process and buildup of existing things.

The project would be an embodiment of the process designing “Archotecture”, as defined by the authors of Perhaps It Is High Time For A Xeno-Architecture to Match, “or concerns the transformations of architecture in the temporal mode of its pastness, and looks for deviations from the origin, maybe in the poetic sense, creating something in the past.” Although the result of this specific iteration of the process produced a representation of architecture that is somewhat incomplete in the sense that to become a physical building refinement, and attention to structure would need to be taken into higher consideration. The project was designed in that specific manner, not to end with a perfectly refined designed project, but to test the ideas implemented in the process and investigate it to its furthest capacities. However, the project sets up a dialogue between the use of laser scanning as a method of design in which the resulting project is a compilation of spaces and pieces of what already defines that place. Other possible scopes for the project would be in the design of adaptive reuse spaces, where partial conditions of what already exists will remain no matter what, or further specificity in recombination based on material conditions would result in a specific material construction that is also built from existing spaces and constructions that define that place. Either way, the process defines a method in which laser scanning can be used not only for documentation, but as a form of generative design that creates something that is both new and rooted in the history of a specific place.

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Agricultural Heritage | Museum Independent Gathering Three | 1918 Agricultural Heritage | Museum Public Gathering One | 1918 Agricultural Heritage | Museum Public Gathering Two | 1918 Agricultural Heritage | Museum Public Gathering Four | 1918

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The Barn | Vertical Circulation One | 1918

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Lincoln Music Hall | Horizontal Circulation Two | 1927 Lincoln Music Hall | Horizontal Circulation Seven | 1927 Lincoln Music Hall | Independent Gathering Five | 1927 Lincoln Music Hall | Independent Gathering Six | 1927 Lincoln Music Hall | Vertical Circulation | 1927

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Bailey Rotunda | Horizontal Circulation Two | 1969 Bailey Rotunda | Independent Gathering One | 1969

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South Dakota Art Museum | Independent Gathering Two | 1970 South Dakota Art Museum | Public Gathering Two | 1970 South Dakota Art Museum | Independent Gathering Six| 1970 South Dakota Art Museum | Support Space | 2002 South Dakota Art Museum | Vertical Circulation| 1970

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Student Union | Public Gathering One | 1973 Student Union | Public Gathering Four | 1973 Student Union | Public Gathering Five | 1973 Student Union | Public Gathering Eight | 2006

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Architecture Mathematics & Engineering | Horizontal Circulation Three | 2015 Architecture Mathematics & Engineering | Horizontal Circulation Four | 2015 Architecture Mathematics & Engineering | Horizontal Circulation Six | 2015 Architecture Mathematics & Engineering | Independent Gathering Two | 2015 Architecture Mathematics & Engineering | Independent Gathering Three | 2015 Architecture Mathematics & Engineering | Independent Gathering Four | 2015 Architecture Mathematics & Engineering | Independent Gathering Six | 2015 Architecture Mathematics & Engineering | Independent Gathering Seven | 2015 Architecture Mathematics & Engineering | Independent Gathering Eleven| 2015 Architecture Mathematics & Engineering | Public Gathering Four| 2015 Architecture Mathematics & Engineering | Support Space One | 2015 Architecture Mathematics & Engineering | Support Space Five | 2015

Figure 20 Materialization: Isometric Section: Spatial Average Assembly Rule Set-2.

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Figure 21 Moment of Collective Memory: Interior Perspective (Previous Page).

Figure 22 Moment of Collective Memory: Interior Perspective.

Selected Bibliography Alam, Maya, and Danele Profeta. “A/P Practice.” Alam /

Profeta. Accessed August 20, 2021. https://www. alamprofeta.com/.

Avanessian, Armen, Markus Miessen, and Pia Fuchs.

Perhaps It Is High Time for a Xeno-Architecture to Match. Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2018.

Denlinger, Tom., Davis. Schneiderman, and Kanta. Koch har-Lindgren. The Exquisite Corpse Chance and

Collaboration in Surrealism’s Parlor Game. Texts

and Contexts. Lincoln: University of Nebraska

Press, 2009.

Gallagher, Ann, Molly Donovan, and James Lingwood.

Rachel Whiteread. Munich, Germany: DelMonico

Books/Prestel, 2018.

Lai, Jimenez. “Bureau Spectacular.” 01. Accessed Novem

ber 30, 2021. http://bureau-spectacular.net/.

Zhang, Linda. 2020. “‘Memory in Suspension’: Chinatown

Lost and Found”. Idea Journal 17 (01):237-57. https://doi.org/10.37113/ij.v17i01.358.

Images Concinnity. “Hans ARP.” Concinnity Concepts, October 23,

2017. http://concinnity-concepts.com/ hans-arp/.

Man Ray, American, 1890-1976. c. 1958 (replica of

1921 original). Gift. Sculpture. Place: The Muse

um of Modern Art, James Thrall Soby Fund. https://library.artstor.org/asset/AMOMA. Whiteread, Rachel, 1963-. 1993-4. House: det.: view

from across street. https://library.artstor.org/ asset/ARTSTOR_103_41822003717327.

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