13: As the Pavilion form constricts, the lengths of the components diminish, and structural pattern evolves into aesthetic gesture. 14: Strong sunlight multiplies the graphic qualities of the piece, reversing the translation from drawing to built form.
COMPUTATIONAL DESIGN The structure and aesthetic of wavePavilion developed through a scripted strategy of geometric evolution. This RhinoScript code combined programmatic influences with intrinsic formal tendencies to produce a unique, but situated, architectural object.
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This crude but variable base unit, deployed within an assembly through complex relational logics, evokes qualities of surface and atmosphere. In so doing, the line becomes a means of challenging the ubiquity of the ‘blob’ within scripted/parametric form-making. Geometric composition, in this case, supplies all the complexity and nuance for which we have become enamoured of calculus-dependent surface modelling. Digital fabrication has been heralded as a means of collapsing the long-standing divide that separates ideation and representation from construction. By extension, this argument asserts that the scope of architectural practice might be expanded and strengthened as the designer acquires greater control over the means of production. This stance cannot, however, be accepted without caveat. The enormous power of digital technology has the potential to run roughshod over the careless, subsuming the voice of the designer under the tendencies and biases of the ‘tool’. Investing an ethic of design within the modes of production themselves is a way to put authorship back in the hands of the architect. As such, this work emphasises the development of tools and processes in tandem with the development of ideas and form, as a means of winning authorial power for the designer amidst increasingly mechanised methodologies.
The virtual environment in which the pavilion formscript operates is established in Rhinoceros. This meta-site is seeded with critical nodes, which embed information tied to real-world spatial and programmatic requirements. This process generates a field of vector impulses, influencing the innate tendencies of the formscript. The script then tracks a course within the dataenvironment of the established vector field, demarcating a curve of primary structure that describes two zones, each with distinct views and orientation. The resultant spaces are simultaneously connected and autonomous, a perception reinforced by the modulating density of the developing pavilion form. A secondary array of geometry acknowledges the primary curve but follows its own. In the specific instance of wavePavilion, this new layer delaminates from the primary form at the end of its trajectory. This expression highlights the internal variation invested within a single form-making strategy. A network of 3D polylines grows from the preparatory geometry on the ground plane. Each segment of these polylines develops with a specific scale and direction via a geometric negotiation between the innate tendencies of the form-script and the environmental parameters resulting from the critical nodes. As a kind of ancestor geometry for the final pavilion form, these polylines are the simple progenitors of a lineage from which more complex descendents evolve. The ancestor geometry establishes the broad morphological characteristics of the pavilion but lacks the sophistication to address issues of structural integrity and user occupation. The descendent geometry takes the crude form of the ancestor geometry and augments it with a more nuanced understanding of proximity and spatial relationships.