Seeing this BBC Videothis morning about Cent Quatre in Paris I found myself thinking once again the huge subject of how preexisting pieces of art and architecture in a city can influence and be integrated in contemporary proposals of uses or interventions. Coming from a country where preexistence in Architecture often ends up being a burden, this kind of ideas in a successful form give me hope!
But most important, the video and the city of Paris, reminded me of a great experience I had last year there. It was last February, that I had the amazing chance to be in the Musee du Louvre for the first time in my life on a Friday night, and attend a dance performance by the Ballet National de Marseille, under the direction of Frederic Flamand, taking place in between the monuments of the Museum! Can you imagine the feeling of being able to walk in between some of the world’s greatest pieces of art, while the Museum was actually closed to the public, and at the same time watch contemporary dance performances taking place simultaneusly at different halls… The story was completed by the fact that the performaces where accompanied by a live Video session by Fabiano Spano ,a young architect from Italy and very good friend of mine. Dancers, projection and statues all at the same time. Amazing colours, music and the dynamic of bodies moving. I cannot imagine of a better way of making a monument take life!
fotos: Fabiano Spano and Sara Guerrini
and here you have a video on a previous work of Fabiano Spano combining video with dance.
One of the things children love to do is to create their personal world. That is exactly what Villa FAB-ulosa did, using high end technology. In other words… how can we make digital fabrication easy to perceive and pleasently useful in everyday life? Make children use it! And be sure that they will learn fast. A first trial of that concept was carried out on a Sunday afternoon in FAB-LAB Barcelona, when a dozen of 11 year-old boys had the opportunity to laser cut their own press-fit houses, assemble them, and then decorate them using stencils with their names that they fabricated by themselves. The mini workshop was led by Tomas Diez with my assistance and it was a first, recyclable effort to make an inspiring interchange between heavy machinery and innocent creativity. Of course they were all very keen on listening to how the process works, and enjoyed every bit of it. By the end of the show though, the winner was once again…football !!!
The comparative study of two buildings from important contemporary architects, The Church Of The Light by Tadao Ando and the UFA Cinema Center by Coop Himmelb(l)au, in relation to the use of light, gives us the opportunity to understand how they conceive the interaction of geometry with light and in what way do their buildings materialize it.
Tadao Ando in his Church creates a “Magic Box” of concrete where with only three main gestures he preserves dim light in the building and at the same time reveals the different qualities of light and shadow from non-material to absolute materiality. That way, through the bursting and dimming of light, he re-invents the substantial ingredients of the relation of man to God and he gives us a space rich in symbolism that transports the user to a transcending reality.
Coop Himmelb(l)au, in their Cinema Center, through the use of complicated geometries create a building that, like a deformed diamond, changes form and gives different shadows in relation to the passing of time and the viewer’s position, just like a real kaleidoscope. The result is a building which, due to its deliberate lack of order, “plays” with the light without forming clear limits and it inserts the user in an environment somewhere between reality and illusion.
On July 7th started at IaaC the workshop for the Installation of Vicente Guallart in the Venice Biennale. The aim of the firs two weeks was to design a press-fit system of structure and the furniture prototypes in transparent acrylic of 10mm, from which will be made all the furniture of the Installation “Hyperhabitat-Reprogramming the world”. After several design trials and fabrication tests, the system that will be used is almost ready. Here are some examples. For more information on the workshop check the IaaCBlog
“A dome is a common structural element of architecture that resembles the hollow upper half of a sphere”
This project was developed during the third term of the MAA_IaaC 2007-2008, by a group of 20 students, under the tutorship of Marta Male-Alemanyand with the assistance of Shane Salisbury.
The objective of the project was to design a dome-shaped pavilion and fabricate it 1:1 using the facilities of the FAB-LAB Barcelona, and to prepare an exhibition about the whole process.
The modeling was done in TopSolid – parametric and associative design software, which links entirely the design with the fabrication process, as every change in the model gives new updated fabrication files. The fabrication was done with a laser cutting machine (Spirit GE 100W). The materials used were 3mm corrugated cardboard and plastic zip ties for the connections. The final pavilion is about 3.5m (radius) by 2m (h), and consists of about 1000 different triangles, needing 5 days and 20 people working in shifts all 24 hours to cut and assemble. The pavilion has integrated motion sensors and leds that light up according to the amount of people around it. A really interesting project that put us all the way into the world of digital fabrication.
The process was very demanding from the very first moment, since each decision made would affect and be affected by time and materiality issues. The decision about the final size of the dome, the number of the components, were directly linked with the strength and the price of the material, the time it would need to cut and assemble, the people needed to attend and carry out all that. One very important and frustrating at moments fact was that the final design was mostly developed taking into consideration the capabilities of the lasercutting machine we would use ( the bed is 450×900mm and it cannot cut metal). But even that, was one of the greatest lessons about CAM fabrication!
The final presentation was articulated in three parts, consisting of a:the process of design and fabrication, b:the detailed presentation of the final product and c:the process of work in terms of team work and organization. All that of course were completed by all the initial models produced during the design and fabrication research, and a video demonstrating the soul of the project.
“We are living in the time of ultimate mobility and change. Human space and interaction no longer work the way we knew, since it is not now so important who and where we are as how we connect to things. It’s all about connections and networks. This change is mainly introduced by the ever-developing digital technologies that have modified the way we live and work and even the way we create history and our personal memories.
Here lies the danger though of a growing deterritorialization and decontextualization of our cities and architecture in general, against which planners have long remained numb. It is just about time to take a close look on how buildings and cities are affected and what strategy should we, as architects and urban planners, follow in order to preserve all the complexity of urban life closely integrated in the urban fabric”.
part of an essay composed during the Master Program 07-08 at IaaC, Barcelonatutor:Neil Leach
A question to be answered always before starting to design is setting one’s parameters. Especially when using Parametric Design Techniques and when dealing with an existing context, the translation of qualities a space may have or of notions and feelings experienced there is a very important step that ensures the final solution will be sufficiently based on reality and not in form finding quests.
The above question being the base of it, this project is aiming to create a series of spaces integrated in the urban fabric of Barcelona (Ciutat Vella). Their most important feature is that they introduce spatial qualities stemming from the life of immigrants in Barcelona. They are made for the inhabitants of Barcelona to use and they integrate information from immigrant’s countries in different media.
Why deal with the theme of immigration?Although Barcelona seems to be an example of multicultural city, one can still notice that immigrant populations are not as integrated in the life of the city and of course we don’t avoid seeing discriminative and racist behaviours.The only obvious way to bring the two sides closer is – upon their requests in relevant researches – communication. Letting the ones know the other’s background and points of view might allow them to understand each other and interact better. And since there is enough information around about Catalans and their life, what is missing is information and connection with the countries of the immigrants.Of course, if we wanted to put the use of the proposed spaces in a more pragmatic level, they could include helpful databases or information on current job offer around the city, or a service-connection point between the citizen and the municipality.
The first step in this research process was to have an overview of the immigrants’ lives and from that extract feelings and notions that would then be translated into spatial qualities.
The same procedure was repeated for the urban spaces, where the structures were to be put. The outcome was a whole range of spatial parameters that would define the form, use and performative aspect of each space and that would form the base on which the parametric model was created.
PARAMETRIC MODEL
In sequence, that model was used to make some case studies in nodal points of the old city (Las Ramblas, Born, Ciutadella, Placa Catalunya), the places having the common base of multinational use and at the same time maintaining individual qualities that allow for space variations to appear. The spaces created have different forms and uses responding to each places urban characteristics and contain various forms and media of information.
My intension for the Thesis Project was to combine the knowledge I have gained during the Master’s Program on the definition and realization of a parametric design project with a broader initial research on the urban fabric and social aspects of it which would serve as the source of my parameters. I tried in my first Thesis Proposal (below) to think on a network of small scale spaces that would reactivate the link of the citizens to the public space. One of the problems of this -too vast still- proposal was that since the public space of Barcelona where I intended to work on is beyond doubt very well used, the function proposal I would make should be a very strongly justified one. I had therefore to think more on the specifics of my proposal, keeping the general scale and design direction framework.
Live®city Habitat Facing the disconnection of users with the public space in the context of an ever-growing time based urbanity, it would be interesting to reconsider the appropriation of public space by the citizens. One way to do that could be through the creation of a system of urban prototypes that discuss upon the whole range of uses between the borders of public and private. A means of infrastructure interfering with the urban fabric that starts from particular points and spreads out following its own growth rules but always mutated by the city and infecting the city itself. As an initial intention of location the design could focus on transition parts of the urban fabric or even observe simultaneously the reaction caused by the placement of those “prototypes” in totally different points of the city. Are they working or not? How do people use the interior and the space around them? Is there any significant change in the fabric around them caused because of their existence? In terms of methodology, a first step should be a research on performances and their associations, in order to develop the vocabulary of qualities that will then evolve into spatial parameters. Some examples of such associations and parameters could be: Open-air/ Sheltered, Enclosed/Communicative, Permeable/ Solid, Big/ small, Horizontal/ Vertical, Border/ Union, Space/ Element. In this research parametric associative design can be the appropriate tool to translate social, spatial, location and time contexts into form and structure. This would certainly give the opportunity to deal in a more precise and efficient way with the complexity of notions forming today’s urban cityscape. As far as the scale of the design project proposed is concerned, since the design tools that will be used give the opportunity to move from an urban scale to fabrication methodology and detail, one focus scale will be decided according to the direction of research that will be taken up.
The aim of the competition was to find a solution for the existence in the same view from the new Museum of the Acropolis of the Parthenon itself and two preserved blocks of flats that form fine samples of Greek arcitecture of the early 20th century.
Our proposal was the creation of a surface at a distance from the building, which would act as a filter between the existing and the new, providing the demanded properties for both sides. For the inhabitants of the blocks of flats those properties would be the preservation of views as well as sun and ventilation profits and protection of their privacy. For the Museum users they would be optimization of the view from the Museum towards the Acropolis, and a better use of the Museum courtyard.
This surface is populated with one base component element that varies along the surface according to several parameters. The form of the unit is given by overlapping triangles and can, through its parametric nature, adjust to whichever part of the curvilinear surface. It can vary in openness and height, achieving each time more or less light penetration or orientating the view to the desired direction.
Since the solution is supposed to respond to different buildings it is very important for it to be able to react to their special characteristics, varying from the totally closed blind wall with no use to different sizes of windows and balcony use. In the proposal we used 8 different variations of the same component, placed on the different parts of the surface according to the building use behind every application area. Those variations range from more flat and closed ones to taller and more open ones, always controlled by the same set of parameters. This way, the final surface has different levels of openness and closeness, responding to the degree of use and interactivity behind it.
The elements are also placed in such a way as to prevent the Museum users from having a direct view to the buildings and at the same time not block the view of the building inhabitants to the area of Koukaki.
Ofcourse, the proposal is directly connected with the idea of its fabrication, so the parts of the components can be automatically adjusted and give the cutting files for the CNC machine.
Long after the idea of digitally customizing and producing your house was initially launched, Bell Travers Willson are introducing us to a whole new level through their project, 1:1 Making the Digital House. After two and a half years of research they presented it in an exhibition at The Architectural Foundation’s Yard Gallery in London in March 2007.
The Digital House is produced using an explicit 3D model that contains all of the construction elements up to every single assembly detail. The elementsare cutout in engineered timber using CNC technology and then assembled into lightweight hollow cassettes, which can be filled with recycled newspaper to achieve a high level of insulation and air tightness. Due to the technology used all the parts can be customized to each individual’s requirements, moving away from the standardization that has previously been an economic driving force in prefabricated systems so far and at the same time offering speed and quality of production.
The architects have set up a new company, FACIT, to be a one stop shop providing the complete building service from design, planning, and digital production through to on site assembly. So you can now design and order your own house and get it in a box ready to be put together; easily, quickly and low cost.
A question to be answered always before starting to design is setting one’s parameters. Especially when using Parametric Design Techniques and when dealing with an existing context, the translation of qualities a space may have or of notions and feelings experienced there is a very important step that ensures the final solution will be sufficiently based on reality and not in form finding quests.
