Dark Side of the Moon

What a cool concept "The Dark Side of the Moon". Current exhibition @SCI-Arc gallery by Michael Maltzan.

Midterm

中間プレゼン終了。

Vignette came out great and presentation went well. It was very productive yet easy going final for me. The team work well together because we trust each other's different strength.

Testa Studio

Testa Studio。ストラクチャーを提案。かなづちもロクに使えない若造に新しいストラクチャー (より軽く、より早い) を提案せよ、とは。でも文句を言ってないで三人寄れば何か出てくる。プラスチックで Origami をやるとこうなる。あらかじめミシン目のようにプラスチックにカットを入れておいて熱した鉄の縁に押し当て、ゆっくりと折っていきます。こういうどろ臭い作業大好き♪

Doing Origami with plastic for Testa Studio. Lighter and more efficient structure. Informal fabrication on site with unskilled labor (even though I'm so proud that I completed the model without giving it up...) We give sheets of plastic strength and intelligence to perform as structure. Automorphism is a critical concept for our proposal, where each components perform differently depending on the neighbors. The completed structure is in tension and if I cut one of their arms, entire unit blasts open.





Heating a styrene sheet along crease lines.


Connecting components.


Completed modules. 14units (left), 22 units (right)

Density Field

Material and Application opening for the new installation by OylerWu Colaborative. Soon after people noticed the firm's entry to the current issue of architectural record. It has been a spacial month for them. Density Field is a network of structure that no column and beams are taking the major structural force. (...by the way, the steel bar sculpture stands without the subsidizing wires.) So there wasn't a hierarchy in construction sequence. The nest of steel bars kept twisting and turning 'til the very last piece locked into its place.











Walking through this dense network of structure, the cleanness of joints got people's attention. They broke down 3-D joints into 2-D intersections by placing a plane at each connection, and made a zig to assure the accurate and minimum welding. The craftsmanship of the piece is amazing.

Thesis Precedents

だんだん忙しくなってきましたよ。。。
では卒業設計に先行する卒論の材料を少々。箇条書き御免。

BUSINESS
Charles Eamus's Case Study House #8 puts and end to the series of argument regarding the ideal way of practicing architecture. William Morris, Jean Prouve, and Pierre Chareau are the precedents of Charles Eamus who insisted the importance of being able to provide method and means of construction. They pursuit it not through a theoretical idealism, but through each practical business model.

TECHNOLOGY
Tom Wiscombe's Dragonfly is a highly sophisticated installation whose process -from morphology through engineering to fabrication- employed the multiple advanced softwares. The project is an experiment on design sensibility, engineering innovation, and fabrication logic in a contemporary digital environment where these disciplines have become enmeshed like never before.

TECHNOLOGY
Recently completed Kieran Timberlake's Loblolly House is an recognized example of taking advantages of BIM softwares for a small scale project. Not because simply inspired by the current technologies, a desire of architects to better understand the building and its elements led to the application of BIM as a tool for the design, development, fabrication, and assembly of the house.

BUSINESS / TECHNOLOGY
Najarian Residence that Steven Institute of technology was involved is an example where the usage of available digital technology links directly to an interesting business scheme. Although developer-involved project initiated the top-down strategy, Najarian Residence is one of the first example where tempting and reckless usage of BIM software came true.

BUSINESS / STRATEGY
In 1999, FOBA (Katsu Umebayashi) established a subsidiary company to provide an alternative housing “brand”: FOB Homes, because of which FOBA came to be recognized as pre-fab practitioners even though their proposal was rather spatial and aesthetic concepts. FOB Homes Typologies is an interesting example of architectural practice where architect sells sets of strategy as products.

STRATEGY
Hitoshi Abe's Kanno Museum is an example of interesting rule-based architecture although he doesn't intend to implant the project on different sites. Not only the strategy itself, the challenging form as a result became possible with the usage of multiple softwares. Details of the project as well worth attention in that Hitoshi Abe, as a designer, provided the method and means of construction.

STRATEGY / AESTHETICS
Ray Kappe's Kappe Residence is a complete example of integrating structural strategy and sensible outcome. His tactics are efficient and convincing, at the same time, his care and attention to each project is deeply profound. People see comprehensive theme throughout Ray Kappe's different projects, yet any one of those projects seems complete and well crafted specifically for a certain site and clients.

AESTHETICS
Tokujin Yoshioka's House Moving Project is an interesting example where the hierarchy of the structure and design elements is reversed in terms of driving and driven relationships. Components of the old structure is kept to initiate the design of the new house. Through the process of literally moving a house, beautiful Japanese woodworks are to remain and establish a story and grammar of the new space.

rvb Scripting

On the right is a script I wrote to scale down a curve to fit in certain area. The original is CurveToFitLength in Rhino scripting tutorial.

Knowing both INPUTs
Rhino.CurveLength (strObject)
Rhino.CurveArea (strObject)

were available in Scripting Method, I thought it would be easy to write the same script but Area-based scaling instead of Length-based scaling. But I just realized Scripting Method also requires me to refer OUTPUTs. Unfortunately, CurveLength has dbl OUTPUT while CurveArea has arr OUTPUT. Checkout the difference in above jpg.

Scripting、学校では教えてくれないですが使えると仕事に有利かと思い独学中。Sky が手伝ってくれて本当に助かります。私みたいな初心者が何人寄っても何も出てこないのは明白だし、クラスがあったとしても自分のペースでできない上に無駄に課題が多いと厄介です。自分で書いてみて行き詰まったら彼に聞いています。