hyperhabitat [Venice Biennale 2008]

The aim of the workshop in which we participated was to produce an installation focussed on digital fabrication procedures, designed by Guallart Architects, IaaC and BCN fab Lab in collaboration with Bestiario and MIT center for bits and atoms that will be presented during The Biennale of Venice.  Our collaboration concerned  the design and fabrication of the object – furniture presented in the pavillion of  Guallart Architects in Venice Biennale 2008.

For more information visit the site of hyperhabitat

and for the process click here

Gmik Presentation of work- Athens school of Fine Arts

facade study (2)

Study of a system of  “brick – panels” that start fron a straight orthogonal grid. The grasshopper definition, based on 2 attractor points, changes the distances between them and their thickness.

facade study

This is just an experimental shape during my first attempts to work with grasshopper.  The panels follow an initial surface in fhino. The definition is based on a system of two attractor points that control the distance in y axes between the panels . Still under development..

Parametric Dome _Video of the process [design and fabrication]

Video produced by Ismini Koronidi

collaborator :  Giorgos Machairas

special effects:  Javier Raya

Here you can find the post for the parametric dome pavillion with more information.

Rhino_Scripting 2

Ismini Koronidi + Georgios Machairas

http://www.designemergente.org/rhinoscripting/seminar-scripting-at-iaac-presentations-iii/

ecotect

Sustainability and self-sufficiency are directlyu conected with energy calculations.Ecotect is an environmental design tool which couples an intuitive 3D modelling interface withextensive solar, thermal, lighting, acoustic and cost analysis functions. ECOTECT is one ofthe few tools in which performance analysis is simple, accurate and most importantly, visuallyresponsive.We focused in the possibilities and potentials of the specific software opening anew field of investigation in the architectural design, enforcing the development of the student´sprojects and providing them a tool for further individual research in sustainability.ECOTECT is driven by the concept that environmental design principles are most effectivelyaddressed during the conceptual stages of design. The software responds to this by providingessential visual and analytical feedback from even the simplest sketch model, progressively guidingthe design process as more detailed information becomes available. The model is completelyscalable, handling simple shading models to full-scale cityscapes. Its extensive export facilities alsomake final design validation much simpler by interfacing with Radiance, EnergyPlus and manyother focused analysis tools.

In this video you can see the day light simulation of a house.

For more details of my projects examples click here

Script- sound Box

The seminar  introduced us theoretical and practical principles for embedding computation into physical space. We looked at how information and communication technologies are disappearing into our surrounding spaces, how architecture might be considered an operating system, and how micro controllers are becoming part of everyday objects.

Then we  imagine, design, visualize and practically demonstrate a network that seamlessly integrates into physical space.

input:light,sound,touch

output:sound,light,rotation

box rules

when turn on play 3 notes a-b-c

if touching then play note a

if light then play note b and rotate 90

if sound then play note c and blink

Start Up

playNote(’a’,50);

delay(100);

rotate clockwise(60);

delay(100);

playNote(’d’,100);

delay(100);

playNote(’f’,100);

 case 1

if (touchSensor) {rotateClockwise(80);delay(100);playNote(’a’,50);}

if (lightSensor) {rotateAntiClockwise(80);delay(100);playNote(’d’,100);setLampOff();}

if (soundSensor) {setLampOn();delay(100);playNote(’f”,100);}

 

Milling the Boards

 

memory of walk

Zaragoza Digital Mile

Memory pavement is intende to record pedestrian movement across a given space by using digitally responsive ground surfacing. Every timea footstep falls on adigital paver, the paver emits an additional increment of light. As time passes and many pedestrians cross the pavement, paths of light are illuminated where pedestrians have tread most; unread areas emit no light.

source: http://www.milladigital.es

Complexity in Geometry – Iannis Xenakis

Complexity in geometry can be discovered in nature, human body, music, as well as in architecture. Though it is assumed that complex architectural structures are a result of last century’s technological evolution , complex manifolds have also been used formerly. Gaudi, was forming complex geometry structures in Sagrada Familia 100 years ago . Another example of non computer aided yet complex design, was Philips Co Pavillion designed by Iannis Xenakis and Le Corbusier, for the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair.

In October 1956 Le Corbusier’s sketches for the pavillion were entrusted to Iannis Xenakis, who was charged to translate them through mathematics. At the time Xenakis was working in his musical composition “Metastasis” which itself was strongly influenced by Le Corbusier’s proportional scale arising out of the Fibonacci series and its association with the golden section.He transformed the graphical musical sketches of Metastasis into architectural schemes for designing the shape of Philips Pavilion .He made this through techniques, often exalted by the use of the computer, that associated the graphic construction (to compose as in writing a score) with the sonorous performance (to compose as in producing a sonorous result).The structure was a series of conjoined hyperbolic parabaloids-curved planes mathematically generated entirely from straight lines. The development of this idea into architectural form passed through a compositional process in which it is difficult to say if the mathematical structure precedes or proceeds from the architectural image.

“With the aid of electronic computers the composer becomes a sort of pilot … sailing in the space of sound, across sonic constellations and galaxies …” Iannis Xenakis

We can say that this is a unique compositional event which signifies that at the basis of some architectural events – perhaps those celebrating most the process of transformation of an idea from pure abstraction to factual object – were those concepts whose development is possible through the intervention of the mathematics because:

“… some relationships between music and architecture are very easy to intuit in a confused way, delicate to specify and to define, and it is not impossible to have doubts about them, because what is aesthetic is uncertain. But they seemed to me resounding. It is clear that music and architecture are both arts that don’t need to imitate things; they are arts in which matter and form have relate more intimately than anywhere else; one and the other address general sensibility. Both admit repetition, an omnipotent tool; both apply to the physical effects of size and intensity, by means of which they can astonish the senses and the mind, even to annihilation. Finally, their respective nature permits an abundance of combinations and regular developments that connect or compare them with geometry and analysis.”

Xenakis’s final statement at the end of his long and detailed discussion of the Philips Pavilion is:

“For the time being only cement lies at the origin of the new architecture. It prepares the bed in which the plastic materials of tomorrow will form a river rich in forms and volumes, figures that are found not only in the biological entities but above all in the most abstract mathematics.”

 

FOA material – material FOA

The architectural education of FOA took place in the 80’s, in a time that the main research aimed to peripheral fields of architecture such as sociology, politics and economy. FOA recognized that this kind of analysis was not effective enough in a context that was gradually becoming more and more complicated and fluxionary. So, they gave more emphasis to the construction, the materiality and organization of their projects. In that way their proposition for the way of analyzing and composing architecture focuses on the geometry, the construction, the organization, the materiality, the technique, the tectonics and the technology.
FOA’s main theoretical aspect aims directly at the reality. Their “design ethics” propose that architecture concerns the need and not the excess. With a dose of irony, they call their way of thinking “theory of excuse”, because they tend to follow a design path only if they find a pragmatical point to start, such as the function, the structure or the circulation. And though their architectural production consists of parametrical and digital procedures materiality and construction are very active from the very beginning of the design.
Very important is the definition that FOA give for the notion of material. Material is considered anything that can be used to the production of architecture. Everything used for that production has the properties of material that is coherence, density, weight. As an example they mention the function of a project. They try to approach it as something that has natural and geometrical properties such as weight, friction, hardness, resistance and texture. In that way function can be considered as just another construction material. Their target is to surpass the social and linguistic meaning of function and to extract its materiality. In this way the notion of material is very widen- as flows, function, natural and artificial materials, functions, even representations compose new complex materials that can perform many different tasks at the same time.
And this is what is considered to be the edge of the architectural evolution in the architecture of FOA. As they say the construction of even more sophisticated and cohesive materials is what they think they should do as architects in the non-standard way of designing.

Authors : Evita Vlachopoulou, Ismini Koronidi, Giorgos Machairas