7 posts tagged “bauhaus”

Last semester Sandra Manninger took responsibilty in teaching the Advanced Technology Seminar at the Bauhaus Dessau Institute of Architecture. The main task of the studio was the exploration of spatial ornament conditions, based on the geometry of space filling Polyhedra. Every one of the students had to explore the opportunities present in specific techniques of ornamentation and how those transformed into architectural conditions such as spatial subdiv ision structural integrity and so on. The main challenge consisted in the development of highly developed sensibilities for this combination of very rigorous geometrical framework and advanced digital design techniques. The final stage of the seminar was to actually fabricate the results by using the lasercutter in order to understand the entire production line, from the design process to the final fabrication of the piece. This is due to understand how these techniques can potentialy be used in a one to one scale environment of construction.

This semesters main theme in my studio at the Bauhaus was the issue of Ornamentation. The students had to explore the various architectural implications conotated with the realm of ornaments. To be precise the studio was called Deep Ornament. This implies opportunities to explore issues such structure, spatial articulation as well as the performative qualities of articulated surfaces. The students developed two specific branches within the provided environment of thought. One approach dealed with

 the whole to part relationship of spatial articulation: The subdivision of a continuous body into panels or components. The other approach considered the opportunities within the part to whole concept. Exploring aggregations of components to form spatial envelopes. Both attempts where successful in their own extent. In preparation of this semesters task the students put together a reader about canonical readings, important for the discoursive framework of the studio. The reader is called Deep Ornament Primar and contains readings by Greg Lynn, Sanford Kwinter, Nina Rapaport, John Rajchman, Manuel de Landa, Michael Speaks and many more... 

This Semester I had three students to coach as second adviser for their Thesis work at the Bauhaus Dessau, DIA Dessau Institute of architecture. They all had the same typology, a highriser. All of them used computational design techniques to explore the morphology of the highriser, especially in the aspects of performativity. Sandra and I travelled to Dessau for the presentation of all the thesis works that spanned two days of presenations. One very special guest appeared on invitation by Prof. Alfred Jacoby director of the postgraduate master course of the DIA: Lars Lerup, Dean of Rice University in Texas. A University I consider highly interesting considering the amazing faculty that includes the likes of Sanford Kwinter, David Erdman, Clover Lee and Sean Lally.

Back again in the Bauhaus we started this Semesters Advanced Design Techniques course. The course deals with two specific issues: Component driven Architectures and advanced fabrication techniques. As a role model for the idea of components we rely on the field of botany and here especially  on flowers. The course started with a presentation of this idea and some key terms the students have to use to develop their ideas: inflorescence, plication, venation and ornament. I´m pretty eager to see what the students are going to conceive based on this design environment and the line of thought emerging out of it. Especially the issue of ornament as spatial phenomenon can generate some polemic ideas, bearing loads of opportunities for architectural arguments, such as enclosure, structure,  spatial differentiation and so on. To develop a project the students were asked to pick up the site of the Gropius House at the Meisterhäuser, close to the Bauhaus, and replace the present postwar reconstruction with a new structure. 

It´s done. Last weekend we attended the final review of the Follymorph course Sandra and I teached at the DIA, Bauhaus Dessau. The scope of the workshop was to explore possibilities for architectural design emerging from a combination of selforganizational behaviour and computational design. The students had to explore an initial gypsum

model, an abstract machine that included various phenomena of emergent conditions. After the initial phase, they had to transcribe the observed phenomena using computational tools such as topological mesh modeling software and high en animation softwares. The phenomena were scrutinized for applications derived from discoursive issues such as Gradients, stratifications, viscous conditions and more. Finally they had to imply the architectonic task to create a stair or ramp within a Folly. This had to be depicted with the traditional tools of architecture: Plans and sections. You can find the blog of the course here

Sandra and I are teaching a workshop at the Bauhaus Dessau in Germany. The Dessau Institute of Architecture resides right beside the famous Bauhaus building, designed by Walter Gropius, the mythical birthplace of modern design.

On a personal level I have to say that it is of course a great honor to teach in this famous school, with a distinguished history in design and architecture. Considering that people like Mies van der Rohe, Laszlo Moholy Nagy, Wasiliy Kandinsky and Marcel Breuer used to be in the Faculty of this school, says enough.
The course we are teaching deals with issues such as selforganization, and the behaviour of molecule populations informed by intensive forces such as friction, varying gravitational forces and viscosity as a mean of architectural design. In a first stage, the students had to create a plaster model, an "Abstract Machine" depicting the behaviour described above. After scrutinizing the model for the resulting spatial patterns, created by the process, the students have to create a digital translation, a computational model of the observed phenomena. I will post the link to the studios blog as soon as we finished the course, end of december.

The Bauhaus Dessau staged a conference on the issue of Digital cities. Following an invitation by Neil Leach I was happy to join the board of speakers of this venue. The other speakers included:
Gisela Baurmann - Büro NY, New York, Alain Chiaradia - Space Syntax, London, Jürgen Mayer - J. Mayer H Architects, Berlin, Yusuke Obuchi - DRL Architectural Association, London, Kas Oosterhuis - ONL Architects, Rotterdam, Neri Oxman - MIT Computation Group, Boston and François Roche - R&Sie(n), Paris and Neil Leach, who presented the body of work his students elaborated troughout the period he acted as a visiting professor at the Bauhaus. The conference was an inspiring gathering of experts in the field of advanced, contemporary architecture. To mention some of the issues that were presented

within the daylong lectures: Alain Chiaradia presented some examples of the analytical software space syntax that works as a information retrieval software for urban structures. Some of the information that can be gathered precisely with this software include sustainability, accessibility, social cohesion & exclusion and more. Neri Oxman showed some examples of her work that rely on generative algorithms and material behaviour. It is staggeringly beautiful how results from natural science inform processes of architecture creation, as with the application of L systems for the creation of branching objects. Neris work definetly share some topics with the field of interet present within my own work, though we use different tools to achieve the results. In general it can be stated that the work of the panelists shared a common ground in the way how the obsession with the novel inform their work. The definition of the novel, on the other hand, is up to the individual practices.