6 posts tagged “digital technologies”
This is a recent competition entry for a retail chain in Japan The Blossom Store The store concept
Blossom explores the
opportunities present in the morphologies of floral entities as point of
departure for the design of architectural conditions. The sensorial and spatial
experiences co-notated with the manifold qualities of blooming flowers, from
their topological qualities and the distribution of sepals and petals to form
the body of the flower, are scrutinized for their architectural qualities and
incorporated in the design of Blossom. Even the olfactory qualities could be implied as
substantial part of the design. To include the programmatic elements of a store
the concept of delamination is applied. In delaminating layers from the
surrounding envelope of the store, pockets of varying sizes are generated.
These pockets include, according to their size elements like office, storage,
changing booths and elements that could be used as presentation tablets.
System:
Although the
designs visual appearance is of heterogeneous nature, the underlying logic of
the design is informed by a repetitive system related to the allover theme of
floration. Nodes represent the core components of the system, connecting a
specific variety of petals. This system of node and petal form the innermost
layer of the delamination effect described above. The second layer provides the
store with the necessary depth to include programmatic points, tagging along
the node and petal system in its morphology. The third layer is comprised by a
simple box, which represents in the renderings a possible space provided for the
store in an existing building. This outermost layer bears a vivid coloration in
order to bleed the color into the glossy white interior.
The described system is highly pliable, providing a wide range of opportunities for various setups. It can be applied to different envelopes, independent from their shape. Additionally the various layers can be used in multiple combinations to populate different environments. The store can occupy an empty space, it can be setup to perform as a pavilion by combining the two inner layers, or it can accommodate itself in a shop-in-shop scenario by using the innermost layer only. Appearance
Fabrication:
The fabrication process relies on computational fabrication methods extensively. The nodes, the most complex part of the project, are CNC milled elements. These nodes are connected by the petals, which comprise of water jet cutted flat panels. These panels are laminated to provide the necessary structural integrity. In order to reduce the energy consumption in this project a twofold method is applied: On the one hand the strict application of computational workflow in the design and fabrication process, providing the chance to minimize material and energy consumption in the making. On the other hand the use of natural, biologically degradable materials to minimize pollution effects. Some of the possible solutions include the use of pressed cocoa fibers panels, wood for the nodes, biopolymers for the glossy white coating, and OLEDS (Organic Light Emitting Diodes) for the illumination of the space.
Friday night I attended the opening Venue of the exhibition The Austrian Winery Boom which Sandra and myself designed last year. The show was commissioned by the Architekturzentrum Wien, and previously on show at the Austrian Cultural Forum in NYC, before moving on to the MODAA Gallery in Culver City, Los Angeles. The shows opening was pretty crowded by a bunch of architecture afficionados. At the midday opening session I was introduced to Wolfgang Puck, Austria´s representative of Haute Cuisine in Los Angeles and favorite cook to numerous Hollywood celebrities. (No way to escape Hollywood in LA, it seems.) The shows opening was also attended by Dietmar Steiner, the director of the Architekturzentrum Wien (Az W), who repeated his introductory words for the show several times this day. Peter Noever, the director of the MAK in Vienna, also happened to be in LA and dropped by to check out the show. The show was well received and I had to answer many, many times answers on the shows concept and design.
Here are some pics from the opening venue. Thanks to Gudrun Hausegger, who was so kind to provide us with the pics she took that night.
So, all the panels are now in the Workshop of the Architekturzentrum Wien (Az W) most of them are finished, only the graphic parts have to be applyed yet. Here you can see a couple of images of the Module C, the smallest of the three modules. The bottle fits pretty good into the craddle that was included in the vacuforming process.
A mood rendering of the ACF by night, when there are no visitors around......so only the surveillance cameras will see it like this..
Here is an image of the first shells. The transparency is even better than I expected, no opaqueness. Tomorrow we will assemble a first complete prototype to check out how the illumination looks best, and how we can handle the connection detail between the panels best.
Today we spent lunchtime together with Peter Testa, right at the Metropol Cafe across the street of SCI-Arc. We had a very interesting conversation with him about the crossbreeding of technology and architecture. To our surprise he explained that the inventiveness of american academia as well as the progress in technologies is in a state of decline, and that very probable Europe is making a way better job when it comes to the invention of novel technologies. Beeing a former MIT Staff and present SCI-Arc Faculty, Peter Testa has a way better overview of contemporary technologie development, than we do. We also had the chance to discuss Sandras and my PhD topic, as the issue of apertures, and possible innovations when it comes to the application of openings within complex curved geometries are inherent in his recent work. Such as the idea to weave openings into the outside shell of a building. One example of his work where this approach has been applied is the Carbon Tower. Another issue we discussed is the blending of materials, or in other words, a novel approach to the issue of details in architecture. By now there was always a defined distinction between the change of materials in architecture: High Tech architecture, and its fetish for the elaborated detail solution, beeing the apex of this development. But what if there is no destinctive detail solution any more? What if the inherent qualities of the materials becomes the detail? In other words: hinges, frames, knobs, all of this disappears in favour of materials able to fulfill the same task. Peter is also working on a new project, which is going to be a one family housing project, where he is exploring the possibilities of taping elements together to build the outside skin of the building. This project is also on exhibition at the Skin & Bones exhibition at the MOCA
A couple of other issues emerged troughout our conversation such as the problem of intellectual property in academia, ways to share knowledge, future perspectives in architecture education as well as the need for architects researching in scientific fields or in cooperation with scientists. As the scientists narrowness in research is counterbalanced by the architectonic mind of putting enormous ammounts of puzzlepieces together to form a functioning whole.
