AIRDavid Wang

Third Year

Design Studio Air

Content

1. Introduction: 2. Conceptualisation 3. Design Computation 4. Composition/Generation5. Conclusion+Learning Outcomes6. Algorithmic Sketches

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The Journal Starts......The Journal Starts...

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Introduction

My name is David and I am currently a third year student studying Architecture at the University of Melbourne. Above is a photo of me early this year during the Chinese Spring Festival.

I like architecture as it is really interesting especially when it gets to the concpets and experience. I see myself more as a thinker rather than an executer.

I have many interests in my free time. I play guitar in my room when i have nothing else to do. I also play games and watch youtube. But currently most of my time is spent on club activities and meeting friends.

As I progress in this study, I now relise how many famous buildings got their form and shape, and it motivates me to learn digital designing since it is so important at this architectual time.

I really look forward into learing design studio air as I truely think this will benifit me in future employment and designing.

About Myself

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Experience

Above is a model done from previous work. This is the sort of work I have been doing before this stage. I have studied architectual concepts and have made models, but I really lack digital modelling skills and presentation. I know autocad quite well, but other 3d modelling and rendering techniques I lack.

In my opinion, digital modelling is a new era of architecture, and also contains the future of it. It opens up many possibilities and gives a different starting point in terms of form approach.

I have also done 1 year of coding with my breadth subjects. This will give me a good mind set and thought process when it comes to manipulating grasshopper.

Other than this i have not used much digital designing softwares.

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Conceptualisation

The drome project is a new technology where dromes move themselves to create a structure. These structures are generally very hard to create by human to acheive such accuracy.

The dromes pin point their location and function along a set pattern. Although these dromes can only manipulate strings, there is a wide future to this technology.

These dromes open up a new area of ideas as the form of the outcome is a lot more flexible.

Designers now can use their imagination and not be restricted by technology.

The dromes were revolutionary in a way, since there were no such way of constructing before this. Although there were computational construction for projects that need precision, they were not made insitu and cannot thread strings like the dromes.

This project was not “built” but more like a result of a ongoing pattern.

This technology provides precision, flexibility and reduces human labour. These factors will lead this designing method on go in the future.

We do see computational construction plays a big role for the future of architecture.

Design FuturingThe Thread

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White House

This is the White House from famous modernism architect Le Corbusier. This project has a very large impact on ideas concept, form and culture for a very long time.

This is one of the many architectual buildings that changed the future. It shows that architecture should be simple and functional. There should be no ornament but only fit into the surroundings.

This was a very revolutionary thought at that time because architecture was once seen as a sort of art. Somthing like a big sculpture with ornament but people can access it.

Many other designs after this were inspired by it.

This building expanded future ideas by giving out new concepts and focuses, where architecture is redefined. Many architecs use the modernism concepts and many buildings alike were built.

These buildings followed the rules of modernism and have changed the living experience for people who live in such places.

These ideas have been passed on till nowadays and have continuesly been used.

It is clear that architecture contribute ideas and concepts for the future and have significant impact to future qualities.

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Design Computation

Computation in design has drawn increasing attention nowadays. Computation aided design has many differences from the original process of design. computational design has many advantages, which may lead this dort of deisgn to be the future of architecture.

Computational design intercect with us in many differnet ways. sometimes computers are used to aid our design and sometimes they aid construction. Sometimes they even trigger the concepts of forms of the design without us actually specifying.

Fabio Gramazio and Matthias Kohler of ETH Zurich, used computer aided brick installation

at the Venice Biennale shown in the photo above. This is a very typical example of computer aided design and construction. These brincks may look simple, but they are layed very precisely by computer to create this sort of formation pattern.

This sort of design can also be applied not only to bricks but also to other maerials. This provides a whole new area of possibilities in terms of material formation. It can be said that computation has opened up a whole new range of forms and design that can be executed. Especially in the constantly evolving architectual era, computational design has become increasingly important to create new revolutionary architecture.

Importance of Computation in the Future

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The birds nest in Beijing China is also an example that used computing during the design process. It has used multiple steel members that alliterate in a oval to produce its final form.

This sort of structure could not have been able to stand up without computer annalysis and modelling. Many buildings around me have shown computer generated components.

This comes to another dominant adcantage of computing. This is calculation and simulation.

Computer aided design allow us to simulate and calculate the outcomes of a paticular form. For example, we can

use computers to simulate string tension from a bridge which is shown in class. It allows us to see the outcome of the design before it has been installed.

There have been many cases where buildings are flawly design because we dont know what the exact outcome is. The word design should mean to know the outcome of a certain form before it is built. Computation aid largly completes this job.

These simulations not only include how the building stands up, but also the sorts of flows as discussed in previous lectures. The flows of people, of nature and of space are all clearly demonstrated with the help of computers, which was not possible before.

Like memtioned in the readings, I do believe that computer aided design can revolutionise the architectual concepts and strategy in the future. By no doubt this will open up a whole new era of architecture.

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Composition/Generation

Architecture now lead to a shift in concept, and generative architecture is possibly the new direction. However first of all we need to understand the previous way of design known as Compositional Architecture.

Compositional Architecture is like writing a book. We specify the details and the outcome. It is the way we commonly design things.

We have a concept and then we expand on it. We add components that we need for the design and slowly the design forms.

As technology becomes more powerful, we start to use computer aid to design. We no longer need to specify all the details and components of the design.

It has slowly become the case that all we need is a few parameters and algorithms to create very complex forms at very little time.

Then could there be a case that the parameters have developed and we no longer need humans to design. The computers can generate a design that fits the critrea while also providing stability, flexibility and realiability.

We also need to take note that computer generated outcomes take little to no time. Although time might not seem important compared to the future of architecture and design, it is a large factor that affects design quality.

Above is the Water Cube for the 2008 olympics. The ceiling structure was designed by a parametric software specially made for this purpose.

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This is another example of visual programming in de-sign. This is a project made by dynamo, and it demonstrates the capability of generating structual components with subtle curvature.

However, in my opinion generative architecture is far from being the next architectural generation. There still are many problems and things that programms cannot do.

Generative Architecture cannot create useful or practical architecture at the current moment. The structure it provides may look complex and modern, but i think it is slowly leaving what we call architecture.

To me it more seems like practical computer sculpturing.

Not only that making the generation practical is a problem, the concept of architecture also needs to change. These no longer legitamate design in this act, merely freedom of creation.

However speaking of which, there are advantages to generative computing. We can now create forms we could never had done by human power. We have a much more wide range of possibilities to explore.

Although the generation are not practical for now, i do believe they will be in the near future. They will certainly impact on our architectual future and become components of our building. However i do not believe it will replace human architectual design not matter how the parameters develop.

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Conclusion/Learning Outcomes

Digital modelling has made significant impacts on architectual design. Complex forms and precise structures are no longer months of work.

Things that were practically impossible are now possible for us. Computational design is possibly the future of architecture in my opinion.

This has also altered my design strategy. I used to design via a concept and then build on it but very limited by the possibilities I can think of or can build of.

I think future designs I produce will mainly be aided by computational design. Not only the development, but also the unlimited testing and freedom of form will benifit me in future designing.

There are many things I have learnt from the information during the past weeks.

At the start of the semester, I did not know digital modelling can be used in so many ways. I though the computer was merely a media to express a design, not the idea generater or the designer.

I now understand the condition computational architecture is in and truely believe the future lays within it.

If i had this sort of skills before, many designs would of been different. I believe I could add a lot more detail to them and also come up with many better ideas in terms of form testing.

Laser cutting is a practical example of computer aided development. But computer aided design is something different for future works.

Conclusion

Learning Outcomes

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Algorithmic Sketches

This is what made me understand how many other architectures obtained their structure from. This is my definition of computational design. Simple algorithm creating complex random form.

This sketch is a typical example of algorithmic modelling. Although it is simply generated, it is one of my earliest sketches and has a lot of meaning.

On the right shows a structure which seemed to me like many of the oprea houses. These are progressions with one change in algorithm to create different forms. I could see how designs developed from this.

The sketch on the left looks a lot like stadium seats. This really made me think about future architecture. If studium seats could also be generated, whats going to stop a computer generating a whole studium. And all we need to do is pick one out of the infinite generations.

The Journal Ends...