Architecture is often used in a world dominated by the countless, the client or the public and perhaps only comprehended by the few. Architecture has been relatively unsuccessful at continue with the planet often failing to relate and talk to cultural shifts, changing ways of life and the progress of technology. Where other design related techniques like the automotive industry have blossomed, re seeded, re harvested and regenerated with shifts in the way people live and the technology of the present, architecture appears to have floundered. Because of this architects presently work in an environment utilizing century old technologies, with a customer market which avoids risks to personal gain at all cost and a consumer which often still recognizes the president seen in architectural background as the form of another architectural future. The people seem bewildered by the possibilities presented by the possibilities of the present. Even fellow practitioners and academics within the architectural self-discipline would appear to be slightly taken aback by the options now available to us. Not just on a technological level, however the impact these new techniques ma have on the very fundamentals of architectural theory and form. This brings me to my question. . . . . . Parametric and Algorithmic Design: Faux Forms or another Architecture?
Computer aided design changed many design orientated occupations including the automotive and aeronautical sectors as far back as the 1980's when they were first properly developed. An electronic revolution if you will. Compare this to structures where creation and design still use techniques, theory and knowledge developed during the industrial revolution. Although almost all, if not absolutely all architects do use some form of computer aided design techniques the boundaries can be pushed further. Techniques such as BIM (building information modelling) are starting to become a real make in architectural design in places including the USA. BIM is an activity where in fact the architect does not simply bring a line much like traditional pulling techniques or with programs such as AutoCAD (which to a extent, is simply a digital version of a normal pulling) but instead when an architect attracts a collection, he attracts a wall, with the likelihood to combine these details with a limitless collection of properties be they size, cost, structural or how they relate with other participants in a design. BIM begins to hand again the subject of "Professional Craftsman" to the architect, where in fact the architect can easily see how design builds up all together and make changes appropriately. Parametric and algorithmic architectures are at the forefront of the BIM architectural thinking, they are the products of the few made out of advanced computer scripting techniques and independently written pieces of software. While using latest design systems open to us, combining this with the present day materials and development techniques often developed in fields that have embraced the digital revolution more openly, parametric and algorithmic design can get started to challenge ethnical, technological and historical limitations which architects have maybe failed to fully challenge recently.
Parametric design is an activity founded not n set metric quantities such as traditional design but instead, centered a constant network of connections between individual objects, the bricks are different but they are connected with the same connection. This allows changes to a single element whilst dealing with other components within something.
In an identical way to that of parametric design, trends in scripting have allowed for algorithmic design operations to advance. These allow complicated forms to be produced from simple methods while preserving specific qualities. In the most basic sense, a consumer defines a couple of rules, and the software would arrange the form in line with the rules.
If parametric design is a way for control and manipulation of design elements within a network of any scale, algorithmic design is a system and objects producing complicated form based on simple component guidelines. With the combo of the methods, rules, modern development techniques and materials parametric and algorithmic architectures have the potential to press architecture, certainly into the 21st century.
Age old architectural problems and theory such as "form vs. materials" and "form vs. function" can begin to be resolved in new ways, building times can be reduced, materials can be been able better, and building characteristics can be improved upon significantly. Within the analysis and contrast of two tasks utilising parametric and algorithmic architectural design key points, I try to grasp how relevant these forms and ways of producing architecture are really when compared to their traditional counterparts. I've selected my cases from contrary ends of the architectural size size smart, but from an identical family of traditional public architectural type form, analysing how relevant the parametric forms are with regards to different situations and settings.
My first analysis, talks about a temporary theater located within the site of Corbusier's Carpenter Centre - A cooperation between architecture Organization MOS studios and musician Pierre Huyghe, preferred for its truly unique location and it's really modern-day play on the more traditional theater / pavilion / bandstand form. Theatres are customarily very grand buildings, for thousands of years they have been part of human culture with varieties dating back to historic Greece still within theater design. This coupled with its band stand / area pavilion like size associated with formal pavilions form around the Victorian time made the job particularly interesting. The challenge for MOS studios was to produce a take on the theater whilst reacting appropriately to its location in what is an extremely dominant place.
The design in basic form is similar to that of any regular theatre with raked seating, unhindered looking at and high-quality acoustics but it was by using parametric processes a theater which corresponds to the average person conditions of the website has been produced. The theater sits in the underbelly of the Carpenter Centre by Le Corbusier, commissioned to commemorate the 40th wedding anniversary of the building. Corbusier's Carpenter centre is the centre for the visual arts at Harvard College or university, MA. Completed in 1942 the building is the sole building ever before completed by Corbusier in america of America and the last to be completed during his life time although he never actually went to the building due to unwell health. The building corresponds with Corbusier's five details of architecture (as observed in the Villa Savoye, France) with interior elements like the ramp, a dominating feature, exploding right out of the inside of the building providing an s - shaped walkway continuing into the environment. Curved partitions also increase through the key wall space of the building in to the bordering areas swinging to and from the pilotis which support them. This creates some interpenetrating interior and exterior events running over the promenade ramp. Within the design of the Carpenter Centre you can view the components of projects spanning the complete profession of Corbusier modified and adapted into this building.
The puppet theatre itself, like Corbusier's Carpenter Centre, was designed with a couple of variables or architectural rules if will. These parameters were produced from a given simple and limitations of the area created by the Carpenter centre itself. To avoid harming the Carpenter Centre no contact with either the roof or the structures supporting structural systems was allowed. Therefore, fitting the puppet theatre in between these important structural barriers became key. The architect has detailed the theatre as "an organ placed in a new host", it has a feel similar but not exactly that of a parasitic structure. Is seems not to be taking away, leaching from the Carpenter, but adding to it, giving it new life as though it truly is a fresh organ, a fresh heart and soul. This imagery is reinforced in the decision of materials for the theater, further expressing the feel of new life. The main do it yourself supporting framework is a polycarbonate, clad on the outside with a moss. The moss brings heat and noises insulation, absorbing audio from the close by street with sensible quality being of paramount importance in practicality of a working theatre. During the night light from within the theater glows through the light polycarbonate & moss presenting a green shine, as if it truly is a new organ, a new hub that life stems in to the Carpenter Centre.
The curved form of the theatre was produced although parametric manipulation of elongated gemstone shaped panel items, each one individual in form, each one linked through the same set of guidelines. This parametric manipulation was created through the restrictions of site, the necessity for self aiding structural integrity, the use and the restrictions of fabrication techniques during production. The best form is therefore created through a system of analysis where in fact the most effective form was deduced using the parametric system. A lot of the theatre was prefabricated and put together off site. The elongated diamonds were designed to be created from a single chiseled little bit of polycarbonate minimising both making times and squandered materials. Each one of the 500 pieces was CAM lower, before being folded into three dimensional forms with points drilled to hook up each of the diamond forms. The complete composition could then be assembled by attaching the panels using simple tools. The usage of simple palm tools designed that the theater could swiftly be assembled and dissembled, suited to the temporary nature of the structure, it was essential that the composition cannot only be dissembled, but kept no permanent trace of its building on the carpenter centre. This again was permitted by using parametric design. Each -panel is 3" comprehensive and spans over 15" at the centre; these were stiffened with a foam insert to assistance with rigidity with the combination of strategic panels being put inside out, thus acting as key stones. These tactical inside out keystone panels also act as skylights, allowing light to visit both in to and out of the theater. When assembled the panels dissipate forces around your skin of the theatre, creating the self supporting monocoque framework. The monocoque framework imply that mo permanent fixings or structural aids needed to be made out of the Carpenter Centre, therefore the puppet theater became connected through its relevance as a design but remained individual as a structural thing.
With the puppet theatre seated in a sunken exterior courtyard underneath the Carpenter Centre, the change in level of 1. 25m between the street aspect and the courtyard had to be addressed, and so this became one of the key parameters in the look. This was get over by including the 1. 25m change in level in to the raked theatre seating, with the actual performance stage resting at the low degree of the courtyard. While you type in the puppet theatre at block level, the elongated gemstone forms incorporate with the change in height and almost surreal sizing of the puppet theatre itself to creating a visual illusion, a false point of view. This invites the visitor into the theatre with a sense of magic and attention, drawing the eye towards the level end where in fact the parametric boundary lines of the precious stone varieties stop abruptly with the release of the stage. The usage of this optical illusion helps to strengthen the sense of theater, a feeling of magic that Personally i think could be easily have been missed or overlooked with the use of other materials or building techniques. You can maybe say that similar forms could have been created in cement or wood, but then the all important play of light created by the polycarbonate panels chosen would have been missed. Together with the combination of materials and parametric design "theatre" is in fact incorporated in to the design of the framework.
The Glossy polycarbonate panels also echo light, creating an ambient glowing light during performances, with really the only lighting from the puppet show itself, this changes the theater into a glowing lantern during the night, projecting it's energy onto the bare barren concrete surfaces of the Carpenter Centre. It appears to work well in a juxtaposition between your high-tech mother nature of the look and the bond created with exactly what is a very historical form of entertainment, connected by lamps which would appear to sketch you in a similar way to that of your candle light. During the day the reflectance is reversed when the natural light brings the exterior surroundings in to the puppet theatre, this focuses the interest on what's happening in the exterior world, the wall space almost become the walls of the aboriginal cave, sharing with the reviews of the surface world as they are happening. This connection to the exterior world through the reflectance of light is strengthened by the framing of a single tree which sits beyond the entrance of the theatre. It frames the view with some goal whilst creating a feeling that the tree may ask as some barrier, a limit to the boundary of the theatres threshold.
Through extensive research and research this theatre and its sponsor building, the carpenter centre I believe that this truly is a impressive form, an outstanding piece of design. The theatre works with and answers to all of its parametric obstacles. Through the use of parametric design Personally i think that a form has been created that could otherwise never have been imagined or realised. The organic form of the theatre, made out of very non organic development techniques answers to the brief on so many levels. It creates this new center, new hub for the Carpenter Centre. It does not try and mimic the great modernist architecture used by Corbusier himself, but in no regard would it fight against it, it somehow moves directly into an architecture beyond, with each individual person in the theatre being very geometric, but established in an wise way, produce a form which is more organic and natural. Neither structures the same but they do work together. The puppet theatre design speaks of the Carpenter centre today; it speaks not of the architecture and the Carpenter Centre of days gone by, but the architecture, individuals and the Carpenter Centre into the future. The architects might well have chosen so many different approaches to creating a pavilion of sort out on this website but I'm positive they might have struggled to make a design that overall worked more responsively with the entirety of the look challenge provided.
The second exemplory case of parametric structures that I have analysed is the Mercedes Benz Museum, Un Studio room, Stuttgart 2005 - with parametric and algorithmic working by Designtoproduction. This exemplory case of parametric design was picked not because of its certainly parametric appearance but also for how parametric modelling combined with BIM was used in the structure and design of what can only just be observed as a truly groundbreaking building. Today a lot of the worlds exceptional historical, ethnical and artistic bits of are all set up, the continuing future of the museum, as seen with this, the Mercedes Benz museum, lays with those who is able to fully communicate an expert collection, what they are about and where they originated from. They have the capability to activate a culture a lot more than a generalist collection, the works, the vehicles in the museum coud be seen to speak much more of the individuals who nearly all today's art. This is where the utilization of parametric design can be seen to affect and completely connect the work of Mercedes in a fresh way. The importance of museum design has been at the forefront of architectural thinking since Frank Lloyd Wright first challenged the program of the museum with the design of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, 1969. Since then museum has been challenged over and over by a multitude of architects such as Renzo Piano & Richard Rodgers while using Pompidou Centre, Paris, 1977 and Daniel Libeskind with the Jewish Museum, Berlin, opened 2001. The Mercedes Benz Museum is seen to relate with all of these examples in its pursuit to step forward away from the standard, to challenge the places, circulation paths and varieties of a museum, to create a museum of goal. The success of a museum relies upon the inventiveness of its inner arrangement, areas created and its own ability to exhibit artefacts within these spots in a relevant way. The museum will / is becoming famous not only in the carrying on type of challenging museum architecture starting with properties such as Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim in New York but for adding the digital design process securely on the map.
Stuttgart is home of the Mercedes Benz brand, therefore with the necessity of a fresh museum, UN studios were chosen to redesign a new museum on a new site near to the main gateway to the town, where the old museum got previously been positioned in an ardent building within the genuine Mercedes factory. The design is based on a concept involving the over laying of three round varieties in plan with the removal of the central space developing a triangular formed building height atrium area. In section the building boosts over eight floor surfaces in a two times helix form, maximising space and providing 16, 500 square meters of useable space on a relatively small footprint. Originally the brief taken to UN studio recommended that the building should be no more than two storeys high with problems that any longer level in the building may cause difficulties with exhibits, for example the manoeuvring and exhibiting of lorries, circulation problems around such large bits and structural integrity of the building with extremely heavy show loads. With the site being situated so near to a significant motorway it was soon recommended by UN studios that the building should be taller associated with the close situation to the motorway, since problems such as circulation and weight of exhibits could be defeat with the right knowledge and attitude towards the task. The circulation system found in the Mercedes Benz Museum s similar to that found in the pompidou centre Paris, with the circulation playing around the external facade of the building. Similarly, the circulation is seen to bring clear links with the ramp like circulation of the Guggenheim NY. The main difference with both of these properties is usually that the Mercedes Benz museum has, through advanced development techniques combined with the use of parametric modelling can convey the key forces put on the building to a structural primary through floor slabs rather than perimeter, therefore fully liberating the facade and plan of the building.
The visitor enters the building on the floor floor where they are really fulfilled by the vast size of the open up atrium. This floor floor is home to the general facilities expected of a huge museum; reception, gift shop and cafe but it is where the tour starts that the proper execution really takes a leap forward. The museum is designed therefore the visitor is transported to the eighth and top floor of the building before working their way down dual helix form ramps on a tour that could take approximately six time to complete in entirety. Transportation to the most notable floor is a celebration in movements itself, visitors is transported with a portal like elevator with limited taking a look at; "flashes" of projected imagery are seen from the inside. Once at the top floor, two tours separated from the starting location each following one of the double helix ramps, each following a different part to Mercedes vast history. The two tours known as "Collection" and "Myth" vary in their exhibits with the "Collection" travel being more of a historic timeline of Mercedes design and the "Myth" travel taking more loving, cultural take on Mercedes history, featuring some of the company's very best designs and automobiles used by the likes of Ringo Starr. Because of this the special feel of the two tours h seen made to vary and adapt to the many exhibitions enormously. The "Collection" head to is flooded with natural, truthful light whilst the "Myth" travel is lighted in a much more theatrical way, mimicking the love and glory associated using its exhibits. The tour paths do cross at various details through the vertical of the area, allowing visitors to choose and choose between the two tours.
The eight levels of the building are sectioned off into regular and special areas, based on their functions within the museum and their impact of the composition as a whole. The levels alternate between one and double elevation spaces as they progress through the vertical of the building. Traditional sculptors such as Bernini and Brancusi knew the importance of the pedestal, they were masters of the, once again the pedestal has been utilized in this museum, creating views, highlighting without blinding and focusing the visitor's attention where it is needed. Not only have plinths been used but with the work the semi round ramps which hug the surface boundaries of the building, perspectives have been produced, providing new, interesting and invigorating views of the exhibitions. Browsing the leaf shaped, semi round, exhibition areas from a variety of levels as you descend through the building generates a series of panoramic overviews. Visitors see the exhibits from higher, lower, closer and more distant view items. No viewing viewpoint is ever quite the same, and the normal head on seen approach is avoided, there is a sense that you will never capture every view throughout the travel, that the building is continually changing, twisting around and beyond you, that you as visitors never quite grasp where you are within the building. Along the pedestal, panoramic taking a look at places and constantly twisting forms create a fresh special complexity within the proper execution of a museum. Never before has something been exhibited like this before. There's a regular feel of movement within the exhibits and the form of the building. The museum "tries to create the static in motion" says one German architectural critic, "as if it wants to prove that the architecture continues to be alive", it's been thought to explore motion in every of its possible expressions. The whole functions as an accelerator for the various, unpredictable and sometime incomprehensible areas presented to the visitor.
The available plan has been achieved through the capability to transmit vertical loads to the central circulation cores via the ground slabs with the facade systems taking limited vertical loading. The floor slabs within the exhibition areas cover a location of almost 30m without intermediate structural columns, made possible through the use of parametric modelling and advanced structural calculation. In addition to the actual show weights and live loads such as visitors to the museum the floor slabs also need to transfer a significant amount of the horizontal fill from the twisted exterior structural system to the huge central tri column main of the building.
The floors little curvature and incline help to create a really dynamic space about the cars aswell as creating the structural support for the building. The ground folds, becomes the wall before folding again to be the ceiling. UN studios latest works have been described as associated with and recalling ways in which baroque architects performed and diagrammed their work. Van Berkel, co founder of UN studio room, amused by the evaluation says" I have already been really fascinated by Bernini and Borromini. Not just in their structures but by their incredible capacity to cast their self-discipline into question with innovative representation techniques". These techniques are important in the method of bridging the gap between your abstract of thought and the realism of creating development, they become essential when starting to comprehend what sort of structure may work and how building may operate. They open up new horizons and present architecture a all natural dimension, a means of creating volumes that respond right to task requirements.
As an ultimate declaration: The Mercedes Benz Museum by UN studio room could not have been created without the help and research made available from Designtoproduction and their parametric work. There is limited time to design what can only just be described as one of the very most complicated constructions in modern time, and so, over 2 hundred and forty six different companies and anatomist firms were employed to assistance with the development of the Mercedes Benz Museum. Designtoproduction could actually provide answers to the gaps between separating design and development. This was imperative as these steps are interconnected, they highly influence one another and with so many different teams working on the project, strong design and development links were needed. Parametric design proved to be the key to the structures success in this regard. "The one solution was to regulate the geometry of the building as completely as is possible using the latest computer technology" Ben van Berkel, UN Studio's co creator and director. The intertwining forms of the Mercedes Benz Museum recommended that the forms could scarcely be detailed using standard ideas and areas, yet contractors needed working ideas, sections and details to create the building. From the basic geometry of 2D parametric modelling, the edges were transformed in to constantly increasing 3D forms by layering levels; in the end the 3D amounts of the composition began to go up from the layering of plans. For different building components the geometry was directly taken from the model, thus closing the string of information from early on design stages before engineering and fabrication. For example, the formwork for doubly curved surfaces was accurately progressed into plain boards extracted from information in the parametric model.
Designers don't believe in quantities, they think in relationships, in contacts, in the complete. CAD plans do not think in relations, they think simply in numbers, they don't care for romantic relationships or what they represent within the proper execution or design of creating. The parametric CAD models that Designtoproduction produced combined these volumes behind the producing building in a set of a guidelines, dictating what works and what wouldn't normally; therefore a large number of numbers become only a handful of significant parameters. The parametric model for the Mercedes Benz Museum was not only area of the design but key to the structure. It linked the participating deals in the building in a harmonic whole with the architect performing once again as the professional craftsman at the helm, overseeing the building as a whole. Unlike those who use digital architecture merely for aesthetic characteristics, UN studios have vanished beyond other people in the method of imaginatively owning a building through a design with a mathematical parametric model, without compromising the initial design key points, cramping the look with formal or preconceived solutions. The Guardians architecture critic Jonathan Glancy has described the building as "jet-age baroque". The usage of parametric design tools, the architect had been able to design and make a building which seems as if it is something of or carefully linked with the Mercedes Benz brand. It screams movements, technology, the near future, and the impossible. If you believe about this building in any other sense, an exhibitor of modern artwork, an exhibitor of another form of specialist collection or historical artefact it simply would not work. The building would seem to be to be truly purposely designed to the client and purpose, that of exhibiting the greatest works of Mercedes Benz, with this, the museum has already been seen by many as one of the single most astonishing structures of the new century.
