Final Week

I know I have not been posting.  I am in the final week with final reviews this Friday.  My final design presentation and book will be posted here after the 13th.  Maybe I will include some of my furniture designs too.

House Iterations 2

House Iterations 1

Here is the start of translating the system I derived from the moire definition.

Possible Plan Drawing

Review

Here is what I posted for my last review. I was working toward understanding how the moire could be used as a formal system to help drive the architecture. Some of what I presented was posted earlier as well as some of the thought process.

What is a moire?
A moiré is a system of interference that derives from a subtle difference. It is created and developed through the superimposition of repetitive layers (or inputs.) Traditionally moirés are visually based. They exploit the way humans process images. We have a natural tendency to group visually similar items. When two (or more) similar or identical inputs start to overlap very closely out of phase with each other, we struggle to isolate the two inputs and our understanding of grouping shifts.

What is the inside~outside condition? How can this threshold be blurred or broken?
Inside and outside is a specific threshold condition. Visually, physically

How can the idea of the moiré be used to create architecture of inside~outside? Where is the moire (within the project?) What happens when you breakdown and remove the original inputs and utilize the both~and interference conditions?
The moiré is created through the overlapping of similar systems. The interference condition that results from the moiré is similar to the threshold condition.

What systems in architecture overlap and sometimes interfere with each other?
Structure grid
Enclosure/wall placement
Furniture layout
Environmental systems layout
Circulation/Stairs
Program  

What other influences in architecture can be utilized as an input? How can the moire extend beyond its visual implications?
Environmental influences - Wind Carlsbad Site deals with coastal and Santa Ana winds
Sun
Rain - San Diego lack of
Tides - Low and high, seasonal shifts

Understanding the intersection and interference of these systems with each other to formulate a spatial condition.
 
How will these systems interferences shift/change the design?
Additive or subtractive
Sectional conditions
Tectonics

­­ Other Questions:
How will the moire be visible?
How many inputs do you need?
What are the different types of inputs?
Where is the boundary? Where and how does it terminate? How is this determined?
What happens when the layers of the moire are pulled apart/stretched in one or more dimensions? How can this be used as a formal system?
What needs to be maintained in order to create the understanding of the moire?

BOARDS:

Expanding the Moire

My goal this week is to analyze, diagram, & utilize the moire in order to formulate a formal system (of rules) in order to negotiate the design process.  Here are some of the questions (with a few answers) I have been asking myself through this process:

What is a moire?
A system of interference that derives from a difference.  It is created and developed through the superimposition of repetitive layers (or inputs.) 
Where is the moire (within the project)?
Structure layout?  Enclosure pattern?  Enclosure/wall placement?  Furniture layout?  Systems layout?  Sectional conditions?  Tectonics?  Stairs?  Interior layering (wall layers, etc)?  The moire should be the underlying system for design decisions. 
How will the moire be visible?
What happens when you breakdown and remove the original inputs and utilize the both~and interference conditions?
How many inputs do you need?
What are the different types of inputs?
Where is the boundary?  Where and how does it terminate?  How is this determined?
What happens when the layers of the moire are pulled apart/stretched in one or more dimensions?  How can this be used as a formal system?
How can the moire extend beyond its visual implications?
What needs to be maintained in order to create the understanding of the moire?

Here are some initial studies I have been developing to answer some of these questions.

House of Oxymorons Competition Submission

I have submitted to the House of Oxymorons Competition.  I will wait until they post the entries on their website to post my entry here.

An image

Midterm Thesis Book

Here is the draft for my thesis book.

What am I trying to do? - A thesis statement

This thesis seeks to create an architecture that blurs the boundary between interior and exterior revealing a both~and condition that provides a connection between the built and surrounding environmen in order to set up a dynamic continuum of interactions.

Within the architectural discipline are a variety of dichotomies or juxtapositions that are treated and discussed as binary entities.  Rather than accepting an architecture that conforms to the traditional sets of "either/or" conditions, this thesis seeks to create an architecture that blurs the boundary between interior and exterior revealing a both~and conditions that provides a connection between the built and surrounding environment in order to set up a dynamic continuum of interactions.  Our world has increasingly begun to operate where communities and interpersonal connections are formed outside of our physical infrastructure and architecture.  Current culture allows us to "occupy" multiple places simultaneously and we no longer need to be physically present to be involved.  As these boundaries are softened, blurred, or even erased, architecture had the opportunity to exploit its traditional boundaries creating ambiguity and interstitial relationships.

The House of Split: A Study of Inside & Outside

Here is a draft of my current abstract:

Current culture allows us to “occupy” multiple places simultaneously. We no longer need to be physically present to be involved. Our world has increasingly begun to operate within a virtual realm where communities and connections are formed outside of our physical infrastructure and architecture. Because of this, the separation and borders that once existed between real~virtual and public~private have started to overlap, blur, and even disappear. Kazuyo Sejima states that perhaps contemporary architecture is a rethinking and softening of those borders that lie between the multiplicity of adjacencies. This projects seeks to erase the boundary between inside and outside to create architecture that has the ability to bridge the space and operate within the gap between interior and exteriority.

Kengo Kuma: My summary

Since my last review I have started looking at the work & writings of Kengo Kuma, a Japanese architecture whose practice emerged at the end of the "Bubble" period in Japan.  To help organize my thoughts I am using this entry as a summary of what I have learned and been exposed to thanks to Kuma.

These thoughts and ideas stem from the following readings:

"The Warp & Weft of Architecture: Wearing, Joining, Overlapping, Folding" by Luigi Alini, in Kengo Kuma: Works & Projects (2006)
"A Return to Materials" by Kengo Kuma, in Kengo Kuma: Works & Projects (2006)
"Introduction" by Kengo Kuma, in Kengo Kuma: Selected Works (2005)
"An Architecture of Dissolution?"

"I want to erase architecture. I have always wanted to do so, and I am not likely to ever change my mind." 

-Kengo Kuma

Kuma's work deals very directly with the inside~outside binary condition that exists within architecture.  His approach is to create an architecture that "dissolves" as an object allowing to to become an integral part of its environment.  Erasing architecture means to remove architecture from its normal role as "object."  Kuma has a strong desire to integrate nature and architecture and he uses his philosophy of erasing architecture do try to accomplish this goal.  Most of his work shows great control of "framing visions" where is able to control how the architecture is approached and viewed in order to reduce its objectivity as well as framing visions of the environment beyond the enclosure.  Kuma works to remove the typical "outsider condition" that makes architecture an object from his architecture.  He strives to design "by reversing the direction of viewing where the perceiver would always be in the position of an insider.   

"To erase architecture, we must reverse our form of perception.  Instead of looking at architecture from the outside we must look at the environment from the inside.  Architecture must be planned as a frame for viewing the environment from within."

-Kengo Kuma

According to Alini, Kuma places high importance on materiality and the meaning of material.  "He cuts, splices, superimposes, weaves, folds, replicating ad infinitum a principle of construction that in his works turns into a narrative that unfolds by polarities, by 'archetypal pairs': light/shade, simple/complex, opaque/transparent, temporary/permanent, massive/light, surface/depth, single/multiple, weft/warp, continuous/discontinuous, repetition/variation, high/low.  These are associated with on anther with the aim of showing that a relationships of necessity holds between the part and the whole."  The materials that Kuma uses are typically natural materials with the exception of glass.  He prefers the "human scale" of wood. 

Through my process of understanding the dynamics between the interiority and exteriority my initial focus was on the vertical elements of architecture: the enclosure or wall that becomes the boundary between the inside and outside.  However, Kuma through both his design and writing has helped me realize the great influence the horizontal plane has on this condition.  The horizontal plane allows for a "continuity of space" furthering the erasure of the architectural element of enclosure.  Kuma focuses his attention on the floor and roof planes as a way to connect those inside with their exterior surroundings.  "Planning is not a matter of simply partitioning off spaces in accordance with a prescribed schedule of floor area.  That is only planning spaces.  Time will never flow through such spaces.  One intervenes in action of the subject by moving over the floor.  Changing levels, slopes, and creating frictional resistance, planning simultaneously time and space."  One strong example of this is his Water/Glass (1995) house project located Kyoto, Japan.

 

Water/Glass by Kengo Kuma, image: http://www.kkaa.co.jp

 

Water/Glass by Kengo Kuma, image: http://www.kkaa.co.jp 

 The extension of the horizontal plane of the roof, with its slatted construction offering diffused lighting conditions similar to a cloudy sky, blends into the sky and horizon while the extended floor plane of water reaches out to connect the building perceptually with the ocean below.  The vertical elements of  transparent enclosure only reinforce and support these relationships rather than being the primary element that blurs the interior and exterior.  This focus on the horizontal plane brings traditional Japanese concept of space back into Kuma's architecture.  Kuma separates himself from Modern architecture and its use of transparency due to their use of transparency in architecture while juxtaposing the architecture against the environment while Kuma strives to be fully integrated with the environment.  

"Transparency is not merely a visual continuity.  It is a condition in which the building and the environment dissolved into one."

 -Kengo Kuma

Glass does play a role in Kengo Kuma's architecture and its ability to disappear.  "Glass has always been caught up between the various phenomena that takes place on its two sides."  In a sense, glass reveals as much as its conceives and this depends on the shifting interior and exterior conditions and how they are reflected or transmitted through the medium blurring the boundaries of "both the inside and outside as well as the real and virtual." 

Kuma has developed his own design process called "particlization."  Materials are broken down into smaller and smaller pieces or particles allowing light, wind, sound, to penetrate freely.  The amount of particlization is determined based on the distance and speed of activity of the user/occupant of the space.  The particlizing helps the "architecture melt away" and blend with its environment.  Particlization is reflected in Kuma's architecture through his extensive use of louvers, slats, and high use of repeated of elements.  Particlization offers a "discontinuous continuity."  Boundaries become screens that start to "filter the surrounding environment into the interior of the structure."  Particlization also removes architecture's monolithic quality.  This has been compared to pointillism, pixelation, digitization and low-res images.  "Rather than fragmenting form, Kuma fragments materials." 

"I want to create a condition that is as vague and ambiguous as drifting particles."

-Kengo Kuma

The blurring of boundaries in architecture may come from the fact that with Modernity came the increase in rapid progress and evolving technologies.  Through this progress the boundaries of today's society have become blurred.  Thanks to cell phones, laptops, wireless, etc we no longer need to be physically present to be active within society.  Hierarchies are beginning to be questioned and removed.  The distinction between private and public is starting to disappear.  Current communication technologies give us the possibility of "occupying a multiplicity of spaces simultaneously."  This starts to further breakdown our perception and understanding of reality and the conventional notion of space.  

Effect vs Process Review

The work I posted under "Wave Interference" was presented for the first review of the semester.  I looked at this work as a break through of sorts because I was struggling to get the moire to work beyond its illustrative natural.  For this review I changed the way I framed my work and focused less on the results and more on the process.  Through this development I saw the projects ability to be something beyond a facade treatment.  It started allowing me to question the relationships between programs, interior versus exterior, enclosure versus structure, and solid versus void.  I could start to see relationships as forms of interference.  The Both~And condition may be about interference.  For this study I used wave interference but what other entities could be used for interference? 

This leads into "inhabiting the inbetween."  It becomes about experience not just form especially when used at multiple scales within the architecture.

During the review I committed myself to the exploration of one specific duality: INTERIOR VS EXTERIOR or INSIDE VS OUTSIDE.  This duality seems to be one of the more contemporary architectural condition.  For the rest of my thesis process I will seek to achieve inside~outside ambiguity.  Before this point I was attempting to do one of two things, one look for a process that somehow reveals an ambiguous condition of certain dualities, without predetermining those dualities.  Or I was attempting to use certain dualities to create ambiguous conditions for things outside of the duality.  Both these approaches showed my inability to commit to the specific.  I have now committed myself to the exploration of one single duality which will allow the work to be developed further and deeper than maintaining my previous vagueness. 

In exploring one duality I will develop specific techniques and operating conditions that allow me to formulate the genetics I need to operate and exploit this duality.  I will have a system to use for testing to understand what the inside~outside condition is all about.  One way to do this is to break assumptions such as the" need for seal" that is dominate in most architecture (especially of the Northeast region.)  The brings the questions of performance and the envelope. 

I have started looking at Japanese architecture, specifically Kengo Kuma whose philosophy is to "erase" architecture.  Through looking at his works I am learning the importance of material investigations and control, transparency, and the horizontal plane. 

This thesis will start to incorporate the concept of transparency, which is a loaded word in architecture.  I may find myself needing to "invent" my own transparency in order to fully realizing the goal of my thesis: ambiguous space between the interior and exterior.  I now need to develop the "game board" and in the process find the appropriate vehicle, context and program needed to explore this type of ambiguity & transparency. 

Wave Interference

Last semester I approached the Both~And condition through the Moire.  The Moire offered multiple examples of how Both~And can produce an effect.  For my first study this semester I wanted to transition the circle moire into a linear condition and through this explore the Both~And condition as a process.

Using Grasshopper I developed a model that can translate wave interference patterns/graphs into a spatial condition.  The following diagrams show how wave interference can be used as part of the process of producing a moire-like condition.  The parametric model recognizes the maximum and minimum of the graphed waves.  At those max. & min. points the each spatial strip is reduced in half and connected back to the top and bottom base.  This produced varied openings dependent on the wave interference graph.

 

Basic Model Process Diagram

 

Max. of two waves

Max & Min of two waves

 

Max & Min of two waves & resulting interference wave

 
 

Interference wave

  

Interference patterns scaled horizontally

 
 

Interference patterns scaled vertically

I then explored how this pattern could be incorporated into an architectural condition.  I also added a "Z" component that starts to pull the spatial strips out of the X & Y plane of the original graph.  Currently this is not parametric but has the possibility to translating 3D wave interference patterns.  I attempts two different scales.  One, at a more intimate human scale of a facade condition and smaller building and another are a large scale of a tower building.  The images below show these studies.

  

Smaller Scale

 
 

Larger Scale

 

New Dualities

Before vs After

Past vs Future

Work vs Leisure

High vs Low

Pristine vs Messy

Social Effects vs Material Culture

Subject vs Object

Inhabitant vs Environment

Complexity vs Complicated

The House of Oxymorons Competition

While further investigating my thesis I stumbled upon an architectural competition which very closely aligns with my original thesis statement.  It is pretty exciting to have found this and it helps feel more connected to the architectural community when others are seeking answers to the same question.

Here are two links to the competition.

The House of Oxymorons - Death by Architecture

The House of Oxymorons - ICARCH site.  This site you will have to navigate to the competitions link because it is a Flash site.

Further thesis discussion

As I have mentioned before, the approach taken to this thesis resulted in more of a graphic/visual study of the both~and condition. It proved difficult to manifest in the spatial realm. When I originally proposed this thesis topic I had envisioned an architecture of experience. I wanted to explore the dualities through programmatic and spatial vehicles.

I am at a crossroads. The moire has offered a study in interference pattern. I could choose to exploit the relationships of interference. This could be translated through light in architecture. Can I design a house that is generation its space and perception of space through light and interference patterns? This would start to breakdown traditional means of architectural space forming a new dialogue on the boundary. The study could build from the Moire pattern studies and start to form and break down these patterns in order to create architectural space.

Another approach is understanding the effect versus the process for a solution. Is it the both~and effect or the both~and way of designing? A quick study to understand the difference between these two ways of utilizing the both~and concept will be done to show examples of how it can be process and how it can be effect. My abstract discusses contemporary architecture dualities but without defining what these maybe. Additionally, my current list of dualities remain very general and vague. Another exercise to complete is to start to define and list specific architectural dualities that could start to fit into my own definition of the both~and condition I am seeking. In discussing my thesis the word aleatory came up. I hadn’t though of my thesis as a study of that type of condition but the gap made by the both~and condition could definitely be defined as such.  I am seeking an architecture that gives an awareness of a both~and condition spatially, programmatically, and visually.  Could this be giving people a sense of being in two places at once through the use of transparency, slippage, cracking, layering, etc?  The architecture should be about the "act of being" and different ways of being.  The architecture will be about experience not just form.  It is about the phenomenon and the layering of programmatic conditions that produce a third unexpected condition.  It is possible that the moire patterns can be utilized and combined with other entities to reinforce the both~and experience of the architecture.

Goals:

-Brainstorm SPECIFIC contemporary architectural dualities

-Brainstorm effect versus process of the both~and

-Start to re-read Crime & Punishment

-Start to formulate spatial conditions to reflect brainstormed ideas from above.

Warming up

So the spring semester (my final semester!!!) starts on Monday (Jan 25.)  I am using this entry to get myself back in the mind set of school.  I have been working in studio this week, doing some "light" reading and starting to pick up where I left off last semester.

I have gotten some read back separate from my blog which has been helpful and encouraging.  At the end of last semester I realized that my thesis is less about producing the both/and condition and more about what the both/and condition within architecture can do to create new spatial experiences and situations.  "What can the both/and condition do for you?"  I have been able to produce a simple form of the both/and condition with the moire studies but it needs to step forward and be applied to a different condition in order to result in something other than itself.  What is the effect of having a both/and condition within a spatial condition or design?

It has been pointed out that I seem to be separating wave and particle into distinct entities rather than emphasizing that they an "ultimate" both/and condition in that waves experience particle phenomenon and vice versa.  This idea is the essence of my thesis.  This is where my thesis started.  The idea of something being two things at once or rather, being both until observed and being in a basic flux between two entities.