it’s an opportunity to run couple of parallel experiments on actuall content as well as on teaching itself [resulting from my difficult experiences with masterclass system and observations on unit setup as well as technical university's seriousness].

i’m very excited about amazing current work [check presentations!], studio atmosphere and great people i meet there. looking forward.

technical data:

circular array of photoresistors enables the maschine to detect differences in light intensity below it. Infrared sensor and a sonar allow it to position itself within topography of the landscape it creates.

all movement is achieved by three dc motors controled by arduino board [note, that there is no other feedback about position, then reading from the landscape - no stepper motors like in cnc ], three mercury switches are used to maintain vertical orientation.

simple pathfinding algorithm is used to make decisions about movement direction. trajectory simulations were initialy developed in processing [below]

material: aluminum can contains wax heated up by the torch below it. transparent plastic container carries styropor balls, which are released by servo-controlled mechanism attached at the bottom.

traces: as an effect, maschine behavior – reaction to light patterns it ‘sees’ is recorded and serves as it’s own external memory.

developed with Galo Moncayo as a part of our thesis project [check p.17]. exibited @sternstudio

new version on the way…

mistakes in communication, compression glitches and all sorts of digital errors might be regarded as failures,

but looked upon carefully they unfold generative and imaginary potential.

inspired by Tsuyoshi Kusano, Dali’s late experiments [Tuna Fishing] and Marko Ciciliani’s music.

app+code

flickr set

this pretentious title indicates the general direction of further research on shape as record of field conditions.

it’s a tendency to move away from industrial-design precision towards seemingly archaic, still mediated digitally ways of production and articulation of space. saturation or detail in this case results from specific tool/machine resolution- here simulated by pushing voxel space towards it’s capacity limits resulting in glitches and repetitive patterns.

more pictures

parameters are responsible for noise scaling (both dimensions + change rate) as well as contour thresholds.

more pics on flickr

app+code

surreal potential of generative techniques in architecture is definitely underestimated.

shape is an isosurface around multiple particles moving in the perlin noise space. paneling(:)) scale and color results from the field characteristics as well. even though it’s rather cliche: agents, fields,panels etc, i think it’s nice to interact with…

aLittleBitMore refers to early practice of transparency and code sharing started most probably by Marc Fornes  in 2005 and then followed by very many designers and students. What it became recently seems to be a sign of very natural inertia of such systems. each follower tries to follow other followers. as a result there is a lot of  researchers investigating exactly the same thing: how to make panels on nurbs surface… no offense, i’m part of it.

it would be desirable to go a bit beyond this stagnation. seemingly there are related conclusions that people make globally resulting from exposure to the same stimuli:  music, movies, software somehow align trajectories of designers thinking. seeking uniqueness in that homogeneity becomes rather fruitless. What stays truly unique is the immediate context each of designers operates within. family, friends, local connections that can result in small commissions. deep knowledge about own territory resulting from long term observation that cannot be compared to browsing Mumbai climate data from London…

culture of sharing design methods connected with linking back their material results can not only help finding applications for crazy amount of investigations that currently stay only as pictures. it can offer feedback for designers, making them lead real researches.  furthermore it can inspire communities to use fresh design methods…

a lot of people currently talk about open design or work on systems enabling it. that’s why i’m so optimistic about it.

app+code

o_a_o_d is an initiative using already functioning social network services to link methods, tools and techniques with their effects and back.
this way we are building a networked body of multiple feedback loops between makers, users and spectators while blurring these categories.

it is focused on custom tools creation, evolution and evaluation since these can be shared with broader communities and -if proven useful-assist bottom-up design and building processes.

this should be understood as a beginning of larger cross-software platform. hope it is going to happen soon.

enter open architecture

conclusion of this exercise: well known elements of architectural vocabulary like stairs, ramps and floors might be regarded as specific “stable” situations in a generative process. now it would be great to build a machine that would leave traces like that…

app+code

toxi makes one more step towards redefining how architects [and other digitally-creative people] might work very soon. tiny but beautiful.

again thanks to toxi.

my current interest in straightforward modularity. i would like to push it towards more diversity in scale, so kind of recursion i suppose + some more sophisticated use of resulting symmetries. and then there is a very interesting question of using same shapes set but with material density as a variable. images above show assemblies of 4 different modules.  should we call it soft brutalism? (thx Reiner)

form is understood as a record of a game between collaborating individuals.hope that leads towards more efficient understanding of formal activities then the current, representation based approaches.

http://www.openprocessing.org/collections/?collectionID=215

http://www.urbanstrategies.at/

Competition results here.

team:Steven Ma (leading member), Wendy Fok, Dominik Strzelec

last year exercise. bar for crazy Angewandte parties that somehow don’t take place anymore. inspired/generated by autonomous agents trajectories.

with Sille Pihlak

last december in lookAround workshop. these are simple machines we did during arduino tutorial. each one reacts slightly differently to its sensory inputs [vibration and light] and stimulates its neighbors to react in their own ways.

video by Johan Tali

study of the behavior of an imaginary ecosystem: schelling’s model leaving trace[drawing map]. brightness value triggers expansion [agent system]. it’s a study of system dynamics similar to Batty[2007]. i just wouldn’t search for relevance of such simulations in their measurable properties. instead they are great to feed planners imagination and/or understanding.

this animation is a part of investigation of systems behavior, hopefully leading towards creative and direct urbanism.

sectional logic of an imaginary plant.

starting exercise of a larger industrial-objects-energy-cycles-insight system development.

particles+springs[traer.physics]+volumeutils[toxiclibs]

this rhizome grows only if PIR sensor doesn’t detect movement [either nobody is in the room, or you stay still]
amount of light measured by photocell influences branches girth. in this way, resulting form is a diagram of changing environmental conditions.

similar code approach

study of a changing facade pattern. building skin is meant to be its dynamic thermal mass [water-filled elastic containers].  process of thermal regulation [internal and external heat gains redistribution] becomes an important aspect of building form. would it be possible to generalize this approach?

renderings: 70′s comeback+zbigniew oksiuta‘s madness+digital error study

photos: physical model studies – flexible, bending tower, tensegrity structure inside of a concrete shell, facade.

pushing rhinoscript towards almost ridiculous performance:

1.input geometry[maya-made shape] gets voxelised

2.decisions about program distribution are made

3.internal organization is created upon the voxel structure

4.output of the system is a model with adjustable level of saturation

with Julian Fors and Jan Gronkiewicz

published in AD Exuberance

study of possible performances of a homogenous folded space. and then application: trying to inhabit the dinosaur-fish.

explanation of the procedure. shape-pointcloud-set operations-voxels-shape interpretation.

since voxelisation process is recursive in this case, there is an option to use oc-tree like addressing instead of sets.

i wouldn’t treat it to serious though…

that was a lot of fun (with Galo) and a real struggle (with Roche).  metaphor within metaphor within metaphor that’s what it is… i really love fairy tales, but i guess i’m not cynical. more about this project here.

with Galo Moncayo

used traer physics. bleaching indicates tension.