my humble tribute to Friedrich Kiesler and at the same time a study of several, possibly non-trival approaches to architectural drawing:
using an interactive generative-hand sketching app [ ginger 2.0 ]
and immediately turning it’s rough, unprocessed output into first-person perspective interactive walkthrough,
which in turn records visitors paths together with sets of points upon which their gaze rests.
visualising these records becomes an intricate map of the not-yet-existing environment perceived and navigated through.
this project’s output consists of series of apps, data visualisations as high quality prints and 3dprinted models.
“after internet, abuse could become a default approach to technology. to technological means of representation in particular.
ubiquitous amateur extruder machines may be regarded as dull interfaces between virtual junk and plastic debris. on the other hand they offer cheap and easy access to direct material manipulation and can therefore be turned into monstrous yet valid bypass between desire of saturation and limited bandwidth of digital modeling, delivering multiscale depth beyond the flat screen.”
or simply: it’s an established method of any avant-garde to appreciate media for what they can become.
last december workshop for Urban Strategies Postgraduate Program @ dieAngewandte with Alext Karaivanov
above is a screenshot from the app/interface i made in order to explore generative manipulation of makerbot gcode
while waiting for proper documentation of the recent work, here is a short description of the general trajectory and current focus:
generative hand-made is an ordering principle and design method appreciating immediate, intuitive decision making enabled by interaction with dynamic, generative design environment. refering back to surrealist automatic [iterative] drawing and engaging designer in a focused conversation, it gains consistency by strategicaly leaving certain parameters as indeterminate while following internal, systematic constrains of the design environment.
this definition is still rather blurry unfortunatelly. will improve.
along with other ‘speculative apps’ [check this post for more info] comes “ginger”. it’s a mixture of 3d feedback drawing and browsing for patterns within comb-like filtered noise space [similar to gaudism ]
this preview focuses on the rendering method i developed recently – per vertex fake ambient occlusion used for shifting local hue, saturation and brightness values. at the moment almost ridiculously slow, but gives me hope to introduce techniques of creating depth borrowed from watercolour painting.. kind of.
and just to keep the proper amount of geekiness – here is a screencast from the app:
much more on the ‘speculative apps’ topic very soon
Gaudism is about my two catalonian idols [rather obvious…] and another take on ‘shape as record’ methodology i’m developing over last two years. This generative-hand-made hybrid lets one playfully explore catenary structure principles as well as browse through interferences of field intensities. These behaviors are recorded as a shape.
here is a screencast from the app. notice different masses indicated by circles of different sizes.
yet another take on my long term obsession of multiple generative processes creating a fused body, while maintaining their respective specificities on the peripheries. although there are no preconceived organs: no spines, no lungs, no heart – observing carefully one can notice localy repeating organisational patterns. did architecture acknowledged spectralism already?
these are some pictures from last years show @Sternstudio in Vienna.
further exploration of effects resulting from scale alteration: oscilating patterns of bz reaction as well as color interferences become more readible. it is as well evident, that this is just a sample within a bounding box.
architecture discourse is traditionally shaped by drawings and critical writings. what happens, if they are interactive and easily translatable to the fabrication maschines code? what if they’re source is open, so that anyone can contribute? i’m currently working on a series of little design apps, focusing on specific aspects of the architecture i would like to see built… eventually. these are not made for any particular project, but rather for playfull exploration. in many cases they will be remixes or fusions of other designers work and therefore credited as such. i would love to discuss ideas about space this way.
first one happened to be about ‘saturation’-my subsitute for ‘detail’,’ornament’ or ‘articulation’. it’s neither ‘surface treatment’, nor pure texture. i’m excited about phenomenal intesity similar to Snow Crash 🙂
if we can create objects, movies and small scale instalations entirely based on microdonations, would it be possible to seriously think of crowd-financed buildings? distributed investments oriented towards community goals?
maybe there is already a totaly new economy enabling architecture and therefore completely new audience… or the other way around.
if architecture mirrors existing power structures and creates spatial order representing socio-political hierarchies, it’s worth investigating how could it look like and how would it be made in these new circumstances.
this is a first sketch for a large hub in berlin, based on noInput sketches and fusion series shapes. refering to Woods’s “berlin free zone” project, it proposes diverse, yet indetermined spaces requiring creative effort in order to be inhabited. one cannot move in with old furniture:)
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.
browsing through recursive noise space and exploring glitches in the new volumeutils. + some screenshots from the app used to search for interesting settings to be used in the time-extruded version.
parameters are responsible for noise scaling (both dimensions + change rate) as well as contour thresholds.
trying out functionality of o_a_o_d initiative, while working on some issues of my thesis project.
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.
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.
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…
recording CA unfolding with time as z-axis. these are not illustrations to Meyrink’s famous book:) but ambition they represent seems to be tragic in a very much related way.
one of my obsessions: linking what i learned from my masters ( Masahiro Miva, toxi, S.Lem) and imagining ways of constructing (both conceptually and physically) inhabitable environments.
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.
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.
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.
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.
echoechonoisenoise 
