Tenuous Resilience

For the past month, a robotic arm has been building a brick wall in New York City. Call it Building-technology-as-performance-art… While the technique is admittedly pretty amazing, the technical feasibility of such a thing should not be surprising. The architects Gramazio & Kohler have gotten a lot of press for similar, albeit smaller scale, installations, and seem to have been perfecting the technology through their research at ETH Zurich for years.

One of the earliest projects to leave the workshop was this winery in Switzerland, whose undulating brick facade is constructed of panels fabricated off-site, and attached to the structural concrete frame like a standard curtain wall. Here, the technique is used to produce a pixelated 2D image of grapes (well, spheres) using bricks as the pixels…

While the photographs are compelling, it’s clear that this comes nowhere near realizing the potential of this technology. The panel size is limited, I imagine, by both the reach of the robot arm in the laboratory, and by the width of the flatbed trucks used to transport the panels. In the end, the facade remains flat.

By the time of the 2008 Venice Biennale,  The technique seemed much improved, though I imagine this piece was still constructed in sections and assembled later on site (though I may be wrong). Either way, the double curvature of the wall is impressive, especially when one considers that it was built brick-by-brick.

This is an important distinction. Throughout history, brick was a load-bearing material. Of course many buildings are still constructed in masonry, but typically concrete blocks do the heavy load-bearing, and bricks are used as a facade treatment and rainscreen.

In fact, it is very rare to find contemporary architecture that uses brick as a structural system (it may not even be allowed by code). Architects, of course, are aware of this, and while some detail their brick facades so it appears structural, others recognize the conceit, and reveal it through their details.

Frank Gehry’s Vontz Center for Molecular Studies (University of Cincinnati) is a distorted riot of deformed brick boxes. Rather than attempting to disguise the connections between the prefabricated brick panels, the architect celebrates them, using the metal surrounds to reveal the underlying structural grid, and present the brickwork as the skin treatment that it is.

While Gehry’s work seems to reveal a clear attitude towards brick, other – ‘hipper’ – firms seem unwilling to concede brick’s role as a facade treatment and facade treatment only, attempting to portray the material as the monolithic, structural mass it was in the past….

The concept renderings of SHoP‘s 290 Mulberry St show a subtle, undulating surface, but the final result is a jagged, triangulated grid of panels. The panels really could be any material, and here the use of brick is merely a shallow contextual nod to the neighborhood’s dominant materiality.

Pike Loop is so interesting as a project because it embraces the individual brick in a way that most contemporary architecture does not. Using the orthogonal module to construct complex curvilinear forms is a true step forward from the use of pixels to construct a two dimensional image (as in the earlier winery project) and the use of a mobile robot to truly automate the process is nothing short of amazing, giving architects the ability to build these undulating walls as easily as they program their CNC mills (well, maybe).

However, it’s important to note that this technology is not quite ready to replicate the work of, say, Eladio Dieste, since it still lacks one crucial component of brick construction: mortar. While the glue that binds these bricks together may be adequate for a temporary installation, and the open lattice of brickwork may produce beautiful shadows, the lack of this critical bonding agent means that the undulating screen of brick will remain a screen, and should not be mistaken for a weatherproof wall. One benefit of traditional brick construction is that the brick and mortar chemically bond to become one monolithic structure. The mortar joints serve not only to keep the bricks in place, but if properly constructed, their geometry repels water and ensures a long life for the wall. I’m curious to see if the next project from these architects begins to take these facts into consideration….

Meanwhile, I believe it will be fruitful to expand this process from brickwork to other modular construction systems. What would the Pike Loop look like if constructed from CMU blocks? Or aluminum cans? Or automobile tires?

“Earthships,” championed by architect Michael Reynolds, are generally built from used tires and other garbage, and finished in concrete or plaster. This construction method has become popular in arid climates where the thermal mass of the walls aids natural ventilation. The use of recycled material appeals to environmentalists, of course, and these ebuildings have become popular in off-the-grid communities. This is certainly noble, but it lacks the academic appeal of the Pike Loop wall because it is not tied in to the computational, generative design discourse that produces such work. I believe this could change, if you simply consider the tire as the module (and maybe build a stronger robot).

Earlier this year, I did a series of studies using the Grasshopper plugin for Rhino, and attempted to design an undulating wall of tires. In a few days I was able to get a working definition, and the above image is one result. I hope to continue these studies someday, though I wonder if the large module would allow a form as evocative as that of the Swiss architects…

Anyway, it’s exciting work, and I can’t wait to see more projects like this, where the realities of construction are tied back into the design process, where algorithmic architecture is informed by real constraints, and the form and concept become stronger as a result.

For more coverage of the Pike Loop project, check these stories on Wired and BLDGBLOG, and the exhibition page at the Storefront for Art and Architecture. And finally, here’s a look at a similar process, by students at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design.

A few days ago I posted my proposal for the Bustler/Archinect “Michael Jackson Monument” competition: “Becoming Ben”

A prophetic account of Deleuzian becoming-animal, Jackson’s first solo hit foreshadowed the dramatic metamorphoses that characterized his life as the man transformed himself and the world around him.

Hugely influential, Jackson is represented by a monolithic sculpture overlooking the Earth, visible whenever the moon walks the night sky, yet inaccessible, isolated on his own world.

No literal monument, the becoming-rat of “Ben”‘s protagonist is a metaphor for Jackson’s becomings, and our own.

This is my entry to Archinect/Bustler‘s “Live Forever: The Michael Jackson Monument Design Competition” The requirements were simple: 500 characters of text, and one image, 1200×800 pixels.

An intriguing competition, for sure, but I hadn’t really planned on submitting anything, and the deadline was August 22nd. This afternoon, when I saw that the deadline had been extended by a few days, I decided to whip this up. Though it is sort of a joke, I think there are some interesting points to be made about philosophy, architecture, celebrity, and monumentality. (And apologies to be made to Katharina Fritsch, for the rat.)

I spent most of the day building this chair for a structures class project.

Materials: 20 threaded steel rods, various sizes. four 2′ x 2′ x 1/2″ oak plywood panels. Nuts and washers. Material cost: ~$100. Time spent: ~14 hours.

The rods become denser in the center where they’ll carry more weight.

The thing is solid as a rock. If i were to make another, I could probably get away with fewer rods, and thinner rods.

A fun little project.

Though I’m not entirely sure how this will relate to my studio project, I’ve finally made my first Rhino Script. I’ve been fascinated by the pollibility of using a halftone gradient as a generative image, and I’ve created a process to do just that. Take any image (random Photoshop “Clouds” for instance) and transform it with a color halftone filter (all angles set to zero to assure black and white dots). Then, take it to Illustrator, perform a live trace to vectorize the image, export it to a dwg file, and import it in rhino.

In rhino, join all the curves and make surfaces from planar curves. Then comes the script. The script takes a selection of surfaces, and extrudes them each to a height related to the inverse of the square root of the surface area. What this means is from any halftone image, areas of high density will become low, flat areas for inhabitation, while diffuse areas will become either completely open, or populated by tall, slender columns.

Here’s the result of running the script on the image above:

And here’s the script:

Option Explicit'Extrude multiple surfaces to a height depending on surface area'Script written by Evan Chakroff

Public intCount

Call Main()Sub Main()

'Define the height-area ratio   Dim ratio   'ratio = Rhino.GetString("Select height to area ratio", , , True)   ratio = .00005 'smaller number = bigger range of heights

   'need new method for height calculation

   If IsNull(ratio) Then Exit Sub   Rhino.Print "Ratio: " & ratio

'Select surface objects and print area   Dim arrObjects, strObject, arrArea, area, height, strSurface, strCurve    arrObjects = Rhino.GetObjects("Select surface objects", , , True)

   If IsArray(arrObjects) Then      For Each strObject In arrObjects         arrArea = Rhino.SurfaceArea(strObject)         area = CStr(arrArea(0))         height = (100/(area^0.5))         Rhino.Print "Object identifier: " & strObject         Rhino.Print "The surface area is: " & area              Rhino.Print "The height to extrude is: " & heightif height > 100 then height = 100if height < 1 then height = 1         strCurve = Rhino.AddLine(Array(0,0,0), Array(0,0,height))         Rhino.ExtrudeSurface strObject, strCurve         Rhino.DeleteObject (strCurve)

      Next   End If

End Sub

Any scripters out there? Comments are welcome.

(the following is the text from the a presentation my group and I gave today in our Computer Graphics class. This is part of a quarter-long case study.)

Case Study: Office da’s Zahedi House

In Office da’s architecture, traditional materials play a key role, though that role is rarely traditional. The inherited roles of materials are sometimes reversed, sometimes reinvented. To paraphrase their official literature, a dominant strategy in their work is the defamiliarization of materials and expansion of the experiential and semantic effects of architecture. This is evident in their use of the corrugated galvanized steel as a secondary skin in the Zahedi house. A typically industrial material is allowed to find a flowing, organic form, calling the traditions into question.

“The proposal combining a wood frame construction system with corrugated galvanized steel facing, seeks to confront the technology of corrugation as a vehicle for architectural investigation and invention: radicalizing the spatial, perceptual, and formal possibilities of corrugation in order to overcome its raw and industrial qualities. The manipulation of the metal is the agency by which a ‘domestic’ transformation may be brought onto a generally tough material. The corrugation is perceived as a taut skin, holding a very constrained program within. The distortions in the skin reflect the shifts in wrapping that occur with the misalignment of programmatic elements and the need for openings. While the corrugation is wrapped around the house as a thin drape, it is also called on as a catalyst to re-formulate the idea, the perception and the space of the house.” [officeda.com]

In Office da’s theory, they attempt to reconcile two dominant threads of architectural discourse. We can begin to understand their work as a synthesis of the “tectonic” and the “phenomenological.” We hope that by modeling the Zahedi house, we can begin to draw some conclusions about not only the nature of the struggle between the tecton and the phenomenon, but about the tension between representation and actualization: how the choice of material (both in models and at full-scale) affects the structure, form, and physiological effect of a work of architecture.

Our first model is to be constructed of templated chipboard. Though often chosen for the neutrality of the material, we expect to find that the heavy striation that is the result of this method introduces an aesthetic effect not found in Office Da’s model or, one assumes, in the real building (had it been built).

In the Zahedi House, a true tectonic-phenomenological synthesis could not be achieved: the existing building’s structure was maintained; the architects were limited to the application of a skin. In our second model, we will investigate the possibility of a more fully developed synthesis, in which the skin and structure merge to become a structural surface. Is it possible to achieve Office da’s apparent goal of an architecture that is traditional, structurally rational, performative, and phenomenologically stimulating simultaneously?

This model will be more experimental than the first, as we forego a literal translation in favor of an investigation of the effect of a radically different material choice on the project. The original project’s analogy of a ‘thin drape’ wrapped around a box is discarded in favor of a ‘folded glass’ analogy, where a thin material folds in on itself to derive structural stability. Though we may be able to test the performative capabilities of our ‘experimental model,’ the question of finding an analogous material in the real world remains unanswered.

The act of representation, in the virtual or the real, remains an act of translation.

The real effects of the model remain approximate.