1,720,993 research outputs found
Emergent Hybridity, Cyborgs in Architecture
Full text linkThis thesis examines architectural test-beds as an experimental and contemporary mode of creating architecture that realizes the potential of many of the connections and complexities found in living systems. It builds on the lineage of research from the Hylozoic Ground Environments and the notion of the chthonian, embodying the potent, hidden, and essential ingredients of life.1 From the notions of geotextiles and cyborgs, a new conception of architecture is uncovered at the scale of material compositions, wearables, and tensile structures in architecture. After a survey of precedents as well as their concepts, design processes, and cross-disciplinary inputs, the thesis concludes with the design of an interconnected human body that is, an expanded human physiology connecting body, site, and surrounding structure in the form of public space in the alleyways of the North Point Lowlands, Hong Kong. The design departs from the North Point Lowland’s reclaimed and constantly rehabilitating site features to generate a coherent public space. The design proposal utilizes bifurcative qualities found in living matter, solar energy, and physiological processes to inspire a physical structure and its inhabitants. The design proposal is a co-generated physical form arising from a moment of feeling peaceful and emergent while experiencing the hybrid qualities of life in the alleyways of Hong Kong, North Point.
1. Beesley, Philip, Rob Gorbet, Pernilla Ohrstedt, and Hayley Isaacs. “Introduction Liminal Responsive Architecture.” In Hylozoic Ground: Liminal Responsive Architecture, 12-42. Cambridge, Ont. Canada: Riverside Architectural Press, 2010
Drawing indeterminate architecture and the distorted net
No full textJames Perry Wilson studied as an architect at Columbia University and practiced for twenty years until the depression when he became a diorama painter at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). He brought the rigour of architectural measured perspective to his new discipline and developed his Dual Grid method of projection onto the curved diorama shell. The author studied Wilson’s methods by building a set of cameras specific to one of Wilson’s dioramas at the Yale Peabody Museum that accomplished all of his geometric actions in one photograph. To understand when Wilson implemented his method the author built a set of dioramascopes to determine which projection techniques Wilson used on his Mule Deer diorama at the AMNH. This chapter documents that research and discusses the implication of these techniques to architectural drawing
MeasureIt-ARCH: A Tool for Facilitating Architectural Design in the Open Source Software Blender
Full text linkThis thesis discusses the design and synthesis of MeasureIt-ARCH, a GNU GPL licensed software add-on developed by the author in order to add functionality to the Open Source 3D modeling software Blender that facilitates the creation of architectural drawings. MeasureIt-ARCH adds to Blender simple tools to dimension and annotate 3D models, as well as basic support for the definition and drawing of line work. These tools for the creation of dimensions, annotations and line work are designed to be used in tandem with Blender's existing modelling and rendering tool set. While the drawings that MeasureIt-ARCH produces are fundamentally conventional, as are the majority of the techniques that MeasureIt-ARCH employs to create them, MeasureIt-ARCH does provide two simple and relatively novel methods in its drawing systems. MeasureIt-ARCH provides a new method for the placement of dimension elements in 3D space that draws on the dimension's three dimensional context and surrounding geometry order to determine a placement that optimizes legibility. This dimension placement method does not depend on a 2D work plane, a convention that is common in industry standard Computer Aided Design software. MeasureIt-ARCH also implements a new approach for drawing silhouette lines that operates by transforming the silhouetted models geometry in 4D 'Clip Space'.
The hope of this work is that MeasureIt-ARCH might be a small step towards creating an Open Source design pipeline for Architects. A step towards creating architectural drawings that can be shared, read, and modified by anyone, within a platform that is itself free to be changed and improved. The creation of MeasureIt-ARCH is motivated by two goals. First, the work aims to create a basic functioning Open Source platform for the creation of architectural drawings within Blender that is publicly and freely available for use. Second, MeasureIt-ARCH's development served as an opportunity to engage in an interdisciplinary act of craft, providing the author an opportunity to explore the act of digital tool making and gain a basic competency in this intersection between Architecture and Computer Science.
To achieve these goals, MeasureIt-ARCH's development draws on references from the history of line drawing and dimensioning within Architecture and Computer Science. On the Architectural side, we make use of the history of architectural drawing and dimensioning conventions as described by Mario Carpo, Alberto Pérez Gómez and others, as well as more contemporary frameworks for the classification of architectural software, such as Mark Bew and Mervyn Richard's BIM Levels framework, in order to help determine the scope of MeasureIt-ARCH's feature set. When crafting MeasureIt-ARCH, precedent works from the field of Computer Science that implement methods for producing line drawings from 3D models helped inform the author’s approach to line drawing. In particular this work draws on the overview of line drawing methods produced by Bénard Pierre and Aaron Hertzmann, Arthur Appel's method for line drawing using 'Quantitative Invisibility', the techniques employed in the Freestyle line drawing system created by Grabli et al. as well as other to help inform MeasureIt-ARCH's simple drawing tools.
Beyond discussing MeasureIt-ARCH's development and its motivations, this thesis also provides three small speculative discussions about the implications that an Open Source design tool might have on the architectural profession.
We investigate MeasureIt-ARCH's use for small scale architectural projects in a practical setting, using it's tool set to produce conceptual design and renovation drawings for cottages at the Lodge at Pine Cove. We provide a demonstration of how MeasureIt-ARCH and Blender can integrate with external systems and other Blender add-ons to produce a proof of concept, dynamic data visualization of the Noosphere installation at the Futurium center in Berlin by the Living Architecture Systems Group. Finally, we discuss the tool's potential to facilitate greater engagement with the Open Source Architecture (OSArc) movement by illustrating a case study of the work done by Alastair Parvin and Clayton Prest on the WikiHouse project, and by highlighting the challenges that face OSArc projects as they try to produce Open Source Architecture without an Open Source design software
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Re-wilding the Neighborhood: Discovering Ecological Harmony Through Design with Habitats Along the Oak Ridges Trail
Full text linkThis thesis is a reflection on the impacts of suburban sprawl on ecosystem health and biodiversity in York Region, using a design proposal to repopulate pollinator habitat within the fabric of an existing neighborhood. The key research questions concern both the environmental and social consequences of a monotonous suburban landscape on our collective sense of community and emplacement. Drawing on existing theory from both scientific and poetic disciplines such as the essays of Wendell Berry and Lawrence Halprin, the design seeks to contribute a model of rewilding based on public participation and cooperation with wildlife that has agency in the process. Using the conservation initiatives along the Oak Ridges Trail as a case study, the thesis will first explore the role of site study in the design process, understanding the landscape a living being with a history and future as opposed to a blank slate to be built over. Expanding on this idea, the design proposal will include a main public garden and designs for patches and channels of vegetation that will create a contiguous network. If successful, this proposal will act as a model which could potentially be replicated across multiple neighborhoods to impact at a regional scale
Assembling Memories: A Concept of the Architectural Worldmaking of Memories in the Metaverse
No full textThis thesis explores the relationship between architecture and memory by investigating the use of immersive virtual environments (Metaverse), for recording and sharing memories by transforming personal experiences into collective architectural elements. Utilizing geolocation and augmented reality (AR) technologies, individuals document their memories of urban spaces through TikTok, which are then analyzed to extract significant characteristics to be transformed into architectural components. These digital representations are aggregated into a virtual collective memory world.
Taking Japanese Village Plaza in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles as a testing ground, this thesis proposes a design concept for an architectural memory assembly interface within the Metaverse. Through virtual overlays, users engage with these spaces, creating a more immersive, dynamic, and collaborative memory experience compared to traditional preservation methods. The thesis outlines a framework for utilizing these technologies to develop a shared, evolving memory world, where users co-create spatial experiences that merge personal and collective memories in the Metaverse
Architecture as Setting the Stage: A framework for architectural design of virtual reality places centering the concept of presence through Wideström, Hernandez-Ibañez and Barneche-Naya, and Slater
No full textArchitecture shapes our physical world – and it shapes our virtual worlds as well. Virtual architecture creates the place in which a participant in Virtual Reality (VR) can understand and be immersed in the VR experience. This research contributes a framework for conceptualizing how architecture can work in service of immersive VR experiences that evoke a feeling of presence in the participant. Presence is the sensation of “being there” in a mediated environment through the allocation of attentional resources perceived physically and psychologically. It is the authentic feeling of being in a world other than the one in which one is physically located – the ultimate goal for a heightened VR experience.
Architecture as Setting the Stage highlights presence felt in a VR experience as the benchmark for a successful virtual space. The framework synthesizes the concepts of Wideström’s Stage, Hernandez-Ibañez and Barneche-Naya’s Virtual Utilitas, and Slater’s Place Illusion, centering presence within each. This research is prompted by powerful VR experiences that evoked presence in myself - like the cave setting in Scanner Sombre and the depictions of home in The Book of Distance. The latter VR project, The Book of Distance created by Randall Okita, is used as a case study in analysing how architecture supports engagement and connection between the participant and the virtual spaces.
The concept of Stage, from the philosophical dissertation of A Seeing Place (2022) by researcher and lecturer Josef Wideström, provides language and philosophy in conceptualizing the relationship between the physical and the virtual. The metaphor of Stage positions virtual space as a stage, connecting concepts of how we understand theatre to how we understand VR. Stage highlights how audiences in theater and participants in VR negotiate their understanding of representations, whether physical or virtual, leading to agreements about their meaning and context. This research extends his metaphor of Stage into the language of architectural design.
Hernandez-Ibañez and Barneche-Naya’s framework Virtualitas from their conference paper Cyberarchitecture (2012) addresses the need for the analysis and translation of established architectural theory into the realm of virtual architecture, enabling architects to approach virtual design with the same depth of consideration as physical practice. The concept of Virtualitas redefines the traditional architectural Vitruvian Triad - firmitas, utilitas, and venustas - to encompass virtual architecture’s broader considerations beyond aesthetics. Their contemporary framework informs the concept of Virtual Utilitas in this research, which centers presence as a key condition in VR architecture achieving Virtual Utilitas.
Researcher and psychologist Mel Slater’s established concept of Place Illusion (2005, 2022) offers psychological insight into how the construction of virtual spaces are perceived, and its influence on achieving presence. Place Illusion describes the influence of the coherent and convincing creation of place on a participant in a VR experience.
Architecture as Setting the Stage works as a conceptual bridge in understanding the properties of virtual architecture and informs three propositions of how architecture influences a participant; directing attention, relational meaning, and expression of boundaries. The propositions speculate how virtual architecture through design impacts presence. The framework and propositions are then applied to a VR experience case study, The Book of Distance (2020) by Randall Okita and the National Film Board of Canada. The Book of Distance is investigated through a first-person written account of observations and reactions to the experience. This descriptive passage aims to portray an authentic experience in VR. The passage is then followed by an analysis of the experience through the propositions informed by Architecture as Setting the Stage.
VR holds exciting potential for defining new experiences that go beyond those constrained by our physical world. Architectural knowledge, when adapted and applied to a virtual context, plays a significant role to the creation of VR experiences. Architects must confront the complexities of VR through a language for common understanding and help shape our virtual worlds
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Contemplative Space: Design for Generative Parametric Tessellations Applied to a Shell Structure
No full textThis thesis focuses on surface articulation of a shell structure constructed through a generative, parametric, modular design process. The shell form uses vault topology that adapts to varying site conditions such as topography and shape and that serves as contemplative space. Contemplative and aesthetic qualities have been achieved by analyzing aspects of spatial vernacular muqarnas and emulating aspects of their geometry within new surface ornament. By abstracting muqarnas, and exploring aniconic character informed by both vernacular precedent and contemporary parametric design methods, the design offers a specialized new interpretation of this historical type of ornament.
The design proposes an expandable master system. Two strategies based on this system are illustrated, both organized with similar components: columns (load-bearing modules) and bridges (modules for covering spans). Different behaviours are exhibited: first, symmetrical and homogeneous form and, second, non-symmetrical and heterogeneous form. The second layer of this complex system uses the topology of a vault system. A decoration system proposed for articulating interior-oriented surfaces is based on algorithmic geometry. This system offers two different characters, first inspired by muqarnas as a specific vernacular ornament, primarily from traditional Persian architecture, and second as a non-cultural, neutral ornament originating from computational design and achieved by deformation of mesh division. Software tool use is illustrated, demonstrating how scripted Grasshopper software components hosting custom C# code passages are used within a multi-layer design process.
Research informing this design focuses on historical and contemporary architecture. Contemporary precedents, “Arabesque Wall,” by Benjamin Dillenburger and Michael Hansmeyer, and “La Voûte de LeFevre” by Brandon Clifford and Wes McGee are described. An analysis of these precedents explores how emerging digital technologies informed by history, can create a new design ecology and culture. Additional discussion considers cultural and phenomenological observations and aesthetics of the design in its physical and psychological aspects, considered in contexts that range from topology of the form to visual perception of the internal “contemplative space.” This investigation indicates points of contact between arabesque art as vernacular ornament and contemporary, computer-based art. Computational and parametric design is considered with regards to its effect on contemporary design culture.
Parametric strategies, software, and C# coding used in the thesis are illustrated. The spatial ornament known as muqarnas is analyzed as one example of algorithmic ornament, illustrated through a contemporary “art of the knot” designed using parametric tools. In the last part of the research, features of the vault system are demonstrated historically and through individual examples of each kind. In parallel, contemporary shell structure and form optimization by means of computational simulation and morphogenesis are investigated.
The parametric system developed in the thesis design provides an opportunity to design a complex geometrical system that can be applied to shell-like envelopes. Design studies included within the thesis feature free-standing shelters capable of hosting a variety of public or private activities. Emphasizing visual and decorative qualities, visualizations of the applied design system are developed and positioned within sites in different locations
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