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Project 7: Stereo Fidelity Final

Although our foam cut model was relatively the same as our rhino model, we still went ahead and scanned the foam with photogrammetry. This resulted in a few difficulties, the cameras reconstructed the foam texture with alarming detail but also at the same time couldn't recreate the deep shadowed cuts and instead created an interesting explosive effect on the back of our model.

Project 7: Stereo Fidelity

Adam Greenfield, “Radical Technologies”

The question of a post-scarcity world really intrigued me throughout the reading. For one I couldn't even image the social and political implications of such a concept and I think that’s because to me, it will never happen. Greenfield brings up many amazing humanitarian projects and ideas that focus around many of our brightest innovators but they all end with the same conclusions, no tangible results. Digital fabrication never seemed like a simple step towards Adrian Bowyer’s vision of a self replicating machine, and Greenfield admits this up front, as well as providing some extremely convincing arguments towards our ability to produce a post-scarcity world but it falls flat in actuality. These machines definitely help us innovate, and design new solutions to many of our daily problems and help empower small sets of individuals to be able to take a stab at consumerism but in the end they are only just that, tools. It stands near the argument of A.I. and it’s ability to “think” for itself. The digital fabrication itself gets caught up in its own “hype” as greenfield mentions which inevitably leads to these notions of “omnipotent” in the case of computers . Another argument against the digital fabrication, post-scarcity world is the fact that it will always be cheaper to “ship something from China”, we just don’t and most likely will not be able to spread the infrastructure out to the edges to be able to provide local support against consumerism. If it is possible it is a much longer way off than Greenfield leads on, maybe much farther than any of use may ever see.

Ex 7: Stereo Fidelity

Me, Malcolm, Jila, and Jessie all choose one of our models to contribute to the groups final output for the foam cutter, we then narrowed down to one design to produce out of the final foam block.

Project 7: Stereo Fidelity

Through the use of an oscillating curve created through grass hopper I combined it with a smooth cut on the back of the shape then took a deep circle from the object to create both texture and hidden geometries from certain angles. Both embracing the restriction of a solid base and trying to play as much to the robots strengths as possible I wanted to produce a complex curve not possible to bu cut smoothly with a human hand.

Toward a Pedagogy of Material Systems Research

Computation in architecture is a wholly new field to me and on top of that so is the integration of materiality in research and architecture. To see the work of our program allowing interaction across disciplines and design practices shows a clear path the program is making when it comes to the pursuit of materiality and computation. Not only across disciplines but the integration of the computer into the design process with the foreground to intervene in the process to allow the projects to move forward and expand upon previous projects rather than stagnating at purely computational design based practices. Most exciting is the revolutionizing of glass making process, to be able to largely manufacturer more than just sheet glass, and without the wasted formwork used today is extraordinary and is being built upon even this year in the research through making project by Jonathan Rule and Ana Morcillo Pallares with their experimentation with catenary curved concrete. Overall I think the MSMS program creates a diverserse series of experimentation that includes cross disciplinary interaction and computerization to really push our ideas of materiality and architectural research.

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Bailey, Dustin, and I used the pattern for a dancer to create our light drawings using the robot. After many trials with different colors, we figured out how to pause in the middle of the drawing and change the colors of the figure so that it would end up two-toned. We also slowed down the speed of the robot in order to create thicker lines and connecting points. At the places where the light shows up the brightest, we paused for several seconds, which typically happened at the moments of color change.

Nicholas Carr and Mathew Crawford

After reading some insights from Nicholas Carr and Matthew Crawford it’s interesting to see an author criticizing in an intelligent way our use of technology rather than always praising it for all it has given us. While “The World Beyond Your Head”, has some interesting points in its introduction about our ability to jig our everyday life and its connection to our technological interfaces, Carr takes an approach to step back and analyze our complacency when comes to our interfaces. Most of us would never admit to the complacency and frustration we get when our technology doesn't work. A recent example is the reaction many have towards the save function in out recent grasshopper script for the KUKA. You simply hit an apply button to save your changes to a specified location. There is no haptic feedback, notification, or color change. Many watched their mouse hover over the button, and the physical feedback of clicking the mouse, but many are still nagged by the “lack” of feedback. These feelings are strangely embedded in us though the infiltration of technology much along the lines of Carr’s book “The Glass Cage”.

Taubman’s Research Through Making

I think rather than focusing on any particular projects in Taubmans now 9 year running program, Research Through Making, I’d like to comment more on how its evolved over it’s time through the selection of final projects through the years. One thing I’ve noticed is the diversity RTM invites through its grants. In initial year projects ranged from emergent technologies in representation, to more traditional methods of steam wood bending all while still engaging the question of design and computation. Over all the projects have all seemingly integrated some form of digital aspect into their projects and yet stayed varied enough to show the breadth of what Taubman has to offer in the way of it’s researchers and practitioners.. Not only that but more recently many of the projects have begun to include other schools at U of M including;art and design, kinesiology, and engineering to name a few, this alone I believe has lead to a more varied and increasingly complex project selection in the recent years. Yet most projects still bring home the idea of what it means to bring in these other schools into architecture as a whole. The design process of introducing new technologies into architecture isn't a process that is only under taken by designers but a varied field of backgrounds to which I’m happy to see RTM has taken into account in many of the recent projects. Between the varied amount of ideology Taubman has in its research grants, the program has stayed relatively spread out on it’s topics which is surprising considering the relative ease it is to fall into purley computation and technological designs in architecture today.

Painting for Robots

Me, Bailey and Peyton took three different approaches to what the robot should paint with light. In the end we decided that rather than create something more robotic that we should focus on a more natural figure and try to replicate a one line drawing of a dancer to compliment the fluid movement of the robot more akin to that of Picasso’s light paintings.

Digital Culture in Architecture, Antoine Picon

Picon recounts the history of the computers and cybernetics role in both architecture and urban planning between the second world war and 1970. For architecture he computer played a major role in the production of patterns which lent itself naturally to the design of housing and military encampments. Over time however the computer became the focus of a movement of architectural design both showcasing the computers computational power and the culture surround the computer itself. Through the ability to generate forms at any scale many mega structures emerged through generative design. On the flip side urban planning was reluctant to use computing at first but soon implemented it into its program, yet to little success at first due to its oversimplification of complex social issues. Overall today computers have been largely integrated into the design process as simply as 3D modeling and representation to parametric design and form generation, the has been thoroughly integrated into the architectural practice.

baileysarchblog-blog

Low Relief Milling (Project 5)

Group: Dustin Dewitt, Peyton Steurer, Bailey Surbrook

The forms for this milling were inspired by a painting by Paul Kremer and the colors were influenced by work from Neil Denari. The forms compositionally were arranged to read as a series of impressions into the foam. The grid strengthens this relationship by remaining uniform between the upper and lower surfaces. In addition, the paint scheme also calls attention to this by producing the sensation that the surfaces from the two outer forms were once apart of a continuous upper surface.

Low Relief Milling:

I used a painting by Paul Kremer as the inspiration for my milling and Neil Denari for the color choice. I used an overlayed grid milled into the sides and bottom of each shape to create the illusion of a uniform grid from above

Animate Form, By Greg Lynn 1999

Lynn argues that in a profession full of static creates that they can be read and designed with more “motion” in their intention. Motion, however in the same sense that a boat's hull is designed with the intent of its environment, in which through different positions creates different outcome based on the water that surrounds it, that in a way the boats hull is “animate”. To me the motion seen in a simple composite curve may be different than that of a spline curve but both still move me through a design just in different ways. A composite curve seems more constructed and rigid while a spline is more seemingly free and fluid. Boht have their own uses and both move a design not only through curvature but give a sense of motion through passing of time. I don’t think the computer, or animation added kmotion back into design for architecture, I think it was always present, but I do think that the computational power of computers allowed architectural design to implement a stronger sense of motion through complex geometries and splines. The same way as a dog doesn't calculate the trajectory of a frisbee to catch it, computers just allowed us to be more precise in our understanding of the motion we can create in architectural forms. It’s always been there we just have more open access to it than ever before.

Deleuze and the Use of the Genetic Algorithm in Architecture

Delanda discusses the extreme end of computational design we discussed in our previous reading, “Computation Design Thinking” through the implementation of a purely genetic/evolutionary design practice into architecture. While the idea of allowing a computer to randomly evolve a design within a set of parameters may seem like it takes control away from the designer, the process is strangely familiar to form matrices we make as architects. As a design process we already set parameters on our forms and designs ie: stress, compression, size, length, ect.. Delanda mentions that these restraints are just translated from a metric “real world” unit to that of the free form language of “virtual multiplicity”. While in hindsight both do seem similar in comparison it may be just as perplexing as asking a web designer to “make something that works and looks good”. At first the goal seems general and overly simplistic but behind it are a set of specific expectations that have to be teased out of the client. This works the same way as in designing with an evolutionary system through coding. One must start with a clear goal in mind and over time, much like how one learns to design by hand, a computational approach to design may not seem so daunting or lackluster. It only takes a willing to learn the nuances of these new design methods to make sure that the computer becomes an aid in the design process rather than the sole contributor.

baileysarchblog-blog

In exercise four, Dustin and I manipulated the parameters of an algorithm in Grasshopper to produce two volumetric forms. The first of which takes formal inspiration from a classical vase and has pattern etched into its exterior to create a texture on what was otherwise a perfectly smooth surface. The second was designed formally to act as a light shade. Its blue tint contrasts the yellow of the light bulb held within, calling greater attention to this light source.

Parametric Vases: Part 1 Unfolding Geometries

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