- Angeles Crest Fire Training Facility
Recently I’ve been working toward the development of a fire training facility in the Angeles National Forest along a California Highway 2 or Angeles Crest Highway. The road is undoubtedly one of the most unsustainable pieces of infrastructure among many occupying Los Angeles’ cycle of degradation. An clear collision of our built environment with nature. Notably we’ve been reading the landscape through various lenses while (some) seem ultimately dystopic they’re realizations are radically real and insightful. I’m speaking specifically of the texts by Mike Davis, John Mchpee and Reyner Banham. Ecology of Fear, Los Angeles Against the Mountians, and The Architecture of Four Ecologies, respectively.
The deployment of a fire training facility within a deep pocket of the San Gabriel Mountain Range, one of the most geologically active, certainly presents a myriad of challenges which question the role of the built environment within such a dynamic site. The strategy deployed in this scheme takes an approach of extreme artificiality in which architecture becomes a machine for survival. The advantage of this exercise allows for the designer to assume failure in the sense that in either the structures abandonment or complete destruction, the remnants of the built work will either leave a structure for re-use or a site to be studied and explored much like many of the abandoned mines in the area. Hopefully in this way the longterm advantage of the site will be it’s permanence however eroded its remains become.
Roof Plan (showing: comm center, admin offices, ignition structure and classrooms)
Ignition structure ablaze.
North Elevation (showing: water reservoir tower/training tower, comm center and classrooms)
Communications center section model
- pVector
I’ve finally caught up with learning how to implement processing’s pVector class. I must say it would have been much harder without the help of Dan Shiffman’s Nature of Code Class notes from the ITP at NYU (http://www.shiffman.net/) Who thought vector math could be implemented so easily! However if your really itching to get knee deep into some Linear Algebra, I suggest taking 18.06 Linear Algebra at MIT. That’s right check out this link, (http://web.mit.edu/18.06/www/) MIT’s OpenCourseWare basically provides anyone with internet access the potential to view variety of course material, class notes, lecture videos, etc all for free at (http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm) The ubiquity of open source information has almost made a $100K education a matter of receiving a piece of paper. Kind of off topic but you get the idea, without all the free knowledge I couldn’t make interesting designs like the one above.
- Log 17
The Superficial Issue of Log 17 embraces the anxiety of our current state of representation where image, aesthetic, mood are championed for their communicative qualities. Not communicative in the Venturian sense however, if we were speaking of Vegas’ lights and atmosphere then maybe so, but the communication embraced in this dialog is one of strategic affect. Arguing for sensuous environments in that they may provide the most profound impact on a viewer, and when comparing Diaz-Alonso’s SUR pavillion and Zumthor’s Bruder-Klaus-Kapelle, are not both guilty of employing sensuous affect strategically? While, we are on the cusp of this new generation, it becomes harder to determine the ultimate value of this mode of thought however, I feel Log 17 distills some of the intricacies through some of the youngest architects who find its applications in their practice. Writer’s for this issue include: Joe Day, Hernan Diaz Alonso, David Erdman, K. Frampton, Georgina Huljich, Lisa Iwamoto, Jeffery Kipnis, Sylvia Lavin, Thom Mayne, Jason Payne, David Ruy, Marcelo Spina, Peter Zellner among others.
In light of the 3d movement, both in television technology, architectural visualization, cinema, and in this case print(Log 17’s Cover), I’ve made one of my previous project renderings from the last post into a stereoscopic image, if you have some 3d glasses on hand check it out.
- Los Angeles Public Market
This current project is starting to develop an identity which is fine for me however i’m really not happy with it’s superficial ’seamlessness’, structural implications shall ensue. Maybe it was trivial to vacuum-form the project if seamlessness had not been a desire. Anyway, Geometric rationalization should really empower a project rather than rendering it predictable or boring, because it participates in a conversation not in a vacuum, an attempt to acknowledge the reality of its physical nature. I’m thinking of the work of either Heinz Isler, Emilio Perez Pinero, or even recent work by MOS, all of which attempt to introduce physical implications as a design drivers.
- Free Market Ecology
For a site on Olvera St. in downtown Los Angeles, cultural diversity is abundant as the city’s gross diversity and is home to a vibrant Mexican marketplace scene since the 1930’s. The criteria of the project seeks to focus on structural opportunities and constraints in the development of a large span roof structure for a new market surface that plans to use an existing parking lot. In relation to structrural concepts, issues of form, performance and ecologies are all integral drivers of the project. The scheme shown is a initial take to incorporate successful structural market typologies of domes and vaults focusing on structural pattern/bay layout and formal detailing to find a solar strategy. More recently the project is using wind analysis to develop a method for airflow, stack effect cooling and utilizing cross breezes from prevailing winds. More on this in the near future.
- POT Tiling
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Over the past year I’ve forgotten how much fun Arduino was. For my final in my Processing/Programing Applications class this year I plan on using my Diecimila for some analog inputs to implement a GUI for an idea that I’ll mention in maybe the next post. In this example I used a potentiometer to drive some of the angles for a recursive drawing. While almost completely worthless it’s still fun to feel a physical connection with your computer aside from the mouse and keyboard.
- Bent Space
Precedentsfrom left to right: Wallpaper Vegetation – Patrick Blanc, Local-River – Mathieu Lehanneur, Topiary garden”
Detail Section (The finish floor is a Plywood/Fabric laminate (previous post), Beneath is serial section wood form work and a soil matrix for the plants composed of recycled plastics. Plants absorb water from reservoirs at the base of the columns in the space through a hygroscopic membrane and capillary action.)”
MDF MillFor the past week, I’ve been producing some working drawings and models for our upcoming final review. Our brief requires the replacement of a non-load bearing partition wall in an existing campus building. The project attempts to synthesize the research from bent plywood precedents (previous post). In my project I’m proposing a series of seating/planters that will divide the space into partitioned areas and provide a visual, sensual and functional replacement for the existing wall. Below you can read a rough draft of my brief.
Agenda:
Domestication has become a pinnacle of mankind’s achievement whether for function, commodity or ornament, our desire to control natural systems seems to be a force inseparable from the human condition. The French topiary gardens of the 1800’s may be one of the earliest precedents describing our desire to incorporate nature as a mutable material and thus, as an artist’s medium. Working within the topiary practice of subtraction, in this case wood and foliage, the method provides the artist with a tool for shaping an ideal and often simple or sublime form. While effective, this method assumes diligent action against the natural system in an effort to force a natural system into an artificial state. Within the context of this project there is an effort to work in parallel with nature to achieve a symbiotic relationship between nature, artifice and user interaction. The project also seeks to develop an interface for natural and artificial systems where the user can exploit natural systems allowing them to operate in their feral or naturalized state. Specifically in this case the plants not only provide a visual stimuli and function to partition space but they also seek to improve indoor air quality. Ultimately by working in this way the project attempts to elucidate the relationship we have with nature and begs the question, “How much control we are willing to lose?”
- Laminates
Last week as part of a 2 person team I completed a case study on Charles and Ray Eames experimental chairs in 1945. Specifically, focusing on the fabrication of doubly curved surfaces using bent plywood. I won’t go into a history of Charles or and Ray but rather Some of the methods we used to fabricate a portion of their 1945 Experimental Lounge Chair pictured at top. One fact that is somewhat obvious is that glue laminating veneers proves to be extremely effective for producing a high degree of curvature, however, the material properties of wood including the grain orientation, type and number of plys, certainly limit a 3d bending of wood. To aid in flexibility the wood had to undergo three processes in our experiment, in order to create doubly curved surfaces. The first was a series of darts analagous to those in tailoring template design (above). These darts were an attempt to reduce the degree of tension within the wood allowing it to curve by removing material. The last two processes required were high pressure and high heat. In order to achieve these a die/jig was created that would stamp the part by using a male and female mold created through a serial section of the surface. Before placing the part in the mold, steam was introduced in order to fit the part within the complex mold. In conjunction with the die a high degree of heat was introduced during the molding which increases the heat of fusion for wood and thus cools into shape when released from the mold after about 6 hours. The exercise definitely makes latent the invaluable research initiated by the Eames during their early years of experimentation. With no advanced CNC or Laser technology the complexity of the pieces they produced have retained a timeless quality that still today is included in our idea of furniture of the future. Our next exploration will be using the research compiled from the case study to redevelop an interior for an existing building. Some of the images below describe a wood material system I’m exploring to create complex curvature with no die or stamping required.
- Volume
This is just a quick post on one of the interesting qualities of using cutting planes in perspective to explore the sectional quality of complex manifolds.
- Cumulative Coherence IB (Pre-Midterm)
Primitive
The system of organization derived from the model and extended below begins with a single primitive acting as a seed for growth following a process of reaction based aggregation. This system sets rules for reactions based on nearest neighbor relationships. These relationships consist of: (I) Node Limitations (II) Primitive Family Type and (III) Structural efficiency.The parent primitive or unit is designed using a tripartite system of nodes with simple slip notch connections. The unit is a single material consisting of 0.79mm or 1/32in veneer. The unit in its unrolled shape facilitates growth limited to the vectors tangent with its plane or surface. However, through a simple bending deformation (fig.2), the unit can provide a multiplicity of growth vectors.(fig.1).
The parent primitive is also host to two child primitives which differ in surface area ratio created by three interior fillets of increasing radi. The consequence of the child primitives include unique growth vectors and structural properties that play out through various stages of the generative assembly.
Product
A few resultants greater than the sum of the relationships were: (I) Clustering, and (II) Weaving. The first resultant (I) clustering was primarily a result influenced by the structural stability relationships and produced a volumetric and porous spatial quality. Weaving was ultimately achieved by the factors of stability as well; however, the attraction of growing the system to the maximum height provided opportunities within the system to weave. Overall, gaining height, as well as developing a nested aesthetic. A unique property of the system was its development as a physically linear system with a non-linear rule-set. Consequently, the overall process led to the generation of a complex system that closely resembles those generated by natural systems.Click the thumbnails at the top of the post for higher res.
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