Lines and revolution

The new surface was created by extracting the lines from the diagram and experimenting with multiple interventions of the revolve tool. The final surface was the result of revolving all of the lines together on the y-axis at 280 degrees. The 2d diagram shown was a exploded into series of layers that corresponded to the different scenes in the abstracted clip. This created about 15 planes of lines that when revolved created the dynamic shape shown here. The revolve tool was chosen because the entire clip is based on the two men circling a vague point in space while they try to get a good line of sight on one another.

Heat Abstracted - new video

In “Between Surface and Substance” Surface Consciousness, Mark Burry explores the relationship of form making, parametric creation, and artistic import. The article makes me consider the value of designing through digitally derived permutations of form. Is it just form making for the sake of making previously unseen forms. I think it some cases this has become the modus operandi for designers.

This misuse and misunderstanding of how digital technology is maybe inevitable. It might be akin to architects using books on classical architecture simply as a kit parts by which they could "design" a building. In more mindful hands, however, it seems that this new way of thinking about form may allow the architect to derive spaces, form, and experiences, that could not have been imagined. The craft is, as it always was, to control the variables and constraints that guide the design.

Abstracted Animation

In this animation the movie clip is further abstracted to show the camera views as individual spot lights, the two men as simple cylinders, and the gun sight lines as transparent planes. The animation involves moving lights that turn on and off in a way that coincides with the clip. The camera views for the animation present a new look from within the scene by taking a third-person views of the movement around the space.

The animation and camera cuts are not quite smooth yet but the overall idea suggests the making of a dynamic space created by the camera views and the sight lines which create a sort of rotation around the center space. Primarily, though, the space is created by the two points (the cylinders) and the line created between them. The line rotates around the space as the two points try to avoid/locate one another.

The next task will be to reinterpret this space into a surface that is a dynamic and directed as the one in the created in the clip and the animation.

Project 2

The clip was analyzed to construct the diagram below. The diagram shows the position of the cameras, the positions of the men, and the primary sight lines of the guns. All of the positions and lines are present at one time in the diagram. The diagram creates an interest in how the overlap of the camera positions creates movement around the 2d composition and a hierarchy of spaces.

Project 2

The clip is an edited excerpt of a movie in which two men play out the final stages of a cat and mouse game. The clip is edited to examine how the camera makes use of its movement and focus to make space but, also, allows the planes of the large cubes, the movement of the men, and, the guns to draw lines and make space.

Versioning - The New Trace Paper

In the SHoP article on versioning, the authors describe a new direction in architectural design in which computer algorithms are used to create design possibilities. In a way this seems to be an extension of the process of using many rolls of trace to create variants of design ideas. The computer simply allows the designer to generate many more options in much less time.

Versioning, however, takes a leap forward from the trace paper process in that it allows the designer to see possibilities that go beyond his/her imagination or time constraints. This, at first, may seem like a surrender of the architect's influence on the design. What is really happening here, though, is an extension of the design process into realms of space conception that may be influenced by more than architectural precedent and known building methods.

The promise and difficulty of the exponential increase of technological development should be a serious concern to anyone involved in the construction of buildings. The ability for a designer to constantly absorb new techniques is somewhat limited, not mention the capacity for one to imagine the best combinations and uses of those technologies. Versioning is way in which a designer can create frameworks the allow for the assimilation of new developments.

Project 1c - Pattern

For this weeks assignment, I again begin by starting my car model over. I am learning more techniques and seem to be getting something that might eventually resemble an automobile. From that model I isolate a portion of the front fender and used that to create a new compositional matrix. The pattern shown was developed by arranging the objects from the new matrix.

Perspective and Process

http://www.wuzine.com/2009/11/27/olivier-charles-foa-2007/

Our teacher made the comment that architects don’t make buildings, we make drawings. It is hard not to accept the reality of that statement. On the other hand, I would argue that drawings are not architecture, buildings are architecture. There is an oddity here in that architects do not make the thing that is the object of their efforts. The architect of today is no longer the builder. Was this ever really the case, though?

To contemplate the architect further we must again consider the professor’s statement. What is the drawing? The term drawing must be considered loosely here. It should be understood as a means of representation. That is, it may be drafted or digital, abstract or “real,” 2-D or 3-D, or…etc.—it is simply a means of contemplation or communication by which a glimpse of the idea can be seen.

In this week’s reading Alberto Perez-Gomes, et al, “Prelude: Mapping the Question – The Perspective Hinge,” discuss the history of the perspective drawing in architecture. They explain that “prior to the Renaissance, architectural drawings were rare...” and that “in the Middle Ages, architects did not conceive of a whole building…” They continue by explaining that Gothic buildings were built as a process initiated from a footprint. The end result was unknown until the building was completed. The architect, in this case, served to help set the foundation and guide the process and the craftsmen. It wasn’t until much later that developments in geometry and math, and finally an understanding of accurate perspective drawing would lead to the ability to draw the entire building before it was built.

Today, architects generally conceive of and communicate a fully designed building before construction has begun. Of course, there may still be many details that are worked out through the construction process but the overall design of the building is done.

In “Roller-Coaster Construction,” Contemporary Techniques in Architecture, Alejandro Zaera-Polo discusses the design process with Foreign Office Architects. According to Zaera-Polo, the buildings evolve out of a digital design process that is based on many variables that are manipulated to produce unexpected or unimagined results. This, for me, marks a return to the ideas of Gothic construction in which the architect guides the process. This transformation of the architect’s role opens the door to a new age of architecture—an age that may actually be able to realize the modern architectural agenda. It may allow for new forms, styles, and space that is not dominated by history.

Transformation Matrix

I used the side panel from my car model to initiate these transformation. I experimented with a few approaches before deciding that the bend deformation tool was the most interesting because of its simplicity.

For the top row of transformations I duplicated the original object and then applied the bend with an increasing amount of curvature. The values ranged from 0-4 and then from -1 to -5. The change from 4 to -1 is apparent in the matrix.

Feeling the that transformations were not as interesting is the could be, I duplicate the objects in the first row and re-applied a bend to each. The bend was first rotated 90 degrees on one axis and then a curvature of 1 was applied to each. The process was repeated for a similar sequence of values. There is a stark difference in the rate of transformation between the changes in the first row objects and the rest of the rows.

In the first row the original form of the objects is still fairly apparent. Compounding the transformations, though, quickly develops a wide range of forms. Again, the only tool used was the bend tool.

Warped Space - A discussion of Vidler, Lynn, Leibniz and the nature of space

Anthony Vidler, in “Warped Space. Art, Architecture, and Anxiety in Modern Culture,” discusses the notion of folded space. He discusses two ways in which space is warped. First, by objects that disturb the continuity of space, thereby creating the possibility of other space. Second, the intersection of artistic media and the subject of the artistic work. Space has to then be imagined as something more than the volume of the room. This implies the possibility that our conception of space is determined by our entire range of perception, imagination, interpretation, and state of mind.

In “Folds, Bodies & Blobs, Collected Essays,” Gregg Lynn furthers this discussion on the difficulty of understanding the nature of space. He illustrates how Corbusier used the Domino house to show the disappearance of discrete boundaries. He relates this idea to the two types of probability, discrete and continuous. This combination adds to Vidler’s idea of warping space by showing how space can be the result of allowing probability to exist in architecture.

Lynn introduces Leibniz into the discussion of the nature of space. I have not considered Leibniz for some time and certainly since I have begun my architectural education. The combination of Leibniz and architecture presents an interesting phenomenon. Leibniz was essentially a monist, believing all things were one and it is only perception that creates division and heterogeneity. Architecture, it seems, has the primary purpose of dividing space. It plays upon how we perceive space to create the illusion of multiple and separate space.

Furthering this exploration, Lynn discusses the nature of blob tectonics. A blob, according to Lynn, is “near solid” and moves through space like liquid, “can absorb objects as if they were liquid” and is “neither singular nor multiple but an intelligence that behaves as if it were singular and networked.” If find this to an interesting development in the understanding of space as continuous but divided by our perception. Blob-architecture, then, is that which seeks to distort our perceptions by allowing us at once to determine division and separate space but, at the same time, remain indiscreet so that it allows for a continuous probability of spaces to be perceived.

Project 1A- Learning Maya

The project is to create a model in Maya using orthographic drawings and photographs of an object. My object is an Aston-Martin Vanquisher. Through my first many attempts I became more familiar with the controls while learning how to create planes from curves and surfaces from planes. A main struggle was understanding how to use the settings correctly when creating an image plane. The image kept importing in locked so that it would not zoom with the drawn objects. Also my different views would import at different sizes.

That aside, I began trying to model the car as a plane shaped to the side view. I then took that shape and lofted it to a duplicate to create the overall form of the car. I encountered some struggles in getting the top surface of the car to be editable and also thought this might not be the best approach. I am currently working on the bending the side view along a curve established by the front view drawing.