extendedframes

Foam Tower is an experimental structure that expresses a tension between architectural tendency to build and control and the unpredictable behavior of expanding polyurethane foam.

The transcription of a shape into material is made through computed voxel grid - a transcriptions normally used for the opposite process: to make computer understand the space. The tension between  material, architecture and computation at its essence.

Dynamic properties of materials can be used for automated object assemblies. While put into a dynamic environment, single geometries will interlock and create new objects that act differently than the original ones.

Displaced objects before the vibrations started.

In the vibrations process, the single spirals move closer to each other in specific areas defined by material properties and the interactions of grains with the surrounding environment and objects.

Granular Vibrations revealed underlying principles hidden beneath the forms formed by granular materials. What happens if we exchange the existing material principles with fabricated geometries? For thes purpose, two different geometries were introduced: the lock and the disruptor. Their role is to force or to suppress the communication between single particles in the mixture.

The original material experiment is an example of an inexact object achieved with exact production methods (casting of liquid PLA into water). How does a digital interpretation look like?

Simulated experiment and the multiplications and combinations into inexact architectural object: a column.

Extra detail addition and digital manipulations influence the behavior of the object in the simulations.

The original Virtual Composites project was a digital design task. What are the topics that digital design brings, what are the advantages and what are the challenges? How to materialize digital concepts and what is the relation between digital design and materiality?

One of the main advantages of digital design is the details control. In digital design, there are at least two different attitudes of controlling the level of detail: divisions and multiplications.

Combined together, objects with new, distinctive qualities emerge. While the multiplications are a spatial exploration that develops from one part to the whole, the divisions are the opposite. 

Some impressions from the exhibition, works by students of A3.

Organized by the Qatar University and prof. Kas Oosterhuis, the conference hosted many great speakers, among others Philippe Block, Marcos Novak, Philippe Morel, Shajaj Bhooshan (Zaha Hadid Architects) or Hafid Rakem (Jean Nouvel Architects).

Few impressions from the novel architecture of Qatar - The National Library of Qatar (OMA) and the Faculty of Islamic Studies (Mangera Yvars Architects).

Cave Detail

Foaming Patterns

Single phases of subdivisions

Hard-skinned hexagonal units combined into basic assembly components

Alternative version of component units. Some units were alternated due to the expansion control and positioning within the whole assembly.

Final component and the process of the expansion.

Alternative position and orientation of the components results in different expansion patterns.

Digital model of the assembly.