Interactive structure-chip develop

In this project the idea was working with a rotational input and light output for an electronic interactive structure. Developed with 11 architects where I was included. We got off to a great start with the milling, and chip making, but eventually we had a few problems with the milling, resulting with a nice little groove cut into the bed of the machine.

We decided for the panel that it would be much nicer if the actual object that you controlled was the object that changed, so for this experience, we devised a series of 8×8x8cm cubes that would contain the electronic components.

These 9 cubes were mounted on a large base board, allowing the sensor to be fixed and the cubes to rotate. Many long discussions were fought about the layout of the cubes, but ultimately we decided that a fairly regular pattern would suit the project\experiment better.

Upon completion we managed to have 7 cubes working perfectly, 1 that is constantly on and one that has now chip at all. In addition to the 5 chips that we managed to destroy during the production process somehow. We had a look at these and apparently they look perfect, but just won’t work.
The panel its self allows you to vary the rate at which the light blinks by the amount that you rotate the cubes.

Participants:

Vagia Pantou (Greece)

Pete Booth(Australia)

Verena Vogler (Germany)

Monica Szawiola (Poland)

Mariana Paz (Mexico)

Eduardo Mayo (Spain)

Eugenio Adame (Mexico)

Georgios Machairas (Greece)

Krzysztof Gornicki (Poland)

Alessio Carta (Italy)

The Ripple- CNC mill

The understanding of CAM software is crucial to understand the working of milling machine and its tools. Optimization is possible in the following relationship

Intended Design — Digital Model — Selected Tool — CAM Parameters — Estimate Time (€€€!)

The exercise attempts to exploit CAM parameters for generating texture on the given surface. Following are the values for milling with a 26mm diameter, round nose milling tool, required for the desired effect.

THE HITCH
The experimental flip of the processes, (Parallel cut preceding the Rough cut instead of vice versa) proves erroneous. Besides other problems as follows:

- Issue 1: The milling machine’s belts (controlling Y-direction movement) slip over the sprocket due to a broken rubber tooth.

- Result 1: Unequal thickness of ridges (and valleys), some as thin as 1 mm

- Issue 2: Usually the horizontal cut is step 1, followed by parallel finish. The sequence was flipped.

- Result 2: The thin ridges were severed violently during stage 2 as the tool attempted to mill horizontal rough cut.

SOLUTION
Milling stalled twice. The process which was supposed to take 20 minutes took an hour both due to technical and design problems. A parallel horizontal cut is proposed to save the texture on the surface and is executed perfectly.

Intended result

Final Result

How to design a tree II

The project of -how to design a tree- refers to the design of a system composed of separate components that can be connected together. The heart of this modular architecture is that you can replace or add any one component (module) without affecting the rest of the system.

Witch of this modules have the ability to be configured to meet the individual our mass needs, this capability is obtained thru an adjustable structure, that can be scaled and stretched, and in this way vary the dimension and shape of the construction.

The central inspiration was creating a modular design that allows plug-and-play, mix-and-match compatibility of components to configure area variations to meet specific preferences.

Larger scale- the module can be stretch to fit services as a small stage for minor events that may occur on the park.

Rules of a Game or Satisfaction of Needs?

Mass customization is now kind of a fashion term in the industries, witch is used to persuade the customers selling them the idea that the product they are getting is unique but the question is it unique? Comes to my mind do to the fact that is the same product but with an additive component such as texts, colors, parts, etc, trying to make it call a distinctive product.In the industry of golf exist the idea of mass customization do to the fact that each person has different capacities to perform a golf swing, for example a six years old girl will perform a natural movement because of her flexibility and also because the muscles are in fact growing and in the phase of memorizing movements, but in order to do this she would not be able to perform the swing if the weight, the size, the shaft, and so on are not suitable for her age, size, strength etc. If we get to explain every golf swing in terms of people’s size, strength, rotation, age, etc, we get to find billions of different golf swings so do to this fact the golf clubs industry generate a pre-fabrication process in order to satisfy as many as possible needs in terms of golf swings. So this process is trying to get the golf clubs unique because the golf swing is unique for every golf player, but it’s all about the mass production of components like shafts, heads and grips, but in the unity of this different components you get to make a golf club suitable for your golf swing.In the same way, the Smart car develop this idea of customizing your car but its again in the mass production of components that you get to buy a “unique” car. In terms of design we don’t see the uniqueness of the car because it is just the colors or the graphics what gives the car a differentiation from one to another.By crossing this two examples of pseudo mass customization we find more attractive the fact that in the joint of different components you can find the real uniqueness of a product to satisfy the different needs of people but applying this to architecture and more specific to the development of housing end in a prefabrication process were people gets to pick the different components of their house in order to get a exclusive one, but does it really response to customization? Then what is the meaning of customization? Is it about giving some regulation to a game or really trying to satisfy the needs of each different way of living?

Advanced Design Processes

New technologies new solutions

ABSTRACT:

Following some examples of contemporary architecture like (examples), we realize that the integration of industrial processes, new digital software’s, manufacturing tools and automated machines are helping in the exercise of architecture in terms of design process and the actual construction of architecture. Frank Ghery’s Der Neue Zollhof buildings in Düsseldorf, Germany, where he used CNC machines to generate forms in order to make pre cast concrete component for the realization of the project. It’s unfeasible to number exactly how many engineering processes are being used these days on the manufacture of industrial products from bottles, tires, to cloths, cars and so on, furthermore impossible to count the amount of automated machines used in each industrial process. Since we notice that some architects are using machines or manufacturing processes to generate architecture and also the majority is using the same machines, consequently we found attractive to study different machines or processes in order to question it from an architectural point of view trying to obtain benefits for the exercise of architecture. Therefore we are going to look at 4D CAD, PET blowing process and Vulcanization process.

KEYWORDS: Design processes, technologies, 4D CAD, 3D modeling, vertical extension, Vulcanization, PET blowing, rubber, form, recycle, machines;

How to design a tree...

The main objective of this Project developed by me and the Mexican Architect Eugenio Adame, is based on the premise that a project can emerge as habitable or functional structures that interact with reality of the Ciutadella Park in Barcelona and emerge from analytical processes of a specific tree (Robinia Pseudoacacia) and from the exploration of its logical, formal and functional principles.

Nature, understood in its wide sense, is the territory where every architectural process is developed. It is fundamental to recognize nature’s basic principles, functional logics and to interact with it in a precise way. Develop methodologies that allow us measure and evaluate geographic, social or economic realities, knowing the historic methodologies that had been part of architecture, is another basic step. Different natural elements as: trees, mountains, rivers, waves or clouds, can be analyzed geometrically thanks to fractal geometry development and the digital modelling techniques.


















Robinia pseudoacacia is a tree in the subfamily Faboideae of the pea family Fabaceae. It is native to the southeastern United States, but has been widely planted and naturalized elsewhere in temperate North America, Europe and Asia and is considered an invasive species in some areas. A less frequently used common name is False Acacia, which is a literal translation of the specific epithet.
DescriptionIt grows to 14–25 m tall, with a trunk up to 0.8 m diameter (exceptionally up to 27 m tall and 1.6 m diameter in very old trees), with thick, deeply furrowed blackish bark. The leaves are 10–25 cm long, pinnate with 9–19 oval leaflets, 2–5 cm long and 1.5–3 cm broad. Each leaf usually has a pair of short thorns at the base, 1–2 mm long or absent on adult crown shoots, up to 2 cm long on vigorous young plants. The intensely fragrant flowers are white, borne in pendulous racemes 8–20 cm long, and are considered edible. The fruit is a legume 5–10 cm long, containing 4–10 seeds.Although similar in general appearance to Honey locust, it lacks that tree's characteristic long branched spines on the trunk, instead having the pairs of short thorns at the base of each leaf; the leaflets are also much broader.
Bark: Dark gray brown tinged with red, deeply furrowed, surface inclined to scale. Branchlets at first coated with white silvery down. This soon disappears and they become pale green, afterward reddish brown. Prickles develop from stipules, are short, somewhat triangular, dilated at base, sharp, dark purple, adhering only to the bark, but persistent. Wood: Pale yellowish brown; heavy, hard, strong, close-grained and very durable in contact with the ground. Sp. gr., 0.7333; weight of cu. ft., 45.70 lbs.
Winter buds: Minute, naked, three or four together, protected in a depression by a scale-like covering lined on the inner surface with a thick coat of tomentum and opening in early spring; when forming are covered by the swollen base of the petiole.
Leaves: Parallel, compound, odd-pinnate, eight to fourteen inches long, with slender hairy petioles, grooved and swollen at the base. Leaflets petiolate, seven to nine, one to two inches long, one-half to three-fourths of an inch broad, emarginate or rounded at apex. They come out of the bud conduplicate, yellow green, covered with silvery down which soon disappears; when full grown are dull dark green above, paler beneath. Feather-veined, midvein prominent. In autumn they turn a clear pale yellow. Stipules linear, downy, membranous at first, ultimately developing into hard woody prickles, straight or slightly curved. Each leaflet has a minute stipel which quickly falls and a short petiole.
Flowers: May, after the leaves. Papilionaceous. Perfect, borne in loose drooping racemes four to five inches long, cream-white, about an inch long, nectar bearing, fragrant. Pedicels slender, half an inch long, dark read or reddish green.
Calyx: Campanulate, givvous, hairy, five-toothed, slightly two-lipped, dark green blotched with red, especially on the upper side teeth valvate in bud.
Corolla: Imperfectly papilionaceous, petals inserted upon a tubular disk; standard white with pale yellow blotch; wings white, oblong-falcate; keel petals incurved, obtuse, united below. Stamens: Ten, inserted, with the petals, diadelphous, nine inferior, united into a tube which is cleft on the upper side, superior one free at the base. Anthers two-celled, cells opening longitudinally.
Pistil: Ovary superior, linear-oblong, stipitate, one-celled; style inflexed, long, slender, bearded; stigma capitate; ovules several, two-ranked.
Fruit: legume two-valved, smooth three to four inches long and half an inch broad, usually four to eight seeded. Ripens late in autumn and hangs on the branches until early spring. Seeds dark orange brown with irregular markings. Cotyledons oval, fleshy.




















DISTANCE OF BRANCHES FROM GROUND TO CENTERLINE OF BRANCH
By throwing the stones with the string at each individual branch, we were able to find the exact
height of each branch in the Robinia Pseudoacacia tree.
The idea in the end is to check the measurements that we gathered with both methods and make an average. We think that using two methods and establishing a middle point is good to have a more accurate measurement of the tree.

Four pictures of the tree were taken at a distance of 10m from the center of the trunk. We could only use three of them since one of the views was blocked by the Parc de la Ciutadella perimeter gate. This pictures were inserted in AutoCAD at a scale of 1:1. A grid of 1cm by 1cm was then overlayed in this pictures to get the measurements of the tree.

Human Skin (re) inventing materiality?

Once again, during the exploration of new materials I found a very deep relation with the human body, human skin is the most complex material ever, from the point that it reacts to any change in the environment, generating physical changes and developing systems in it to protect and provide information to the body so it can generate protection systems to contra rest the outside phenomenon so it can develop in a suitable way.In the re invention of materials exists a tendency in the search of how a material can act in response to the facts that are interacting with it, replying the theory of cause and effect.This new materials are called response materials, sensitile is an example of this kind of materials it made out of hundreds of light guides carved into a transparent block of acrylic polymer to create each tile. Together, these fiber-optic elements shine and sparkle in response to moving light and shadow it also picks up and disperses nearby colors. The human skin reaction when it’s exposed to sunlight it develop a change of color to protect the body, so the material is not protecting anything at all but it generate some changes out of the interaction with light as the human skin does.Blab Italia has design some tiles called living surfaces developed in two different materials glass and floor tiles made out of layers of acrylic and magnetic particles, so with people interaction the tiles generate physical changes, but some how the changes we get to see in this response material hark back skin’s reactions to cold or hot objects or different climates.As well The Living Company create systems and materials that can perform out of the interaction with people and they recently design a system called kinetic glass that response to external particulars made out of a series microprocessors that react to unhealthy earth, generating a physical deformation of the glass.Besides this architectural materials in robotics, Takao Someya Group developed a synthetic "skin" that is almost as sensitive as our own skin in terms of temperature and humidity, in addition they are trying to make it elastic like skin. Another synthetic skin in the works by Scott White and team is a self-healing material.Consequently the group of all this materials in one indicate us that the researchers and developers of new materials is to redesign a new skin that can have as much as function, volume and color changes, flexibility, malleability, self healing, like the human skin in order to provide to architecture and design in general, the possibility to generate intelligent objects that can response to the phenomenon they are exposed to and at the same time objects that can work together with the environment for the good of our planet in terms of sustainability.

Complex Geometries and our body

Architecture is inevitably concerning associations. Many of those associations are geometric in nature or body where we can find a geometric expression.When we think complex geometries it easy to conclude that the human being is searching for this phenomenon naturally in the way that we live in a constant relationship with the most complex structure ever developed, the human body. Architecture is a visual art in which we experience three dimensional spaces. The art of a building is foremost concerned with form and with dividing and articulating space. A building should express their uniqueness and bring order and relation to its surrounding environment. As an example of what we mean, the D-tower is an articulate hybrid of diverse media, where architecture is a fraction of a well-built interactive organism a perfect analogy of the human body. The building is designed by NOX, where standard and non-standard geometries together make up a complex surface (computer generated) this surface is very similar to a body part, a heart constitution. In a diferent perspective I can look to a house like the human body, occupies a space but with occupants and time it will become a place. The visual beauty includes lines, shapes, and colours. Colour is used to accentuate its form and the material it is made from, as well as distinguishing its divisions of space. Rooms which are shaped differently with different materials reflect different qualities. We express feelings from an architectural form or a specific aspect of architecture. The external features of architecture communicate feelings and moods from one place to another. Our emotional feelings toward where we live can be incorporated in our architecture interacting with the environment. The awareness of our bodies can be related to the place where we live. There is a comparison of our bodies to our home.

Ted, ideas worth spreading

TED is a sort of worldwide community of exchange of facts and ideas. I found the main concept interesting, and there’s apparently a selection of ideas based on their merit, and also their innovative information. It has an attractive design, user friendly, where you can find everything organised.I think Tedblog is a great way for thinkers to recognize each other’s efforts, and organize blog posts around important topics, and improve the overall level of conversation in the blogosphere. The post’s come in edited “editions”, just like magazines or journals. The fact that these posts are edited (and usually annotated)collections of links lets them serve as “magazines” within the blogosphere, and organised in themes can earn their readership by providing high quality collections.Since the information on this blog includes lots of posts on specific topics, they also serve as a place to connect with those who are expert (or at least highly opinionated!) and those who are interested in those specific fields or just curious about it.

Robotecture

Robotecture is a weblog about the emerging practice within architecture that aims to merge the digital virtual with tangible and physical spatial experience, “focus of this blog is how interactive architecture can serve as a means for designing and building environments that address human communications in entirely new ways”.With a very focused reporting on what could be easily identified as interactive architecture, interactive installations for large scale architectural projects, focus to include interactive furniture, experimental projects at universities and research groups, and interesting new materials that I believe will transform how we apply technology into the built environment.I’ve read here extremely interesting aspects of interactive architecture because increasingly this technology is becoming invisible to the naked eye. There is a couple of articles that I really loved and fulfilled my own curiosity in potential of interactive architecture.As a whole I find projects that suggest a future where integration of digital systems into the fabric of the built environment, rather than having computers as distinct objects embody what interactive architecture is about. Hopefully this will enable people to move around and interact with computers more naturally than they currently do.