SUMMARY: The primary objective of the workshop/seminar is to develop a real scale portion of a glass/plastic interactive façade. The course examines a design workshop paradigm that tights together: 1) the culture of glass. 2) parametric design techniques, 2) 3D fabrication, 3) New materials that interplay with light.
SEMESTER LAYOUT: Each session will include a half an hour session were one topic regarding the culture (history, theory and technology) of glass will be addressed. The talk will be related with the readings required for the session. The class will be prepared to discuss the topic. The rest of the class will be dedicated to the exercises and iterative prototypes development.
SETTING: We will meet on Tuesdays in Campbell 325 from 4:00 to 6:45 p.m. On some occasions the class will meet in Campbell 105, the computer laboratory, and in Campbell 132, the CNC Fabrication Lab. We will be developing 4 prototypes in groups of three/four people. The process of production of the iterative prototypes will be evaluated as a whole. The weekly uploading of the work in the class’ Blog and the edition of a booklet by the end of the course will be required. The primary software and hardware used this term is: Generative Components and Parallax Basic Stamp Module; both will be provided by the school. Class participation will count towards 10 percent of the grade. Full attendance is expected.
TEXTS: Each day of class the instructor will send by e-mail the required readings for the following class as well as the text with the assignments due the following day of class if that is the case.
PREMISE: A new type of post-digital experimentation has called into question the "muteness and inertness" of traditional glass architecture and its transparency. We will be working on the definition of the novel “trans-apparent” condition of glass designing and building full scale envelope prototypes for a polemical urban context such as Times Square in NYC.
The following schedule is subject to revision.
January Trans-appearance
20th New Glasses. Course Overview.
Introduction. Transparency/ Trans-appearance.
Smart Materials and the Light Environment.
27th Smart Geometry.
The Metaphor of Crystal in Art and Architecture.
Generative Components hands on example: free form with hierarchical control geometry.
February Glass and the City
3rd Making Motion.
Color, Luminism & Kinetism
Prototypes proposal discussion.
Basic Stamp Micro Controller hands on examples:
Nitinol Wire and Servo.
10th Metropolis and Mental life.
Prototype: iteration 1
17th Building the Empire of the Gaze.
Prototype: iteration 2
24th Glass: From Utopia to Globalization. Curtain Wall as a Mass Media.
Prototype: iteration 3
March Functional, Phenomenal and Performative Glass
9th MID TERM REVIEW. Guest Critic: Rosa Urbano. MIT D-Lite Laboratory.
16th Glass Architecture Paradigms.
Prototype: iteration 4
23rd Glass Technologies.
Prototype: iteration 5
30th Glass and the Luminous Environment.
Prototype: iteration 6
April Functional, Phenomenal and Performative Glass
7th Phenomenology of Transparencies and Reflections.
Prototype: iteration 6
14th Interactive Glass Façades.
Prototype: iteration 6
21st Urban Mega Screens.
Prototype: iteration 6
28th Hiperreality and Transparency.
Prototype: iteration 6
May Final Prototype
5th FINAL REVIEW
domingo, 18 de enero de 2009
Course Content
UVa Spring 2009
THROUGH GLASS PARADOXES:
THROUGH GLASS PARADOXES:
TRANSPARENCY / TRANS-APPEARANCE
INSTRUCTOR: Rosana Rubio-Hernandez
“To grasp spatial relationships and orient oneself in the metropolis of today…requires a new way of seeing.” (KEPES 1944)
Premise
Recent developments in engineering at the level of optics have transformed Modern industrial glass in a multiple variety of specialized materials that reinvent light as architectural meta attribute. They explode a bigger range of optical and mechanical interplay between them, light and individuals. They have lost part of their transparent nature in favor of expanding the possibilities of thermal and visual light. They can dynamically change their levels of transmission, reflection, diffraction, translucency, transparency and opacity; they can also transform day light into electricity and even transport it, influencing the very architectural and urban features.
In the past fifteen years, as well, some of the most vibrant experiments in architecture have used computer technologies to develop new types of geometries-with curves, facets, and non-standard shapes-and to fabricate architectural elements directly from digital files without working drawings. The incorporation of feed-back systems has also gradually created totally new human environments that are not passive wrappings but active processes.
Building on these investigations, a new type of post-digital experimentation has called into question the "muteness and inertness" of traditional glass architecture and its transparency.
We will be working on the definition of the novel “trans-apparent” condition of glass designing and building full scale envelope prototypes for a polemical urban context such as Times Square in NYC.
We will be exploratory as well as critical with the technology and with the context itself, i.e. in this environment precedent glass architectures can be read as accomplices of consumerism and new glasses as definers of a commerce that is polarized in mass and elite societies. On the one hand, the hybridization of conventional glass with LCDs and LEDs, and on the other, the translucency and information encryption as common denominator of elite boutiques. Thus, we, as designers, will be arguing that there are some other opportunities for the novel glasses to perform in an urban milieu.
To contextualize and move our work we will be drawing in the culture and history of glass, delving in technological as well as in literary, artistic and architectural sources; starting in the mid-nineteen century and focusing specifically in the recent techniques, theories and practices.
Assignment
Students, working in groups of three or four, may develop a one to one prototype of a glass/plastic envelope, which responds to the urban environment in real time. The work in progress will be up-loaded weekly in the class´ blog and edited in a leaflet by the end of the course.
The process starts with a design proposal that challenge some of the disciplinary questions that the new materials and techniques trigger. Dynamic light and optical effects as spatial definers, the blurring of the boundary between ornamentation, information and publicity as well as issues of visual and haptic perception, will be taken into consideration no less than questions of comfort and sustainability, among others.
The geometry and structure of the envelope will be digitally designed and fabricated.
Students may also design the interactive performance of the construction:
Input—sensing environmental stimuli.Processing—interpreting input data.Output—correspondingly changing optical or luminous conditions in real time.
Pragmatics of this construction will include:
Research on materials: optical films and glasses, LEDs, LCDs and Solar Cells.
Research on Generative Components and Rhino scripting.
Making motion and interactivity: sensors and actuators.
The class will meet for one session each week in hands-on working sessions and will include guest lecturers and critics and discussions about the required readings. A few introductory lectures and exercises will be followed by individual designing, testing, and iterative prototyping.
In the past fifteen years, as well, some of the most vibrant experiments in architecture have used computer technologies to develop new types of geometries-with curves, facets, and non-standard shapes-and to fabricate architectural elements directly from digital files without working drawings. The incorporation of feed-back systems has also gradually created totally new human environments that are not passive wrappings but active processes.
Building on these investigations, a new type of post-digital experimentation has called into question the "muteness and inertness" of traditional glass architecture and its transparency.
We will be working on the definition of the novel “trans-apparent” condition of glass designing and building full scale envelope prototypes for a polemical urban context such as Times Square in NYC.
We will be exploratory as well as critical with the technology and with the context itself, i.e. in this environment precedent glass architectures can be read as accomplices of consumerism and new glasses as definers of a commerce that is polarized in mass and elite societies. On the one hand, the hybridization of conventional glass with LCDs and LEDs, and on the other, the translucency and information encryption as common denominator of elite boutiques. Thus, we, as designers, will be arguing that there are some other opportunities for the novel glasses to perform in an urban milieu.
To contextualize and move our work we will be drawing in the culture and history of glass, delving in technological as well as in literary, artistic and architectural sources; starting in the mid-nineteen century and focusing specifically in the recent techniques, theories and practices.
Assignment
Students, working in groups of three or four, may develop a one to one prototype of a glass/plastic envelope, which responds to the urban environment in real time. The work in progress will be up-loaded weekly in the class´ blog and edited in a leaflet by the end of the course.
The process starts with a design proposal that challenge some of the disciplinary questions that the new materials and techniques trigger. Dynamic light and optical effects as spatial definers, the blurring of the boundary between ornamentation, information and publicity as well as issues of visual and haptic perception, will be taken into consideration no less than questions of comfort and sustainability, among others.
The geometry and structure of the envelope will be digitally designed and fabricated.
Students may also design the interactive performance of the construction:
Input—sensing environmental stimuli.Processing—interpreting input data.Output—correspondingly changing optical or luminous conditions in real time.
Pragmatics of this construction will include:
Research on materials: optical films and glasses, LEDs, LCDs and Solar Cells.
Research on Generative Components and Rhino scripting.
Making motion and interactivity: sensors and actuators.
The class will meet for one session each week in hands-on working sessions and will include guest lecturers and critics and discussions about the required readings. A few introductory lectures and exercises will be followed by individual designing, testing, and iterative prototyping.
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