MESNE | Research

protoFormations – Investigations into behavioural design systems

Teaching

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May 19, 2010 1
Advanced Architecture Masters Elective
RMIT, Melbourne 2010

Louis Kahn famously asked the brick what it wants to become, with the brick responding ‘an arch’.

This seminar explores the creative potential of dynamic and emergent phenomena through the use of a range of algorithmic strategies using the Processing scripting platform. By engaging generative algorithmic design techniques we aim towards a new understanding of formalness; as a higher-order of complexity premised on the specific encoding of low-level design intentions, rules, relationships and behaviours of self-organising systems. This seminar will explore how design intentions and strategies can be embedded deep within the formation of design, and how, through a set of local interactions, systemic geometries, aggregations and orders can emerge. The seminar will introduce concepts and design techniques that students will expand upon in the development of a coherent design methodology. Based on this understanding, we will challenge traditional perceptions of the object and will posit an open framework for thinking about design as a method for accumulating different possibilities into figures of order and shape.

“MATTER can no longer be seen as passive and ‘dead.’ It can sense and respond, in unpredictable ways, to its own condition and to external influence. The intimacy of the interaction of material with these fields is forcing a revision of the conception of matter and form as a separable duality.” (Tim Jachna, 1995)

Seminar Leaders

Tim Schork, SIAL | MESNE Design Studio
Iain Maxwell, supermanoeuvre

FORMAT

Phase 01

Phase 01 is run as a one week intensive scripting workshop, in which we will introduce you to a range of computational design strategies and behavioural systems (eg. agent-based systems, fibre systems, substitutional systems), using the open-source programming framework Processing.

The culmination of the Phase 01 will be the development of prototypical design systems that are capable of proliferation, adaption and interaction.

Phase 02

In this phase individual teams will develop their prototypical systems from Phase 01 into highly specific design models toward the realisation of ‘Lace’ prototypes. The final presentation format will be in form of an exhibition held at RMIT.

OUTCOMES

Students will revisit the intricate iron lacework typical to the facades and balustrades of Victorian Melbourne. In harnessing algorithmic methodologies, we will seek not only an extension of the existent catalogue of formal character evidenced by this period, but also speculate on a broader implementation of ‘lace’ through multiple architectural intentions that operate across the spectrum of spatial, programmatic, structural, material and ornamental strategies. In understanding ‘lace’ as an abstract formative principle, form is understood as the ordering actions of formation, a particular logic that is deployed, and the object as a manifest variation or expression of this logic. Thus formalness is not a latent property of individual entities, but the result of a collective behavioural event.

In addition to creating elegant, provocative and convincing designs, the three best projects will be given the opportunity to submit their work to The Powerhouse International Lace Award. This may result in showcasing your work in an international design exhibition, getting it judged by an international panel and winning $4000 prize money.

Note

Previous scripting experience is welcomed but is NOT a prerequisite for participating in this workshop. This seminar suits students who love to experiment and have good CAD and 3D modelling skills.

Resources

PROCESSING LINKS

COMPUTATION (general)

PROJECT RELATED REFERENCES

READING LIST

  • Informal. Cecil Balmond.
  • The Function of Ornament. Ed. Fashid Moussavi.
  • Architextiles AD. Edited by Mark Garcia
  • An Evolutionary Architecture. John Frazer (1995). Online HERE
  • Stan Allen (1997) From Object to Field, Architecture After Geometry, Donald Bates and Peter Davidson (guest editors), Architectural Design, Vol 67, No 5/6, pp 24-31
  • How Do Simple Programs Behave. Stephen Wolfram. Online HERE
  • ‘Tooling’, Pamphlet Architecture Series #27. Aranda + Lasch (2006).
  • Casey Reas | Process
  • Emergence: the connected lives of ants, brains, cities, and software. Steven Johnson (2002)
  • Who’s Afraid of Formalism In “Phylogenesis: FOA’s Ark”. Sanford Kwinter (2004).

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