DYNAMIC MORPHOLOGIES:

Strategies for a Responsive Kinetic Architecture

UNIT C OUTLINE OXFORD BROOKES SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE
AUGUST 2013

Context
Movement Defining Cities
The movement and the response to movement through the urban spaces defines the city as an economic relationship of interactions and exchanges giving form to cities. Movement defines roads and passages between buildings forming the inviolable connections. Ancient cities are rarely planned carte blanche; they were generated out of utility and connection. Contemporary Cities around the globe are growing at incredible rates, building layers upon layers, redefining the context of the city and creating new form. The urbanity materializes from the interaction, exchange and communication, renewing and regenerating the built form. Through research in these evolving environments, the Unit studies the methodologies for examining data from urban simulation, sensing environments, and addresses kinetics in structures. Bringing together not only environmental performance but also responsive materials in activating experience and space. Morphology in architecture explores space and built form. The significance of movement in urban contexts informs the meaning of form to generate a variable architecture and urban design. The urban experience is ever evolving and transforming materially and experientially, to engage people and activities while responding to the organization of people, economies and environment.

Order and Disorder a study in motion

Unit Brief
The focus of the Unit is in researching kinetic form in architecture and exploring how movement and formal transformation impacts on the understanding of place and meaning. Movement and the depiction of motion has been a long-standing interest of art and architecture. Understanding the movement in cities has led us to insights into the organisation of urban structures and provides a basis for the design intent of modern development. Movement through public space depicted by static analysis, is now amplifying real-time information that can be employed and shaped within a design framework. Understanding the process of interpreting data and formulating a material form have now become an important strategy in architectural design. Building on the work of Andrea Branzi, Cedric Price, and the material work Musmeci and Frie Otto, the Unit will investigate the organization and limits of materials in making space and in orchestrating spatial form in architecture. The Unit looks at making architecture that is responsive, dynamic and engaging cognitive patterns, movement and gesture, and by environmental patterns that shape social organization in cities. The Unit develops parametric, kinetic design strategies that transform according to the ever-changing city stimuli to investigate a responsive architecture.

Responsive Architecture
Architecture extends beyond the object of building and focuses on the making of experience and space.

INSECT INVASION 'Form as (Dynamic) Unknown', AA Rome Visiting School 2013

The materialist approach explores the haptic, informing the making of architecture to contain space through experience. By generating and moderating information from a variety of forms, a material interface of experience and behaviour inform a kinetic way of seeing the site, and city.

Exploring Real-time Material

Computational design tools engage a methodology of design, incorporating information strategies into design that generate an architecture informing shape and structure and responding to environments. The opportunity to engage in specific design of responsive materials that read environment and habitation will enrich a new generation of study and research in architecture.

Appropriating Technology
Appropriating, adopting and altering technology from industry is a valuable technique applied to architectural design. Investigations in remote sensing and kinetics, used extensively in product development, robotics and remote sensing, for example, can be utilised to shape responsive materials or give form to urban and architectural space. Harvesting the vast amount of data that is generated from the use of devices in daily lives now becomes a rich repository of information that can be used to explore and design architecture.

While the approach to architecture focuses on the development of built form in making place and engendering design strategies, an understanding of design as research of cities and social organization, function and history must also be included in the materializing of urban form.

UNIT C AT OXFORD BROOKES:!!Strategies for a Responsive Kinetic Architecture Submitted by: Lawrence Friesen & Lorenzo Vianello August 2013

SUPPLE PAVILION, AA Sao Paulo Visiting School 2011

Unit Tutors
Lawrence Friesen - BEDs, March Lorenzo Vianello AADRL and IUAV March Ilona Hay BEDs, MArch Unit Leader Design Tutor Technical Tutor

UNIT C AT OXFORD BROOKES:!!Strategies for a Responsive Kinetic Architecture Submitted by: Lawrence Friesen & Lorenzo Vianello August 2013

Unit Schedule
Tutorials will be held twice weekly on Monday and Thursday and we will have an internal group progress presentation every second week with all participating in dialogue and criticism from the group. Throughout the term, a series of focus workshops and seminars will help to initiate the discussion of the Unit manifesto.

SEMESTER 01

Kinetic Garden
The Unit will focus on the development and exploration of dynamic forms in building environment. The title of Kinetic Garden refers to the material defining the extent of the physical world in a series of relationships that are bound together through the experience of a singular material. The distinctions of objects are defined through the interaction, ruptures and affections in the singularity of material. Engaging this position, the Unit will study the manipulations of material and light to explore the space making effects, revealed through the development of an augmented and kinetic experience in architecture. The research program will lead through the two terms with Semester 01 development of site through the investigation of material information. Drawing on the theoretical positions of significant practitioners and theorists, the students will develop a built form as a Pavilion relating the theoretical and material site. Investigations will look at an instance in the city and the dynamic relationship to the movement and ecology of cities as material to develop through design, a number of structures, pavilions, installations or machines to reveal the guiding elements of the figurative garden. Design 3 structures (pavilions) relating to dynamic relationships of materials, environment, and performance. Each of the structures will respond to the environment and be designed to relate, influence and respond to the other pavilions in the garden. Their program will be designed to explore the co-working space as an investigation of the nature of workplace and provide adaptible and changeable conditions in the function of the day. The site for the research is the courtyard sace in front of the Abercrombie building. The proposal will investigate a working alternative for the interaction of students on the campus. The development of the work in the unit is progressive through a series of workshops and seminars, which collectively inform the approach to study of urban context resulting in the development of building morphologies responding to dynamic relationships. Dynamic Morphologies Kinetic Urbanism Data Systems information generation Material/Immaterial material exploration of behavior Unmaking decoding material Making encoding form synthesis and generation

Wk 01

Sept. 23 Introduction to Dynamic MorphologiesThe title of the semester is Kinetic Garden in reflection of the materialist view of cities defined from dynamic relationships and responsive material. This becomes our starting point in the discussion of form and behavior. Architecture extends beyond the object of building and focuses on the making of experience and space. The

UNIT C AT OXFORD BROOKES:!!Strategies for a Responsive Kinetic Architecture Submitted by: Lawrence Friesen & Lorenzo Vianello August 2013

materialist approach explores the haptic, informing the making of architecture to contain space through experience. By generating and moderating information from a variety of forms, a material interface of experience and behavior inform a kinetic way of seeing the site, and city. It is the aim of this research semester to develop strategies to investigate and reveal in an urban context, the relation of dynamic forces that help to define material of the city. presentation of unit brief material methodology presentation of tutors roles and go-tos for information site and project objectives, Sept 27

WS/Seminar 1 Data Systems research through design. Kinetic Garden

The project seminar brief and the brief of the first semester centers on intervention informing public spaces in cities and the role of architecture to interact and enhance urban environments. Cities are in a state of motion; they embody movement and are shaped by movement. Cities also move materially; always changing and evolving as the material responds to forces and change. Ideas that have shaped cities have also been affected by motion, information and the access to reading data shapes our cities in the social organization and movement, impacting on the use an engagement of buildings which must move in response. The research in materiality and form in response to forces as a reading of the interactive environment in formalizing the city can be researched through a number of theoretical positions which we research as the foundation of our research process. The purpose of this workshop is to develop an historical position from which to begin the research in dynamic form. From the theoretical position students will begin to develop strategies to understand and interpolate information in to an understanding of material form. Andrea Branzi - Non Stop City Cedric Price - Fun palace, Cybernetic Place Archigram City Redefined changing flexible city Superstudio Data City Chora dynamic mapping Smart City SENSEable City Lab, MIT In response to the seminar we will begin to understand how architecture may appropriate and respond to information to inform site and analysis and understand how they can be represented. Reading resource list: TBC

Wk 02
Sept 30 Studio (Student Forums 9:00) Oct 3.

WS/Seminar 2 Material/Immaterial group research

We will research the proposition of material interaction and displacement to look at how information becomes a key influence in shaping affections and material. The research in building and form generate potential sites and functions that engage with the dynamic city and propose a building form though material exploration. Exploring the work of Frie Otto, Gaudi, Dieste who investigated the form of making, we will use techniques to unlock the form making potential of materials. Material Investigation Testing and Assembly

Wk 03

Oct 7 Studio /Review

UNIT C AT OXFORD BROOKES:!!Strategies for a Responsive Kinetic Architecture Submitted by: Lawrence Friesen & Lorenzo Vianello August 2013

Presentation from works to discover the approaches to material and materiality -discussion drawing and representation. Developing a means to communicate complexity. Oct 10

WS/ Seminar 3 UnMaking Decoding Material

The workshop is designed to initiate an understanding of material and making. Through the research in materials, students will begin to explore and understand the behavior associated with assembly and making. As materials are stretched, compressed shaped or assembled their properties change. Some become stronger, others gain strength through geometry. This workshop is to explore and decode how materials behave and decode methodically the process for making built form. material play and form making analysis of behavior and dependencies

Wk 04

Oct 14 Studio Oct 17 Studio

Wk 05
Oct 21 Studio /Review (Design Tutors meeting 1:00) Oct 22 Construction Presentations Oct 24 Studio

WS/ Seminar 4 Making Encoding Material

In this section we will investigate the built form by approaching a design strategy based on the previous material research to design a pavilion structure. Architecture is about making and building, assembling components and researching material and space. Dynamic morphologies suggest a way of understanding space and architecture in motion. Synthesis and Generation - working through the previous seminars, adopt a system for making. The system you adopt will be a machine for making. This is a process for designing using computational methodologies Develop a building form responding to a theoretical site to test the formal relationships to city and place Using a system of relationships, explore the kinetic changeable and evolving relationship of site and context to define and give form to design intent. Oct 25 Dissertation Synopsis Submission

Wk 06

Oct 28 Studio Oct 31 Review interim crit (Project Review in Selected Offices)

Wk 07
Nov 4 Studio Nov 7 Studio

Wk 08

Nov 11 Studio /Review Nov 14 Studio (3rd yr technology submission course)

Wk 09
Nov 18 Studio Nov 21 (yr 2 Crits) Invited crits for unit

Wk 10

UNIT C AT OXFORD BROOKES:!!Strategies for a Responsive Kinetic Architecture Submitted by: Lawrence Friesen & Lorenzo Vianello August 2013

Nov 25 (yr 3 Crits) Invited crits for unit Nov 28

Wk 11

Dec 2 (Pre-Portfolio Review) Dec 5 (Pre-Portfolio Review) Dec 9 (Design Tutors) Portfolio Cross Crit yr2 Dec 12 (Design Tutors) Portfolio Cross Crit yr3

Wk 12

Winter Break

UNIT C AT OXFORD BROOKES:!!Strategies for a Responsive Kinetic Architecture Submitted by: Lawrence Friesen & Lorenzo Vianello August 2013

SEMESTER 02

Responsive Dream
Building on the work of the first Semester, The Semester 02 will focus the skills and techniques of reading dynamics from site and develop a program and building form in response to a site in Rome, Italy. The Project is based on the work of the first semester now extending the process to investigate the development of a significant structure and with a program of cultural gathering space in the context of Rome and the environs. The project is intended to challenge the ideas of city and the space of buildings. The site will be in Rome but will deal with the diverse urban growth and the influences that have given it the current form. The methodology will focus the earlier material workshops from the first term to be implemented and tested in a real context of the site. The material research is seen as machining pavilions to give the impetus for defining relationships for the design of building. The term will start with a site visit to Rome and advanced technologies workshop. Form as Dynamic -workshop and site visit. Studying Rome Systems and Analysis- form and design from simulation and data responsive materials Machine and Making material Fabrication Drawing and Representation - a look at representation and communication in architecture.

Wk -01
Jan 14 Advance Dissertation / Technical A Submission Jan 15

WS/ Seminar 5 Form as Unknown. Workshop Rome, site research visit

Advanced coding parametric tools

Wk 00

Jan 23 term start

WS/ Seminar 6 Dynamic Morphologies Kinetic Urbanism Data Systems Design Project Brief,
On a site in Rome, examining the converging layers of history and everyday the project deals with the expanding urbanism and connectivity, linking the growing and fragmented desperate organizations of the ancient and modern city. Jan 22 Technical Submission A Jan 23 Dissertation Submission

Wk 01
Jan 27 10am studio Jan 30 Studio

Wk 02

Feb 3

WS/ Seminar 7 System of Analysis,

UNIT C AT OXFORD BROOKES:!!Strategies for a Responsive Kinetic Architecture Submitted by: Lawrence Friesen & Lorenzo Vianello August 2013

This seminar focuses on the techniques of Analysis and data informing building structure and form. By engaging tools to analyze structure, environment, the information for building strategies becomes more integrated in design process. Working through the design agenda students will develop the design process and structure of building in response to the analysis of environment, structure and context strategy. Feb 6 Studio

Wk 03

Feb 10 ( External Examiners Briefing) Feb 13 ( Tech Submission B yr2)

WS/ Seminar 8 Machining/Making

Through the design program this seminar looks at strategies for realizing structures at building scale. The workshop will investigate the design strategy and look at ways of realizing the built form and propose solutions that are significant to the realization of part of the building program. This workshop will form a significant part of the technical submission linked to the design brief for yr3

Wk 04
Feb 17 Studio Feb 20 Studio/Review

Wk 05

Feb 24 Studio Feb 27

WS/ Seminar 9 Drawing and Representation,

This seminar looks at the development of drawing communication and the methods of representation in Architecture. Students will examine various methods and develop techniques on represention for the final submission and portfolio submissions.

Wk 06
Mar 3 studio/ Review Mar 6 Studio

Wk 07

Mar 10 Studio (technology review yr2) Mar 13 Studio (technology review yr2)

Wk 08
Mar17 Studio/Review Mar 20 Studio

Wk 09

Mar 24 Mar 27

(Cross Unit Crit Yr 2) (Cross Unit Crit Yr 3)

Wk 10
Mar 31 Studio

UNIT C AT OXFORD BROOKES:!!Strategies for a Responsive Kinetic Architecture Submitted by: Lawrence Friesen & Lorenzo Vianello August 2013

April 03 Studio Pre portfolio submission Review

Break Easter Wk 11
Apr 23 Studio/Review (Technical Submission 3rd yr ) Apr 24 Studio

Wk 12
Apr 28 Studio May 01 Studio

Wk 13

May 05 Studio May 07 Portfolio Submission and Cross Mark Yr2 May 08 Portfolio Submission and Cross Mark Yr 3

Wk14

Cross Unit Sampling

May 13 May 14 May 15 9:00 UL send assessment sheets to year 2/3 coordinators External Examiners External Examiners

Wk 15

End of Term Exhibition

UNIT C AT OXFORD BROOKES:!!Strategies for a Responsive Kinetic Architecture Submitted by: Lawrence Friesen & Lorenzo Vianello August 2013

Rome visiting school student work

UNIT C AT OXFORD BROOKES:!!Strategies for a Responsive Kinetic Architecture Submitted by: Lawrence Friesen & Lorenzo Vianello August 2013