Unit Factor

Articulating Environmental Grounds

A new generation of thinking is emerging in the manipulation of ground systems that with the aid of parametrics is enabling a new level of design precision and ecological calibration. Anne Save de Beaurecueil and Franklin Lee describe how with Diploma Unit 2 at the Architectural Association in London, they are working towards their goal of fusing architecture, landscape and contemporary art through an engagement with articulated ground organisations.
Maya Carni (AA Diploma Unit 2), Amazon River Micro-Exchange and Demonstration Centre, Belm do Par, Brazil, 2007 Along the Amazon Rivers edge, tapered channels promote increased wind ventilation and are calibrated with light-reflector diffusers to cool and illuminate market halls and meeting rooms within.

architecture that emerged in the 1990s explored the manipulation of ground organisations to enable smooth flows and connections between diverse programmes and cultures. Yet to a certain extent, the physical realisation of these ground projects lacked a smallerscale, more refined resolution for other types of building performances, such as the mediation of climatic forces. With technological development, scripted parametric systems today have brought about a sophisticated level of smaller-scale precision and control to calibrate these environmental forces. However, somehow in this technological advancement, which is often characterised by a ubiquitous proliferation of components for performative roof and wall systems, the systematisation of ground has, in many cases, been largely under-emphasised. Thus, the premise of the research has been to find ways to mediate between both technological performance as well as the manipulation of grounds for social organisation. Technically, the unit has worked to merge cultural and environmental effects by negotiating between both monolithic surfaces and the articulated strategies of current component-based design. Monolithic surfaces have proven to be more effective for channelling wind and circulation, while component propagation is highly instrumental in sunlight mediation and processes of fabrication. The aim was to create multi-scalar transformations of monolithic organisations, introducing variable-component logics, while maintaining some of the fluidity of continuous-surface design strategies. Articulating Edges Articulated ground organisations have been used to create new connectivity at impermeable edge conditions. The Shell Diffusion project by Suyeon Song created a cultural complex employing an inhabitable ground-bridge network to reactivate the isolated cultural campus of the existing Oscar Niemeyer Ibirapuera Park in So Paulo, Brazil. The project made micro-mediations of macro organisations by transforming the raised shell-structure type. This methodology negotiated between smooth surfaces, to create new accessibility for pedestrians, as well as iterative component strategies, to create a new accessibility for diffused light and natural ventilation. Also bridging between the existing buildings of the Ibirapuera Park, the Climatic Curves project by Yoon Han created a dialogue between componentry and circulation with a multiple-bridge network structure that modulated sunlight and ventilation and housed supplementary museum programmes. Addressing the more extreme environmental and social problems at the gateway of the Amazon Forest, Maya Carnis Micro-Exchange and Demonstration Centre along the Amazon Rivers edge in Belm de Par, Brazil, created a complex to facilitate an alternative economy between indigenous producers of sustainable rainforest products and foreign investors, so as to counter deforestation. Calibrated with differentiated membrane light reflectors, tapering channels induced natural wind ventilation, as well as the movement of pedestrian and economic flows.

Yoon Han (AA Diploma Unit 2), Climatic Curves, Ibirapuera Park, So Paulo, Brazil, 2008 A proliferation of folded-baffle components are defined by different plays of tension and compression, creating different degrees of aperture, baffle depth and their corresponding environmental effects, as well as varying degrees of overall arching curvature that structure the bridge formation.

Suyeon Song (AA Diploma Unit 2), Shell Diffusions, Ibirapuera Park, So Paulo, Brazil, 2008 A multiple-scaled corrugated ground system diffuses light, ventilation and pedestrian flows as it connects across the highway separating the two sides of the park.

The research conducted by Diploma Unit 2 at the Architectural Association (AA) School of Architecture has focused on the mediation of both environmental and cultural flows, which involved defining a new aesthetic and social agenda for conventional ecological design strategies. The unit has worked not only on designing environmental mitigation systems, but on also synchronising these with programme-circulation organisations, or ground systems, to alleviate the climatic, circulatory and social stagnation that afflicts many global cities. The goal has been to create a fusion between architecture, infrastructure, landscape and contemporary art, by articulating ground systems to mediate climatic forces, in the creation of an environmental flow choreography. Influenced by the philosophical framework established by designers such as Oscar Niemeyer, the topological

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Arthur Mamou-Mani (AA Diploma Unit 2), LightGround Transformations of the Headquarters Communist Party, Paris, France, 2008 Curving, delaminating ground and component systems create a new accessibility for public programmes and calibrated lighting effects.

Emmanouil Matsis (AA Diploma Unit 2), Articulated Residual System, Ibirapuera Park, So Paulo, Brazil, 2008 Sculpted ground and bridging connections diffuse sound and light for a system of open market-gallery paths between the residual spaces of the park.

Asako Hayashi (AA Diploma Unit 2), Double Ground-Double Skin Museum Interface, Ibirapuera Park, So Paulo, Brazil, 2008 The existing Niemeyer Department of Transportation is transformed with a new climatic buffer zone that mediates reflected light and gallery sequences.

Articulating Monoliths New cultural and environmental accessibility was created in the articulation of monolithic ground constructs. Arthur Mamou-Manis Light-Ground Transformations of the Partie Communiste Headquarters project in Paris achieved this through the introduction of a building extension to hold new public programmes, mediated by a new environmental component system. To counter the tyrannical image of the partys headquarters, the new complex would embody a fluid, decentralised design open to mediated flows of capital and climate by rigorously calibrating and diffusing their effects. In a similar fashion, Ying Wangs Porosity Generator for a Walled City project in Xian, China, uses circulatory and climatic mediators to dissipate the citys fortress walls. Tectonically, this new museum project redefined the monolithic wall and threshold gateway types by transforming them into a meandering ramping system, bringing a new porosity for pedestrian and environmental flows. Finally, Asako Hayashis Double Ground-Double Skin Museum Interface project brings new circulatory and ecological performances to Oscar Niemeyers Department of Transportation Hall in the Ibirapuera Park. A double skin was scripted to respond parametrically to the influences of the sun, and to support a new path system that was interconnected with a double-ground pedestrian bridge.

Charlotte Thomas (AA Diploma Unit 2), Vascular Attraction Mediators, Ibirapuera Park, So Paulo, Brazil, 2008 Attraction scripts synchronise wind, light and circulation flows in bundled vertical shafts for a series of interconnected gallery follies.

Ying Wang (AA Diploma Unit 2), Porosity Generator for a Walled City, Xian, China, 2008 Multiple-ramp systems produce a new circulatory and environmental porosity for the Fortress Wall condition.

Articulation Fields Macro-scaled field conditions have been re-activated by new micro-ground systems. The Vascular Attraction Mediator project by Charlotte Thomas employed multiplescale attraction field scripting to synchronise the ornamental movement of both cultural and environmental flows for a series of gallery follies in the Ibirapuera Park. In critique of the large-scale, monolithic Expo halls, smaller-scale bundles of vertical channels were aligned to the attraction agents of prevailing sun, wind and circulation flows. These channels served as ventilation air shafts, light-diffusion chimneys and spiralling ramped galleries to create a dialogue between art and the external environment. Also distributed across the park, the Articulated Residual System project by Emmanouil Matsis reorganised the isolated residual spaces between the buildings into a flexible open-market framework. This was achieved by sculpting bermed and bridging ground connections, which were further calibrated with component structures, creating microclimates of mediated sound, lighting and ventilation.

For different programmes and sites, the investigations of the AA Diploma Unit 2 have used an environmental articulation of ground to transform a range of urban contexts. The projects have been informed by a Brazilian cultural context that is characterised by a strong connection with nature, due perhaps to the influence of the countrys sculptural, variegated landscapes and its African and Indigenous-Indian traditions on Brazilian society. This has certainly influenced an architectural precedence for the environmental manipulation of different social-ground organisations. Overall, the projects have attempted to create a more symbiotic relationship between urban culture, environmental conditioning and the natural landscape, to bring sustainable architectural methodologies a new civic and cultural relevance. 4+
Anne Save de Beaurecueil and Franklin Lee are Diploma 2 Unit Masters at the Architectural Association (AA) School of Architecture and co-directors of the SUBdV architecture practice in So Paulo (www.subdv.com). Both have lectured and been published internationally, and their work has been shown at many international exhibitions, most recently at Raw, New Brazilian Architecture at the London Festival of Architecture 2008, and the Beijing Architectural Biennale 2008. Unit Factor is edited by Michael Weinstock, who is Academic Head and Master of Technical Studies at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. He is co-guest-editor with Michael Hensel and Achim Menges of the Emergence: Morphogenetic Design Strategies (May 2004) and Techniques and Technologies in Morphogenetic Design (March 2006) issues of Architectural Design. He is currently writing a book on the architecture of emergence for John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Text 2009 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images Diploma Unit 2 The Architectural Association School of Architecture

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