ARCHITECTURE DESIGN STUDIO AIR

JOURNAL

DEGUO HOU (JACK)387313

I’m going to talk about two architects in the jour-nal, one is my favourite architect Zaha Hadid, and another architect is Mario Botta. Before I’m moving any further, I’m going to explore my interest of design, that is light and views. Mario botta said before: “Light generates space: with-out light, space does not exist. “ And what he says had a huge impact on my design concept, and leads me to a new direction. No matter the light is natural light or an internal light, they all allowed our eyes to see things, so without light, we cannot see anything. So in the architec-ture sense, if there is no openings on the wall to bring the nature light into the room, it’s very hard for us to identify the spaces, the size of the space, and the function of the space.

Mario botta used his own way to bring the nature light into the room, he like to create openings on the wall, so in his design of single- family house Ligornetto, he used skylight, zenithal light, loggia light and big openings on the wall to illuminate the house. He believed that “The sun is a rich source of light for the illumination of forms and spaces in architecture.” And also, he brings dif-ferent amount of light into the different function room by creating different size of the openings. So you could see that there are many different size of square openings on the facade, which there’s a living room behind the small open-ings and study room and kitchen with the bigger openings.

This work here did by Zaha Hadid Architects in London. The design seeks to respond to and manipulate daylight and views. Its form is composed of interwoven planes that respect neighbours’ need for access to natural light, controlling light and views between the inte-rior and exterior.

The views of the surrounding environment plays an important role in my design concept, which I think the building is not just a building, it has some relationships (physically and visu-ally) with its surrounding environment. So that I always try to bring the nature views into my project design, and I also try to establish the physically relationship with the site, either by build contrast to the site or follow it.

This is my latest studio work, inspired from Mario Botta. In this project, I further ex-plored the idea of light and views. I created many openings on the wall, designed a enclose ramp in the air to take the water view above, etc. Moreover, something has to talk about here is that the whole design were effect by the computer programming. Simply, I start with playing with 3d modelling in sketch up, then back to plan, section and other architecture drawings. This is something different to what Botta did in his design process, and maybe more closer to the Zaha, which I think is a good thing, because by playing with a 3d model, we can quickly create some interesting form and then add something even more interesting staff on top of it, and we can easily make changes in the design. Moreover, we can see the rendering of our project.

Boxel Pavilion

This is the school project in Germany, the project itself is an experimental pavilion designed and built by using a parametric design skill. The pavilion has the shape of a minimal surface and it has been built with more than 2000 beer boxes placed all over the surface form.As computers are surely the best things in the world for algorithms, thus, parametric design become very interesting as they can allow the designer to reach the level of complexity. Since the computational methods were involved in architecture design process, the new possibilities and challenges were occurs. Digital tools and techniques, such as twisting, lofting, knotting and framing were used systematically to explore spatial, structural and geometrical conditions.

Canton Tower

Canton Tower is an observation tower in Guangzhou, it is the tallest structure in China, 600 me-ters tall, and it is the fourth- tallest freestanding structure in the world. The design idea is simple; it’s generated by two ellipses, and then rotated relative to each other. The tower was designed by information based architecture and Arup. The Arup team led by structural engineer Prof. Dr. Joop Paul introduced near mass customisation to the joint design, in combination with paramet-ric design methods, and applied a simple structural concept of three elements: columns, rings and braces, to this more complex geometry.

Parametricism has taken us to a new region of design, especially in a large scale urbanism filed. The creation and the level of complexity have been brought to a new level. Generally, with para-metric design, there are more and more ideas can be reaching and brings the new development of design ideas, structures to the future.

UK Pavilion

The theme of the Expo is “Better City, Better Life” and a key client objective is for the UK Pavilion to be one of the five most popular attractions. The studio’s design has three main aims: the first is to be a pavilion whose architecture is a direct manifestation of the content it exhibits; the second is to provide significant public open space in which visitors can relax; the third is to find a simple idea that is strong enough to stand out amidst the busy-ness of the hundreds of competing pavilions. These aims are captured in two interlinked and experiential elements based around the subject of nature and cities – the Seed Cathedral, and a multi-layered landscape treatment of the 6,000sqm site. The Seed Cathedral is a 20-metre high building, constructed from 60,000 trans-parent 7.5-metre long optical strands, each of which has embedded within its tip a seed. The interior is silent and illuminated only by the daylight that has filtered past each seed through each optical hair. (Heatherwick Studio)

Shanghai Expo 2010

“Scripting Cultures investigates why design-ers choose to script. Two suggests motiva-tions: productivity and control.”

--- Mark Burry

The pavilion is a good example to show that how designers interact with scripting. Script really helps designer get more familiar with computers. With the complex seed design, script can easily groups and calculate the data, and designers could easily figure out the dimension and forms. However, there are two things needs to be considered: 1. Scripting can be found difficult to work with, and time consuming for the beginner. 2. Com-putational is all about data, the de-sign outcome is depends on the data designers put in. So sometimes the project is just a project, has very less connection to its context, as there are no kind of data has been built in. Personally, I’m very interested in UK pavilion, however, I do think the UK pavilion is just like a single block sit on the river bank, does not suit in its surroundings.