Arjen Mulder

Lars Spuybroek

Detlef Mertins

Frei Otto Gottfried SemperManuel DeLanda

Brian Massumi

Andrew Benjamin

CHRONOLOGY

Institute for Lightweight Structures IL 9 – Pneus in Nature and Technics IL 33 – Radiolaria IL 35 – Pneus and Bone

The Structure of VaguenessMachining Architecture

352 6

The Object of Interactivity

Materiality: Anexact and Intense

Building Experience

Bioconstructivisms

The Surfacing of Walls

NOX FLURBS

FACES

De Gothic Stijl

Flying Attic

c

wetGRID

H2Oexpo

blowout

V2_Lab/V2_façade

Goes goes obliqueWTC

The Future Is Now

Soft Office

Maison Folie

FEDUROK

ECB

Pompidou TwoGalerie der Forschung

SoftSite

Tommy

Soft City

Son-O-House, a house where sounds live

D-tower

La Tana di Alice

FOAM HOME

Students

"beachness"

ParisBRAIN

OffTheRoad_5speed

Students

ANALOGUE COMPUTING

CONFIGURATIONALISM

architecture

researchart

buildingsexhibitions

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216

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280

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18

46

80

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106

198

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268

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14

370

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2

Son-O-House

1

Son-O-House, a house where sounds livepublic artwork for Industrieschap Ekkersrijt,

in collaboration with composer Edwin van der Heide Son en Breugel, The Netherlands, 2000–2004

The Son-O-House is one of our typical art projects whichallow us to proceed more carefully and slowly (over aperiod of three to four years) while generating a lot ofknowledge that we apply to larger and speedier proj-ects. Son-O-House is what we call ‘a house where soundslive,’ not being a ‘real’ house, but a structure that refersto living and the bodily movements that accompanyhabit and habitation. In the Son-O-House a sound workis continuously generating new sound patterns activat-ed by sensors picking up actual movements of visitors.

Along the highway between Son en Breugel and Eindhoven situates a largeindustrial park with a special quarter reserved for companies from the IT andnew-media industry. The artwork’s role is for strengthening the identity of thearea, not only as a technological statement but also as a social space wherepeople can organize informal meetings, relax during lunch hours or just enjoy itsbeauty. The structure is both an architectural and a sound installation thatallows people to not just hear sound in a musical structure, but also to partici-pate in the composition of the sound. It is an instrument, score and studio at thesame time.

The structure is derived from typical action-landscapes that developin a house: a fabric of larger scale bodily movements in a corridor or room,together with smaller scale movements around a sink or a drawer. This care-fully choreographed set of movements of bodies, limbs and hands are inscribedon paper bands as cuts (an uncut area corresponds with the bodily movement,a first cut through the middle corresponds with limbs, and finer cuts correspondwith movements of the hands and feet). We staple the pre-informed paperbands together at the point where they have the most connective potential andas a result curvature emerges. The outcome is an arabesque of complex inter-twining lines (white paper model) that is both a reading of movements on var-ious bodily scales and a material structure since the paper curves stand uprightin cooperation with each other. We only have to sweep these lines sideways to

First we set up a camera to record bodily movements

in home-situations. Then the computer analyzes the

images for movement by comparing movie frames.

The software is drawing contours around each pack-

age of changing pixels. If we place cameras at differ-

ent key positions in a house one can see that move-

ments are actually complex structures of three coop-

erating scales: body, limbs and extremities. When we

put the frame-contours one after another these differ-

ent scales of movement become very apparent.

This kind of ‘kinetogram shows much more

of the intensity of movement than my stan-

dard motion diagram with rubbery lines.

3

Normally the kinetograms would be mapped onto a plan and then extruded ver-

tically into a structure. Here we choose to map the movements onto paper ele-

ments that are more abstract because they still have the potential of becoming

either a floor-element or a wall-element or both. The paper was either uncut

(body), cut in half (limbs) or cut in half again (hand or feet) to indicate the

body’s coordination of movements.

marry the open structure of lines with the closed surface of the ground. Thisresults again in a three-dimensional porous structure (purple paper model)which is very similar to the structure that is obtained by the combing, curlingand parting of hair. We digitize this paper analog-computing model and remod-el it into the final structure of interlacing vaults which sometimes lean on eachother or sometimes cut into each other.

In the house-that-is-not-a-house we position 23 sensors at strategicspots to indirectly influence the music. This system of sounds, composed andprogrammed by sound artist Edwin van der Heide, is based on moiré effects ofinterference of closely related frequencies. As a visitor one does not influencethe sound directly, which is so often the case with interactive art. One influencesthe real-time composition itself that generates the sounds. The score is an evo-lutionary memoryscape that develops with the traced behavior of the actualbodies in the space.

The paper strips all have cuts of different

lengths, and are stapled together at the point

where they are cut. This directly results in a

curvature effect: while stapling the points sys-

tematically together the whole curls up by

itself. The system consisting of multiple curves

on different scales should actually be read as

a complex of ribs or arches, where the arches

have the progressive sizes of a drawer, a bed,

a room and a house.

Something really fundamental seems to take place here.If we would follow Gottfried Semper’s architecturalorder, which goes from A. plan-foundation to B. corner-columns to C. wall-textile and finally to D. hearth, that isgoing from action to construction to perception, andfinally to sensation, we see a reversal here: starting withthe soft (textile or paper) that hardens out by teaming upwith other soft elements into a rigid whole. Tectonicsemerges out of weaving and interlacing.

p 141p 216p 246p 260

final paper model

87The final analog-computing model. The white paper arabesque is extended side-

ways by purple paper bands according to a tiny algorithm: the lines sweep out

sideways following the initial direction of the white paper but trying to connect as

quick as possible to another surface. This means that sometimes the lines that start

out quite vertical need some length to come to the ground, while sometimes it finds

another surface immediately and stops. This results in a structure that both closes

and tears open, similar to the combing of hair with curls. The final digital version

differs from the analog one especially at the ends, where a re-combing of the curls

produces four ducktails.

top view

9

Structurally the Son-O-House should not just

be seen as a complex set of vaults intersect-

ing. Actually the surfaces of the shells on top

of the structure have a different curvature

than the more linear elements towards the

tips close to the ground. The tearing does not

only allow for access, but also for structural

integrity. The curvature increases towards the

ends transforming the shell into a beam,

transforming a surface into a line.

Opting for an epoxy surface would probably have allowed for a full surface structure like

D-tower, but here we chose perforated stainless steel for its reversal of reflection and

transparency. The stainless-steel mesh is applied on a diagrid structure made from

plasma-cut stainless-steel ribs that are welded at each slotted joint.

longitudinal section

lateral section

12

All parts that make up Son-O-House are flat: the outer surface is

made of flat strips of expanded stainless steel, and the substructure

is made of intersecting ribs of flat stainless steel. Moreover, all

curves of the ribs actually fit in 21 rectangular plates of six by two

meters of stainless-steel plates with a one-centimeter thickness.

13 14

joint crack

double curvature with similar curves

closed hexagon open hexagon

double curvature with dissimilar curves

For larger buildings we will of course not be able to use this

labor intensive technique to cover the surface. One could only

use pre-cut panels. In that case we would need to be able to

cover the surface of a digital 3D model with a self-organiz-

ing pattern following the same rules as the hand laborers did

with Son-O-House

For the steel contractor we made a model and a brochure with

rules and tips, but no drawing. The surface has an ‘emergent

pattern’ and no predetermined lay-out, since everything

depends on the position of the first strip, where the other strips

follow according to the closed-hexagon-or-open-hexagon rule.

There are 1,000 strips cut to two meters length and 17 cen-

timeters width. The first 50% of the surface is covered with an

untreated strip, the next 45% of the surface is covered with strips

that are hand-cut on the short end to fit (yellow dots), the last

5% is covered with strips that are cut on two or more sides (red

dots). There is no waste.

The panelization of complex double curvedsurfaces is a hugely important issue, bothesthetically and methodologically. This issue iscalled tessellation and is generally viewed asthe subdivision into or addition of tile-mod-ules. The least interesting method is triangula-tion, the subdivision of a surface into triangu-lar facets, where three points always form aflat plane. The most interesting techniques arealways based on variability, which is a ‘textile’way of thinking, where flexible bands precedethe hardened ceramic tile.

p 163p 202p 231

Though the double curved structure of Son-O-House is of a non standard geometry

the surface is covered with standardized, pre-cut strips. The strips are laid in an

algorithmic manner that ‘reads’ the geometry. When the double curvature in a cer-

tain area consists of similar curves in both directions (quasi spherical) nine strips

close into a hexagon. When the curves are too dissimilar the seventh strip ‘breaks’

away from the hexagon. This technique allows us to cover more than half of the sur-

face with pre-cut elements.

16

195

+ 1,6

+ 1,6

+ 2,0

+ 2, 0

+ 1,2

+ 1,2

+ 0,8

+ 0,8

+ 0,4

+ 0,0

+ 0,4

+ 0,0

1,02

1,43

1,26

1,22

2,02

1,37

0,97

1,77

0,800,58

0,81

1,52

1,34

0,63

0,72

1,78

1,02

1,16

1,27

1,36

1,08

1,10

1,141,15

1,24

1,17

main circulation

infra-red sensor

secondary circulation

tertiary circulation

standing

standing

interaction with hands

194

The three scales of movement that were indexed on

the paper strips clearly return in the final structure.

Some areas are accessible to the whole body, others

only to hands. As in H20expo or wetGRID the visitor

activily engages the architecture through a wide

range of postures. This is highly intensified by a real-

time calculated sound structure that interacts with

body positions and body movement through the sen-

sors placed at crucial areas.

197

There are 20 loudspeakers in Son-O-House that make up five spatial groups that all

have their own range of frequencies. These 'sound fields' each consist of four indi-

vidual speakers. The sounds produced by the speakers are programmed through a

set of rules that makes them interfere with each other. This interference of frequen-

cies creates a strong effect of movement and transformation. Either the source itself

seems to be moving, or visitors start to move to experience the patterns. This bodi-

ly movement is continuously detected by sensors. The effect of a current sound is

measured by using the sensor input and analyze the relation of one location to

another location. The results are stored in a growing data base. Previously gener-

ated sounds are re-used in the future for new combinations.

196

The Son-O-House's generative and reactive sound

environment is developed by composer Edwin van

der Heide. The sound environment creates a perma-

nent interaction between sound, architecture and

visitors. The sound influences and interferes with the

perception and the movements of the visitors. The

presence, activity and the location of the visitors is

detected by sensors placed in the building at strate-

gic positions. The reaction of the visitors in the build-

ing is being detected and quantified. The output of

this analysis is used to influence the generation of the

sound and therefore continuously challenges the vis-

itors. The result is a complex feedback system in

which the visitor becomes both a listener and a inter-

preter.