wip 04-10: architecture

Showing posts with label architecture. Show all posts

2010-10-11

housing for dummies

2010-04-30

COURT*CIRCUIT. Steel Competition

Concours Acier 2010. The brief asks for a steel pavillion to host a post diploma specialization unit in architecture/engineering. Our answer tries to combine a great simplicity in terms of design process and spatial organisation so to focus the (at)tension on the parametric structure.
[Team project with Nicolas Thomelin]

model

2010-03-28

affettati e diagrammi - (notes for an automatic model slicer)

how about an automatic model slicer for analysis, compare... ? working on a clean gh definition... should release 0.1 version soon...

It makes me wonder... what if we would generate a live-version of classic diagram book "Precedents in architecture, Analytical diagrams, formative ideas and parts" by Roger H. Clark and Michael Pause ? (That book can be previewed here)

As the on-going reflexion on diagrams continues to extend some sort of hegemony over the architectural field in the recent years, I would also like to share a recent, and somehow more critical resource : Mark Garcia's collective book "Diagrams of architecture" + the very stimulating AA school conference (03/05/10) which can be watched here).

I would finish this inexpectedly long post by quoting Reiser+Umemoto (Atlas of novel tectonics, Princeton Architectural Press, New-York, 2006, p.114 :

"The Diagram [...]

Material organizations at the macro scale must of necessity be modelled in order to predict or track changes to their behavior. Thus an analog connection must be made to microscale. Macro-organizations of material behavior can be approximated at smaller scales, but adjustments are necessary as the system becomes rendered in a more intensive or extensive model. For instance, a model airplane cannot be exactly scaled down and expected to operate in flight, because the behavior of airflow and lift is not consistent at the smaller scale. For this reason, operable model airplanes must undergo deformation in the wing according to a coefficient of scale dictated by a dimensionless parameter known as the Reynold's Number."

2009-06-29

"MatMax" - Algeco competition 2009

"Models are real" says Olafur Eliasson (in a much more interesting sense...). Well then, in order to test and demonstrate the flexibility and efficiency of our solution for an elementary school using Algeco's modular system, we found only a model would bring synthetic answers (scale 1:50). This was our first attempt to fast'n (not so) dirty match a competition's brief : at once, testing, correcting and representing the actual state of our experimentations without worrying about (other kinds of) drafts. Drafts are real too, I guess.

[Team project with Nicolas Thomelin]
"MatMax" has been selected to be published.

2009-06-02

diplo_ model1

diplo-model0

2009-04-27

Algeco competition

Awaiting results of the 2009 Algeco competition / should be in may... I will then post pics from the freshest, nicest, most playfull, colourfull model ever made and seen (by my partner and I).

Montparnasse. A laboratory for urban (hyper)density.

Density was the main subject of this workshop proposed by architects Philippe Gazeau and Stéphane Maupin at ENSAPVS (Paris 2008-2009), with the belief it could be a tool for urban renewal or transformation. Even an already dense city like Paris would benefit, even need, an increase of its population within its limits in order to oppose the rather deadly but very real tendances of museification, and urban sprawl. Evidently however, this approach is not about letting everybody build higher all over the place. The area of study had then to be carefully chosen: we went on working on the site of Montparnasse.
We tried not to think too much about what would be harmful for the existing city in such a dramatic increase of the density or what form should it take, but precisely on the opposite: what could it allow? How does the city benefits from the insertion of high-rise or mega-buildings?

Each of our buildings hosts altogether a major equipment, such as a sports field, swimming-pool, library… and particular housing / offices directly in contact with it. We seek good couples to ensure that everybody benefits from the major porosity between the city and the equipment, and then between the equipment and its more private extension.