Brief

Using the ever-growing flow of immaterial information, sets of data, network impulses, SMS, phone calls, e-mails, and online profiles, this intensive workshop aims to develop responsive prototypical interfaces.

Participants will learn the basics of physical computing, complementary principles of sensing and actuating, and their integration into design processes. Sensors and wireless networks will be used to capture information while existing or custom-made software will be used to map, visualise and utilise data.

The resulting interfaces will interpret the data and aim to physically materialise it, either by self-actuation, or by custom additive manufacturing. The output will be subject to re-scan in order to study and implement full feedback loops.

More info to come soon . . .

Rodolfo Rodriguez tutored by Kenny Kenugasa-Tsui and Justin C K Lau from Oxford Brookes University has been selected as finalist of the RIBA Bronze Medal award. His project ‘The Glassblowing Workshop of Venice ’ was selected from submissions from over 240  School of Architecture around the world.

For more information: www.horhizonunite.blogspot.com

Student statement

During the Renaissance, glassblowing was the lifeblood of the Republic of Venice, and Venetian glass played a significant role in the economy. This meticulous craftsmanship has carried through its tradition to the present day. However, this cultural heritage is highly insular and hidden within the fabric of Venice. Hence, tourists are unable to access the knowledge of the glass masters to participate in this unique theatrical making.

The project aims to speculate and celebrate this once glorified industry that can provide a sustainable future to ‘open up’ a new era for young talents and tourists to engage this long established cultural heritage. Sited by the waterfront of Murano, the proposal provides a new home for traditional glassmakers. It consists of a large workshop, a permanent glass museum, a bio fuel farm and a new public landscape for the local community.

The research began in a hidden workshop where I learned the glass blowing techniques from a glassblowing master. This rigorously tactile process and hands on experience which later fused with digital design and synthetic aerodynamic stimulations allowed me to derive my own set of architectural tools to explore architectural skins and fluid circulation strategies.

The design of the building is embodied by a three dimensional skin which sits sympathetically within the surrounding context of the Island. The geometry of the overarching form articulates the volumetric organization of the interior spaces which offers visitors a natural instinct to navigate the building. It filters soft natural light and ventilation into the workshop and galleries as well as giving shades and shelter to the outdoor landscape. When entering into the workshop, the visitor’s senses are amplified by the heat and sound of the furnace and the visual opulence of the skin provides a ritualistic setting for the glass makers to showcasing the craftsmanship. Together, it creates a sense of up lifting spirit and optimism for the tradition.

Environmentally, the workshop revolves around a sustainable system that encompasses the production of glass through a series of sand and water filtration processes as well as utilizing the bio-fuel farm and thermal exchange to provide renewable energies for the use of the building.

Constructing Celebratory Spaces

Kenny Kinugasa- Tsui and  Justin C K Lau

Students

Joseph Chilvers , Juliet Elizabeth Burch , Matthew Joseph Gibbs , Qendrim Gjata , Helena Esther Howard , Huda Jaber , Chiok-Junn Li , Stiliyana Ilieva Minkosk, Konstantinos Papaoikonomou , Matthew Sawyer , Daniel Sweeting , Jonathan Michael Wilson , Amy Shun Ting Wong, Sarish Younis , Rodriguez Rodolfo , Oliver Beros, Eugenie Bliah , Paul Boldeanu , Elliott Cohen , Joess Avelino Gourgel Dos Santos , U Ieong To, Stephanie Forbes , Lauren Fresle , Harry John Grocott , Elizabeth Mary, Johnson , Christos Markides , David Monk Chipman Stephen , Hannah Kate Pells 

The digital experimentation of unit E focuses on a digital design methodology that is driven by the spatial, poetic and scientific investigations of botany; an ‘organic’ computational design process that is constantly fluctuating to engage with human input of personalities and designer’s emotions. The desire to flourish, manifest, festive, tribute, honour, and celebrate; creates a fertile condition for lifting spirits and constructing optimism in architecture.

‘Constructing Celebratory Spaces’ investigates the extent human beings could go to celebrate an event, and the subsequent architectural creation that facilitates such powerful forces that can ephemerally transform the city on an urban scale.

The brief aimed to define and construct spaces that reflect the incidents relating to a celebration, encouraging designed spaces for optimism, humour, colours and opulence. From these qualities emerge a fertile condition to celebrate and assemble developmental directions for human environments.
Unit E made a study trip to Venice to experience the celebratory event of the Architecture Biennale. Students were asked to analyze the way the exhibition spaces were accommodated in Giardini, Arsenale, Arsenale Corderie, and the Pavilions. Students also drew personal interpretations and stories in the city, and defined their individual sites in Venice for the main design project.

Enriched by the historical and cultural context of Venice, the main project is to design a building that would accommodate long-term spaces to house permanent inhabitation of exhibits, as well as flexible spaces to house temporary exhibitions. A primary technological concept would explore relationships formed by the cultural activities in flux, with the historical references to trading, production and scientific development to include bio-sciences, greeneries, food production, climatic ecologies, and bio-diversity, as a hybridized cross programming element to the Great Celebratory Building.

REFLEXIVE CONTINUUM

For the duration of one week a regular train wagon is transformed into a construct of animatronic virtuality. Objects are flirting with the in-between of actual and virtual – constantly shifting their position in relation to the visitor in an ever fluid continuum.

Reflexive Continuum is about the duality of actual and digital objects and their interchangeable, reactive character. Code embedded objects react to the user’s presence via approximation sensors. Interfaces create wind and continuously measure the visitor’s distance towards to object to physically change the embedded code. These interfaces are suspended from the ceiling, creating a realm of front and back side. Whereas the user finds on the one side the sensors to interact with and the screen that outputs the scenario, the camera that operates the setting reads its information from the back side. The object is rendered a semi-permeable membrane, dissolving the boundary between the physical and the digital: the immersive installation augments the digital with the physical and vice versa.

The exhibition is a reflexive loop between the object and the user as extended observer; the observer is part of the system of virtual seduction. The reflexivity disconnects the person from physical objects and uses their action as trigger for the electronic templates. A constant interaction between reality and virtual-reality is created – alluding to an endless continuum ranging from physicality to the ephemeral airy heights of codes data.

Reflexive Continuum

selected works by Tobias Klein, Dietmar Koering, Eva Sommeregger, Johan Voordouw

Opening Reception: November 11th 2011, 19:00

Exhibition: November 12th – November 18th

Interface Design of Reflexive Continuum: Tobias Klein Studio  / Antonis Papamichael

Exhibition Coordination: Tobias Klein, Dietmar Koering

Graphix and Media: Eva Sommeregger

Exhibition Setup: Ferdinand Fritz, Antonis Papamichael

Programming: Tasos Varoudis, Denis Vlieghe

Overall Support: Columbos Next

Special Thanks to the AA Digital Prototyping Lab for all the support

AA Dip 1,  run by Tobias Klein cordially invites you to come to this Friday’s ( 14th October ) conference hosted within the Architectural Association, Bedford Square 38, first floor front.

The conference will explore the idea of interfaces as a contemporary critical design method. We will examine this idea through the specific works and expertise of the various speakers and their relation to the idea of interface as a tool for manoeuvring within today’s digitally enhanced architecture. Featuring guests from a diverse range of backgrounds, the event embraces diversity in thought and in action and hopes to establish a fruitful conversation.

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10.45 Introduction

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11.00 Mark Cousins, Director of Histories and Theory, AA

Visiting Professor of Architecture at Columbia University and Visiting Professor designate at the University of Navarre, Pamplona. He is a founding member of the London Consortium graduate school.

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11.30 Shrikant Sharma, Associate Director, SMART Solutions,Buro Happold

An engineer, numerical analyst and software developer rolled into one, Shrikant is the personification of the phrase ‘multidisciplinary’. He leads our SMART Solutions team, who are dedicated to finding computational innovations to solve engineering challenges.With a PhD in Engineering, Shrikant has over 15 years’ experience in the development and application of numerical tools and new technologies. His work at Buro Happold augments many of our service offerings, including the People Movement discipline which he leads. The team, founded by Shrikant in 2002, is pushing the boundaries of innovations in the industry. The most notable contribution of the team is the development of intuitive, real-time tools for integrated modelling and optimisation of buildings and circulation spaces.

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12.15 Denis Vlieghe

Denis Vlieghe (Dip.Arch – High Dist.; M.Arch Architecture + Urbanism) is a fresh and forward-thinking Belgian designer, researcher, and instructor.
He has worked in Belgium, Japan, and the U.K.; participated in various international competitions among which the winning design of the Guanzhou Cuture Center with Endo Shuhei. His work also includes collaborations with internationally renowned designers Ban Shigeru, Biothing, Horhizon, Tommorrow’s Thoughts Today, Robofold, Space Agency… He has taught, given lectures and workshops in the AA, the University of Tokyo, TU Munich and TU Innsbruck. His work has been exhibited in London and in the Netherlands.Denis is also independently experimenting and pursuing a research based on generative processes inspired from biology, physics, new technologies and pop-culture, with applications in a wide range of designs, from accessories, robots, and computer programs to architectural objects such as pavilions and responsive installations.

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12.45 Tasos Varoudis, arch+ech

Tasos Varoudis is a professional architect, computer scientist and creative designer/technologist. He studied his Diploma (MSc) in Architectural Engineering in National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) and his Computing Engineering DIC and MSc at the Imperial College London.
Currently, he teaches at the MSc in Adaptive Architecture and Computation at the Bartlett in London, and besides that, he is a funded researcher in the fields of adaptive architectural space, spatial analysis, human-computer interaction and ambient technology. In 2007 he founded ‘arch+ech’ studio to house his passion for architectural design and technology. His work is mainly based on the integration of new technologies into architectural design. In sum, his projects and research is driven by code, form and space in order to create experiences that playfully challenge our perception of spaces, vision and objects. By creating senses of space that transcend the immediate physical environment of the viewer, he researches how the elements of architecture, spatial design and ambient technology can shape the interrelation between perception and movement in architectural spaces.

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13.15 Break

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14.00 Jordan Hodgson, House of Jonn

14.30 Eva Sommeregger, Horhizon

Born in 1981, Eva is an architect and researcher. She holds a Masters Degree in Architectural Design from the Bartlett, UCL London and the TU Vienna.

Eva has worked on commercial and non-commercial projects in Abu Dhabi, Johannesburg, London and Vienna. She has been visiting lecturer and given workshops at mayor UK universities.

Her work, which understands architecture as construct of perception and combines time-based media with architecture, has been exhibited at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2008. Her award-winning films have been screened on festivals across Europe and Japan.

Eva is Schütte-Lihotzky Research Fellow 2010 and Architect in Residence at the MAK in Los Angeles 2011. She is a member of hoRhizon.com, an international  research network committed to research by design.

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15.00 Dietmar Koering, Horhizon

Dietmar Koering was born 1976 and trained as concrete worker. He studied Architecture at the Technical University Cologne, University of Western Sydney and Muthesius Art Academy Kiel where he graduated in 2005. Through his career he worked for GRAFT Architects Los Angeles/Berlin, COOP Himmelb(l)au in Vienna, 3deluxe, Wiesbaden, as Architect / Senior Researcher at Andrew Wright Associates, London and several small companies. After his postgraduate studies in 2007 at the Bartlett Faculty he focused on blurring and observing the boundaries between various artistic disciplines. His works have been published in numerous internationally papers including “Süddeutsche”, “Heute Journal”, “Das Parlament”, “Architectureofconsequence”, “A10″. Museums including  “Technology and Aesthetics, USA Science and Technology Museum” Ottawa, Canada, “The Changing City – City of Ideas” Aedes Gallery Berlin, “Neue deutsche Architekturtendenzen” Hochshule Bochum and “Deutsche Technik Museum”, Berlin.

Since 2008  he is member of .horhizon

From 2007-2008 Dietmar lectured at London Southbank University and Chelsea College of Art & Design London. He has also given digital design workshops at The Royal College of Arts and The University of Brighton, has been a guest tutor at The University of Nottingham and, in 2004, a tutor for digital design at The University of Applied Sciences Cologne. Dietmar has been invited to lecture and to give guest crits at several universities such as The Architectural Association in London, Ecole Spéciale d’Architecture in Paris, BDA Monday Colloquy in Cologne and The University of East London.

Dietmar was holding the Jaap Bakema fellowship 09/10 at the Netherlands Architecture Institute for his research “Floating Permaculture”

He currently is teaches Digital Design at TU Braunschweig, Design and Technology at CIAD, Cologne and Virtual Realities in Innsbruck. He is leading research assistance for the project “SMART Grids” at Cologne University.

by Tobias Klein & Dietmar Koering

LINK: http://virtualrealitiesalpengluehen.blogspot.com/

Workshop Steinhaus

Hegelian Dialectic – manufactured alpine landscapes – between simulation and

simulacra

3 models – a lake – reflections and a thesis – its antithesis and the synthesis combining

qualities into a projection of a new manufactured alpine landscapes landscape into the

dislocated site of the Steinhaus.

You need:

a laptop and/or material to work through the making of physical and/digital

models in order to explore the notion of artificial – manufactured landscapes,

articulating and attitude through the dialectic model of Thesis – antithesis and

synthesis.

We want:

01 3 models – digital or physical articulating your thoughts onto the prototypical

site of Obergurgel, establishing a first reaction between your concepts and the

reaction of the site.

02 A constant feedback conversation that culminates into a reflexive site

dislocated installation/projection of your alpine ideas into the Steinhaus surfaces

- an immersive projected environment.

03 a direct engagement and speculation on the ideas and reflection of simulation

and simulacra.

04 a copy of the film Manufactured landscapes

05 sustenance in solid and liquid form

We have:

a couple of questions and ideas regarding the nature of

01 manufactured sublime

02 entropic snow

03 poetic ecologies

04 resonating voids

05 ornamental hubris

06 celebratory simulacra

Some thoughts:

01 In the Oxford English Dictionary a mountain is defined as “a natural elevation of

the earth surface rising more or less abruptly from the surrounding level and

attaining an altitude which, relatively to the adjacent elevation, is impressive or

notable.”

02

If we were able to take as the finest allegory of simulation the Borges tale where

the cartographers of the Empire draw up a map so detailed that it ends up

exactly covering the territory (but where, with the decline of the Empire this map

becomes frayed and finally ruined, a few shreds still discernible in the deserts

— the metaphysical beauty of this ruined abstraction, bearing witness to an

imperial pride and rotting like a carcass, returning to the substance of the soil,

rather as an aging double ends up being confused with the real thing), this fable

would then have come full circle for us, and now has nothing but the discrete

charm of second-order simulacra.

03

Hegelian dialectic, usually presented in a threefold manner, was stated by

Heinrich Moritz Chalybäus as comprising three dialectical stages of

development: a thesis, giving rise to its reaction, an antithesis, which contradicts

or negates the thesis, and the tension between the two being resolved by

means of a synthesis.

04 In physics, resonance is the tendency of a system to oscillate with larger

amplitude at some frequencies than at others. These are known as the

system’s resonant frequencies. At these frequencies, even small periodic

driving forces can produce large amplitude oscillations, because the system

stores vibrational energy.

Resonances occur when a system is able to store and easily transfer energy

between two or more different storage modes (such as kinetic energy and

potential energy in the case of a pendulum). However, there are some losses

from cycle to cycle, called damping. When damping is small, the resonant

frequency is approximately equal to a natural frequency of the system, which is

a frequency of unforced vibrations. Some systems have multiple, distinct,

resonant frequencies.

05 The law of entropy, or the second law of thermodynamics, along with the

first law of thermodynamics comprise the most fundamental laws of physics.

Entropy and energy and their relationship are fundamental to an understanding

not just of physics, but to life (biology, evolutionary theory, ecology),

cognition (psychology). The major revolution in the last decade is the

recognition of the “law of maximum entropy production” or “MEP” and with it

an expanded view of thermodynamics showing that the spontaneous

production of order from disorder is the expected consequence of basic laws.

06 energetic systems including movement in space

07 urban space and its habitat

08 food generating systems /// it is obvious that we can not really feed the planet

anymore, with the food we know. Therefore we have to change our

consciousness about food how it should taste, feel and look like. This leads us

to the logical conclusion that we have to feed the planet in future with insects

as real food for mankind ???

09 creating of metabolist maps which links together intelligent systems, like

exploration of solar fusion, geologic power, biologic photosynthesis, lunar

gravitation, etc.

10 Therefore also studying in modern mapping techniques. — 3 dimensional

maps, animated maps which react? Use of think mapping software like the

brain?

11 Please reconsider the material stone, which is the consequence of the

dominant trace of the mountain itself. How can this material in future be

interpreted? How are artificial stones burned, would it be possible to burn

something new, like the use of the extracted biological mass of beings burned

into porcelain? Would be the city itself in the end a city out of porcelain.

12 Is this new construct in the end a virtual prosthetic which will recuperate our

mind?

Time:

We have 4 days in the “Steinhouse”, so please focus on tasks to be effective.

Monday: Arrival, basic research etc. start with THESIS MAP

Tuesday: Full day of work; Tobias arrival – REACTION ANTITHESIS

Wednesday: Full day of work, personal tutorials etc. research SYNTHESIS

Thursday: Full day of work with presentation of work in the evening

Friday: Back home

Please do have also in mind that the workshop at the Steinhaus is limited, therewith

you have to bring everything you need with you. Also little tools etc, if you want to built

physical models. Please bring also speakers, so we have some music during the

workshop.

Please also have a look at the book “Utopie” by Thomas Morus from 1516. What

does this term mean and is it still applicable today?

Ludic City related to the Fun Palace by Cedric Price

The meaning of New Babylon by Constant as first state of a virtual cyberspace.

Gibson “do electric sheeps dream” -> dev. of cyberspace

by students of the MV-E  Digital Design course TU Braunschweig / Institute IGE Univ.Prof.Dipl.Ing. Michael Szyszkowitz

Course Master – Dietmar Koering

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The here shown examples are the results from 3day basics Rhino course in Braunschweig SS11. The focus of this 3 day workshop was to learn the basics in Rhino and the transfer to a lasercutter, to fold complex patterns out of 2-dimensional drawings. After the models were fabricated, the students were asked, to re-model the folded shapes in Rhino.

Dietmar Koering will talk about ”organic architecture” and digital fabrication in Cologne

http://dingfabrik.de/2011/02/28/vortrag-von-dietmar-koering-organische-strukturen-in-der-architektur/

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by students of the Mediastudies course Ecclesial anatomies

Course Master – Tobias Klein

from 4th of March – 25th of March

open to everybody

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Over three weeks, Ecclesial Anatomies transforms the AA Bar into a menagerie of organs – bodily compositions and voluptuous baroque curvatures set within the context of London’s churches. The exhibition showcases work by several students in the Media Studies course of the same title, and is based on the amalgamation of ideas of embodiment, scale, tectonics and ornamentation in the masterworks of Sir Christopher Wren and Magnetic Resonance Imaging. Embedded within an architecture that is simultaneously exuberantly ornamental and concisely virtual, the work encompasses a fusion of voxel-based inside-out medical approaches in virtual environments within the traditional Euclidean geometries of the great churches of London, while at the same time condensing narration, ornament and an exuberant affinity for kitsch.

.LSBU OS3

the third lecture series at LSBU curated by Tobias Klein and Kenny Kinugasa-Tsui

Always Thursday
Lecture Theatre L17, London Road Building, 120-125 London Road SE1 6IN
For enquiries, please email info@lsbu-openseries.com
www.lsbu-openseries.com

The third OS lecture in the School of Architecture at London South Bank University series seeks to bring together a diversity of individuals, discourses and practices that explore the limits and boundaries of both their practice and their practices as a designer whilst proposing new paradigms for the future.

The individuals contributing to this series have all contributed to expand and stretch traditional definitions of their subject. The term ‘Maverick’ is not to be understood merely as an individual who does not conform but as a powerful agent for change and transformation.

The form of the lectures will invite a presentation and debate to discuss:
• The content and form of practice(s)’
• Context and politics of practice (central and/or peripheral)
• Discipline bondage and the Interdisciplinary
• New Paradigms for the future

The School of Architecture has its roots in Brixton School of Building and has strong tradition of independent minded students, staff and alumni such as Ron Heron who are not afraid to question the status quo. The spirit of the maverick is alive and kicking south of the river. In his preface to the first OS1 lecture series and publication Sir Peter Cook wrote, ‘As we say on Guy Fawkes night, light the torch paper and stand clear!’. OS3 will continue to provike debate and discussion.

Thursday 17th of February

Quay 2C Architects – Ken Taylor

Thursday 24th of February

AMID / CERO9

Thursday 03rd of March

Tomorrowsthoughtstoday / Liam Young

Thursday 10th of March

serie architects / Christopher CM Lee

Thursday 17th of March

Post-Works

Thursday 24th of March

Pentagram

Thursday 31st of March

Carlos Villanueva Brandt     (TBC)

Thursday 05th of May

Heatherwick Studio