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.

Workshop Steinhaus Ossiacher See

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

Folded Patterns / 2D into real 3D to virtual 3D

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.

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.Ecclesial Anatomies – Exhibition at the AA Bar

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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

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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

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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Thursday 17th of February

Quay 2C Architects – Ken Taylor

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Thursday 24th of February

AMID / CERO9

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Thursday 03rd of March

Tomorrowsthoughtstoday / Liam Young

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Thursday 10th of March

serie architects / Christopher CM Lee

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Thursday 17th of March

Post-Works

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Thursday 24th of March

Pentagram

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Thursday 31st of March

Carlos Villanueva Brandt     (TBC)

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Thursday 05th of May

Heatherwick Studio

Edmund Drury tutored by Kenny Kenugasa-Tsui and Justin C.K. Lau from Oxford Brookes University has been selected as one of the best student projects in Britain by Blueprint Magazine.

For more information: www.horhizonunite.blogspot.com  

Michelle Evans tutored by Kenny Kenugasa-Tsui and Justin C.K. Lau from Oxford Brookes University has been selected as the winner of RIBA Leslie Jones Memorial Prize. 

Sited in Paris, the project attempts to investigate cross programming of the wine making process with the visitor routes, a winery allows visitors to celebrate and indulge in the art of winemaking through all the different stages. The ritualistic circulation system blurs the boundaries between public and private, ascend and descend, external and internal, sin and sacrament. The roof is integrated with transparent pipes (the veins of the architectural body), servicing and pumping crushed grape juice from the core (interception heart) to various levels of the topographical building. The building makes use of the natural slope of the landscape through a gravity flow system within the winery to minimise energy use and the need for hydraulic systems.

Project description:

‘The fantasy world of Montparnasse tower hybridised garden office and living’

This project explores the symbiotic relationships of gardens and offices through the narrative of a mysterious expedition into the filmic spaces as experienced by a girl named Ophelia. Sited in the brutalistic Montparnasse Office Tower in Paris (commonly described as one of the ugliest office towers in Europe), Ophelia explores a hidden fantasy world of living willow trees concealed within the void spaces of the office tower. 

Ophelia’s exploration is driven by the prophecies from her dreams that foretold fragments of curious spaces depicting a world inhabited with spirited trees and wonderful architectural forms. She was lead on into a mystical journey to eventually discover portals and entry points hidden within the office interior that allowed her to mediate into the fantasy world. 

In the fantasy world, Ophelia discovered a range of surreal environments, including ornamental grottos, Indian bridges grown naturally by willow trees, hovering sky gardens, melodious trumpets that collected wind and rain, beautiful lighting sculptures, and a gigantic breathing plant stem. 

Ophelia documented the surreal environments she discovers in her sketchbook and constructed a CAD/CAM model to help analyse and understand her dreamworld. Gradually she decoded the architect’s drawings excavated from the fantasy world and they revealed the actual designs for a highly technological tower that is rooted with ecological concerns for Paris! The gardens are installed into the tower to minimise the urban heat island effect, the circulation structures are made of real willow trees, the trumpet forms are rain water harvesting devices. Her experiences were no longer a dream. 

Finally, as the building develops and grows over time, the proposed life force thrives and more and more of the existing building is transformed. The use of space within the tower changes dramatically; areas towards the top of the tower become residential harnessing a strong use of cross programming whilst the central area becomes a community driven ecological habitat. In her final drawing, Ophelia speculates on the tower some years into the future. More consumed than ever and with it’s inhabitants powered on biophilia the tower is explodes with luscious vegetation and continues its growth.

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.molecular city

Author: Tobias Klein and Roberto Bottazzi with Tasos Varoudis

and  ADS1 from the Royal College of Art

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.concept

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Molecular City is an installation conceived with Royal College of Art students to question the nature of the XXI-st century city.

By taking advantage of Augmented Reality technology, Molecular City allows the public to create their collective hybrid city by superimposing virtual architectures onto the existing city of Porto via computer projection. The physical space of Porto becomes a canvas constantly connected to the endless possibilities provided by virtual space.

The installation consists of two tables and a screen [fig.1-2]. Visitors can create a half real/half fictional landscape of Porto by positioning virtual architecture on Porto’s map and visualising them on the screen. A library of virtual architectures to play with will be provided by either students’ models or free downlodable models from the Internet.

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Work produced by the Royal College of Art architecture graduate students from ADS 1, tutored by Tobias Klein and Roberto Bottazzi, will be exhibited in the RCA Summer Show 2010. For more information about the Summer show click here.