jedediahrosen-blog

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Final Post_FAB + REP

This was an incredibly valuable learning experience. Pairing readings about digital fabrication with physical exercises was incredibly formative for my architectural experience and has reframed my positions on model and form production. Something I didn’t expect from this course was such a critical look at technology, for a course so focused on describing technological processes. I think it is important to understand ideas like how not all technological progress is necessarily constructive. It is important to recognize technology’s limitations and understand the importance of analogous production. Moving forward, I think it is crucial for me to understand how to use myriad modes of production, both physical and digital, in order to diversify my production abilities, but also to have a more comprehensive understanding of design processes and methods.

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X7_Stereo Fidelity

The results of the scan were relatively successful; the scan captured the difference between each of the individual cut pieces and rendered the wire as a strange connective tissue between each of them. The 3D scan is fairly detailed and captured a lot of the subtleties, but as shown above has a few weaknesses in extrapolating data it can’t necessarily see, like in between each of the individual pieces. As I have mentioned in previous posts, I believe the connection between each of these pieces is important, and the spaces in between each piece almost feel inhabitable.

Collaborative work with Brendan Varilek, Conceptualized in Rhino, Cut with Kuka, and Reproduced with 3D Scanning technologies. 

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X7_Digital Fabrication_Greenfield

“Digital Fabrication: Towards a New Political Economy of Matter” by Adam Greenfield discusses the idea that personal digital fabrication is becoming a common part of the human experience. Because of a continued economic interest in technology that makes it more advanced, yet cheaper every year, Greenfield argues that not only does a postdigital future destroy the idea of the consumer and producer, but that the construction human experience is inextricably linked to the future of digital fabrication. In this reading I really connected with the idea of “Fully-Automated Luxury Communism”; both a satirical and incredibly logical understanding of what the human experience would be if we all had access to the commercial technology responsible for making goods we commonly need. Furthermore, I found myself asking: “Would a world with complete automation still need people to maintain such a massive infrastructure, making it not truly completely automated? Can our global society adapt to an intensive distribution of digital fabrication materials, methods, and modes?” Based on Greenfield’s intense discussion and skepticism, I would argue that it wouldn’t be such a cut and dry transition for us; elements of our society would undoubtedly carry over to a future one. Even more telling is our motivation as a species: are we motivated enough to make our own things, give up our personal property, and forego individuality and uniqueness of each person? A movement towards standardized digital fabrication suggests this, but our current assessment of the human experience and psychology does not, and it is this misalignment that prevents me from seeing a world where this is an entirely logical outcome.

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X7_Stereo Fidelity

With 6 individual pieces, Brendan and I felt it necessary to try and incorporate the pieces that had been carved off our foam block back into the final product. Using piano wire, we were able to show a deconstructed version of the foam block with all of the cut operations that had been done do it. There is something about the void space in between each of these pieces that feels inhabitable and reinforces our understanding of the foam block as something that has been cut many times to create a final form.

Collaborative work with Brendan Varilek. Conceptualized in Rhino, Cut by Kuka, and Colorization done in Adobe Suite.

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X7_Stereo Fidelity || Phase 1

With our initial renderings, our interests lied not only in the base we received from making the cuts, but also in the pieces that were discarded. Brendan and I are interested in actually connecting some major pieces to our model to mark a resemblance to its original form via a system of Piloti (likely made from basswood or some metal) that demonstrates where the pieces were extruded and cut away from the original form. There is also an introduction of space making in between the connected forms. This is something that we are considering doing with the red and green renderings above. 

Collaborative work with Brendan Varilek. Rendered in Rhino and Grasshopper and visualized with Adobe Suite.

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X7_Material Systems_Ahlquist + Co.

In “Toward a Pedagogy of Material Systems Research” by Sean Ahlquist and his contemporaries, the team characterizes a desire for a deeper understanding of the characteristics and behaviors of materials and the need for an exploration of entirely new materials that radically change design, composition, and modes of production. They describe the “material system” in the context of Christopher Alexander; it encapsulates various interdisciplinary aspects of spatial architecture and the means of the formation of space, making the claim that architecture is defined by its interaction with culture and environment. To this extent, the team argues that, when tooled extensively, manipulations and explorations of various materials allow us to produce sustainable design that is adaptive and responsive to its environment. Not only is this a radical change to the way we currently employ design, but I believe it has an implication for the way that architecture is structured as a profession. As Ahlquist and Co. hinted at, this is an opportunity for architects to use tooling and the increased capacity of combined physical and virtual iterative design methodologies to explore materials and architecture that are more spatially responsive, adaptive, and sustainable. This would require architects to come to unconventional material solutions with their designs and has a massive social and environmental implication within the future of contemporary architecture. Furthermore, this explorative approach design gives the architect more of an opportunity to test the fitness of existing materials and prototypical materials within the context of a rapidly changing environment found today.

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X6_Robotic Toolpath_“Bloom”

Collaborative work with Ingrid Peterson, Brendan Varilek, and Hannah Fajnor.

Conceptualized in Rhino and realized with Grasshopper and Kuka.

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X6_The Glass Cage_Carr

“The Glass Cage” by Nicholas Carr discusses a movement towards technological autonomy, almost mocking Whitehead’s idealistic notion that technologically relieves us of intellectually taxing labor, freeing us up for more creative endeavors. In connection to “The Jig, The Nudge, and Local Ecology” and “Agency vs. Autonomy” in books both by Matthew B. Crawford, each author discusses not only the concern with our mechanistic complacency, but a need for bodily involvement, ways intellectually engage, and for skepticism around seemingly infallible technology. While it is important that technology aid in certain aspects of our lives, it is important that it doesn’t replace the teaching moments and important intellectual interventions we make that shape our development. Logically, this drew to me thinking about the relevance growing technological reliance and infrastructure has to the education of children and young people. A culture shaped by social media and constantly distracted by devices, a call for new technology should also call for new education that still positively engages students to fill in the blanks, come to their own original conclusions, and that doesn’t always give them hints. Our inherent confidence in technology is what blinds us from its infallibility and it is concerning that people - especially young people - tend to trust media and or machines more times than the people that produce them.

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X6_Robotic Tool Paths

The inherent idea of creating light drew me to making a figure that looked like a firework or explosion. Beginning by making a toolpath, I used grasshopper to program the Kuka robot to simulate the light drawing of the “bang”.

Modeled in Rhino and visualized through Grasshopper and Photoshop.

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X6_Research Through Making_Ponce de Leon

Beginning by reading quotes from Monica Ponce de Leon, I was struck by her statement about how creative endeavors are consistently at odds with research. This is something I have felt, with limited career experience, is very applicable to the real world architectural field, which is constantly concerned with one or the other. It is only now that firms are beginning to conduct the research required to supplement informed and contextual architecture. This drove my interests in comparing two RTMs done in 2010 and 2016, in order to inspect the ways that creative endeavors have infiltrated research over time and vice versa. 

I began by reading “Ana-Log Cabin”, a project completed by Keith Mitnick and Mireille Roddier who explored formal complexity in contrast to simplistic materials in order to question the ways we align design processes with digital fabrication. This project appeared to be more strictly focused in a creative endeavor; the project seems to have less of a research-oriented impact. In contrast, Thom Moran and Meredith Miller’s “Post Rock” which involves using inorganic and unconventional materials that form “plastiglomerate”, and instead of formal complexity, explores the ideas of post-natural architecture, and a potential bi-product as an unnatural resource to be used as a building material. From looking at RTMs over time as they have become more popular and better funded, it seems that more and more creative ideas and narratives are being melded with architectural research, which is a hopeful thought for future impactful architectural development moving forward.

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X5_Field-Figure (Low Relief)

The use of a simple pink grid draws attention to the incredibly abstract figures dug into the foam. 

Abstracted from work by Paul Kremer, modeled in Rhino and visualized in Mastercam. 

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X5_Digital Culture in Architecture_Picon

In “Digital Culture in Architecture”, Antoine Picon focuses on systematic analyses involving the computer and its effects/connections with architecture. More specifically, Picon focused on how humans seemed to adapt to the modernist environment and the explosion of architectural experiments involving the computer, as well as the institutions and firms that pioneered them. I think that Picon’s analysis is very important in the overall scheme of architectural and cultural development, specifically in reference to war. Picon reminds us that throughout the development of modernism, architecture was emblematic of the anxiety America had over various wars, conflicts, and controversies by saying that the computer played a large part in analyzing cultural trends and patterns that allowed architects to better designate and plan spaces for the future and for safety. What I gained from this reading was that cybernetics and systematic analysis contributed to a better understanding of urban processes, but ultimately couldn’t solve urban issues. Yet, Picon has made abundantly clear that architecture is closely tied to societal implications and the future of cultural/urban spaces.

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X5_Field-Figure (Low Relief)

While I was unsure how the algorithm functioned, the results of extracting shapes from this Paul Kremer painting yielded some interesting excavations. I managed to select a few from his painting and make my own configuration.

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X5_Animate Form_Lynn

In Lynn’s reading, “Animate Form”, there are many different contexts given to the connections between motion and architecture, including the ideas of stasis, virtuality, and phenomenal transparency, a term that I focused on heavily in UG1. Furthermore, Lynn discusses the idea that animate form is iterative; the term virtual refers to the abstract scheme that has the possibility of being “actualized in a variety of configurations”. I think this important to think about, because the architecture of motion and movement is already incredibly relevant and important within design and in the formation of space. This reading made me draw back to studying Picasso’s light paintings, which captured the creation of form using light in one long exposure. As Lynn discusses, it involves tracing or imprinting time as a phenomenal movement between frames or moments; which also brings into question of procession and permanence within architecture and iterative design.

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X4_The Alphabet and The Algorithm + Genetic Algorithms_ Carpo + DeLanda

Mario Carpo discusses the idea that photographs and the use of visuals characterized the early modern architectural books, making it easy to point of the separation between design and building. Furthermore, Carpo highlights the use of computer-aided design introduced the idea that forms can initially be realized in three dimensional space, not on a two-dimensional plain like analogous drawing. DeLanda uses the idea of algorithms to talk about biology, and that the goal of architecture and the use of genetic algorithms is to hack biology, thermodynamics, and math in order to tap into necessary resources of design and in order to determine the computer code that becomes virtual DNA. I am writing about both of these readings because I find a very interesting connection between them that makes them both important to read. DeLanda talks about how genetic algorithms allow a designer to experience the realm of impossible solutions to certain variations in design. An interesting point that Carpo made was that many computer tools indicate their preferences within iterative design and favor certain outcomes, which can be observed by the educated viewer. Following this logic, it’s fascinating to think about how computer evolutionary design may designate our future iterative design processes and outcomes, and that it may favor certain outcomes over another.

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X4_Volumetric Assembly

Vase F || This project informed me a bit on the limitations of working with physical fabrication once it is translated from digital fabrication. Working with small and many tabs proved to be difficult to put together, and working with such small components made it harder to attain a more curvaceous shape.

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X4_Volumetric Assembly

Vase 2 || To Be Continued?