Assignment 3 | Framework

Assignment 3 | Framework

Oriente Station by Santiago Calatrava

The exploration of framework using digital project is a fundamental step to the later complex spatial structure. By looking at Oriente Station, an attempts are to rebuild the frame structure and to estimate structure stability.

The first step is to set up the plan. In plan, both the column bottom positions and the coverage of each 'cellular shade' are determined.

 Construct the vaults around four corners of a 'square cell'. Put another plane alone the column and put the circle as the middle section of the structure.

The vault is composed by two mirrored arches which are also the profile lines of the final structural surface. 

By changing the diameter of the arch, the profile curve of top structure can vary in a spectrum that accommodates more opportunities of different aesthetic needs as well as structural feasibility needs.

The top profile, middle section and bottom frame are used together to create the multinational surface, which renders the geometry of the structure more tangible and comprehensible.  

The profiles of the structural surface are extracted and points which separate the curve evenly are introduced. Together they form the base of the framework.

By connecting the inserted points and provided a secondary system of interpolated points, the framework is constructed completely.

When put in to STAAD, the estimation of structure reliability is achieved, as shown below.

Tension/ Compression Analysis

Deflection and distortion of the structure under vertical heavy load.

Variations:

1. Changing the ARCHES as the profiles of the top part of the structure.

2. Changing the middle section(Rm) and bottom section(Rb). (Rm~ Rb)

(Rm~ 1/Rb*10)

Wire Framework Variation (Based on Rm~ 1/Rb*10)

Assignment 2 | From Flat to Form

Assignment 2 | From Flat to Form

This time I am still committed to the 'World Game Stadium'. By simplifying the way of controlling the planar grids, introduced the central angle of the circles instead of filled cellular small circles with the grids. As shown bellow, the circular skeletons are divided evenly by the radiance and the every central angle is made as reference and edited with formula too.

Division of the Circle

By changing the central angle-the only parameter, the whole grid system can be changed in a more specific subtle way, along with the skeleton geometry.

The next step is to apply elevation variations along with the planar grids, and relate the two to each other so that a diverse spatial form may emerge.

Since there are two directions of the segments composing the grids, two different groups of height variations are played with the grids here.

One group of splines are laid vertically, connecting the end points of a sequence of segments along the curve skeleton(as shown bellow). The height of the curvature of the arches are changing according the changing lengths of the segments in the planar grids.

A group of points are introduced in the 3D space on the spline arches, dividing the arches by ratio. Then link those points with another (blue) spline which will be use to create multinational surface in the next step.

Do the same thing of creating arches over the planar grids in the other direction.

Repeat the height changing principle and draw another spline in the space.

Constructing a complex spatial surface by lofting the two splines and the grid skeleton outlines(as shown bellow).  

Split the surface by extruding circles from the plan and cutting with each other.

Variations are shown bellow to demonstrate a undulating surface changing height constantly.

Assignment 1 | Sketch the Plan

Assignment 1 | Sketch the Plan

World Games Stadium | Toyo Ito

Interested in the curvature and the arrayed solar panels, the sketch of the stadium was made to explore the possible principle of the geometric form of the roof.

hand sketches

Study a little bit on controlling the density of the grids laid over the skeleton. Small circles are filled into the grids and are made tangent to the grids, so that by controlling the radiance of the cellular circles, the grids are changed accordingly.

Play with the skeleton

The overall skeleton consists of two groups of tangent circles which represents the stadium's basic plan geometry principle. However, possibility is remained to change the skeleton by stretching the circles or simply moving around.

Knitting

The key process is to knit the net or grid and apply cellular circles with the grids to have a control over the plan. Either changing the skeleton or cellular circles' dimension can both achieve the goal of providing multiple control levels of the whole plan.

Variations

ARCHIGRAM

Between 1960 and 1974 Archigram created over 900 drawings, among them the plan for the “Plug-in City” by Peter Cook. This provocative project suggests a hypothetical fantasy city, containing modular residential units that “plug in” to a central infrastructural mega machine. The Plug-in City is in fact not a city, but a constantly evolving mega structure that incorporates residences, transportation and other essential services–all movable by giant cranes. 

Persistent precedents and concerns of modernism lay at the heart of Plug-In City’s theoretical impulse, not limited to the concept of collective living, integration of transportation and the accommodation of rapid change in the urban environment. In his book Archigram: Architecture without Architecture, Simon Sadler suggests that “The aesthetic of incompleteness, apparent throughout the Plug-In scheme and more marked than in megastructural precedents, may have derived from the construction sites of the building boom that followed the economic reconstruction of Europe.” 

Dissatisfaction with this status quo pushed the experimental architectural collective to dream of alternative urban scenarios that flied in the face of the superficial formalism and dull suburban tendencies common to British modernism of the time. The Plug-In City, along with other projects such as The Walking City or The Instant City, suggested a nomadic way of life and, more importantly, a liberation from the modernist answer of suburbia. 

Archigram was formed in 1960 at the Architecture Association in London by six architects and designers, Peter Cook, Warren Chalk, Ron Herron, Dennis CromptIon, Michael Webb and David Greene. In 1961, Archigram (an eponymous publication whose name was derived from the combination of the words “architecture” + “telegram”) was born as a single sheet magazine filled with poems and sketches. As David Greene wrote in the first issue, it was meant as a platform for the voices of a young generation of architects and artists: 

“A new generation of architecture must arise with forms and spaces which seem to reject the precepts of ‘Modern’ yet in fact retains those precepts. We have chosen to bypass the decaying Bauhaus image which is an insult to functionalism.” 

http://www.styleofdesign.com/architecture/ad-classics-the-plug-in-city-peter-cook-archigram/