Architectural Ecosystem - 1st year Studio

DIA – 2011/2012 Winter Semester – Studio – Krassimir Krastev
Architectural Ecosystem Studio.

 "The Architectural Ecosystem Studio will focus on developing a critical understanding of architecture as a product of dynamic processes rather than merely static form or structure. A set of tools, techniques and methods will be studied and developed with the ultimate purpose to produce architectural projects with qualities intrinsic to complex ecosystems. Whether a larger urban or landscape intervention, or on the scale of a smaller building, the aim is to develop a system with qualities such as adaptability to the dynamically changing environment, achieved by the system’s intrinsic regulating mechanisms that naturally maintain it in optimal state. This semester will focus on studying these mechanisms and applying them as tools to generate architectural projects that perform optimally in their environment. The focus is on the project’s performance rather than its aesthetics or spatial qualities, and on the processes that shape it rather than its formal appearance.

The semester will be split into two phases, the Experimental Phase and the Semester Project. The Experimental Phase will be carried out with the purpose to introduce the students to the new concepts, and to get them acquainted with a variety of tools and techniques that will be critical for the Semester Project.




Experimental Phase



The Studio will be split into three groups, as each will be given an experimental project to be
developed over three weeks in a workshop environment. The projects will be on the following
topics: mechanical and digital assemblies with parametric modelling, environmental analysis and data mapping; form, pattern‐ and structure‐generating digital and analogue techniques. All of these will be useful for completing the semester project, and will stay as valuable tools to be used further both in research and practice.

Semester Project

The Semester Project will be an actual architectural intervention with a site and brief to be
confirmed later. The students will be asked to apply and further expand the tools and concepts
learnt during the Experimental Phase, generating emergent structures and formations that that have evolved to exist in their particular surroundings – the resulting architecture becomes a product of its environment.

Scientific, research, and production framework for the Studio


The students will be introduced and carry out research into concepts derived from systems sciences, artificial intelligence, statistics, bionic or biomimetic engineering, structural engineering and optimization, physics and mathematics, ecology, etc. – sciences that deal with complex systems.
Contemporary science and philosophy texts will be studied and presented by the students over
few sessions during the course of the semester. A number of tools, techniques and methods will be developed and applied to the Semester project: such as evolutionary (genetic) algorithms, techniques for dynamic relaxation, simulated annealing, etc. – all of which have been used in science and industries to optimize the performance of products of engineering and design. A range of these techniques will be developed in digital environment, hence the students will be introduced to a number of softwares and basics of programming – i.e. scripting. It is recommended that the students join the Elective in Scripting of digital procedures, but in the meanwhile they will be encouraged to produce physical models and make full use of the workshop facilities available on the campus.
Architecture brings together a number of arts, sciences and industries. The Architectural Ecosystem Studio will promote knowledge and understanding of a number disciplines foreign to traditional architectural schools – in an attempt to create a bridge between academics and contemporary industry.

Contextual framework for the Studio ‐ contemporary trends in research and practice.


The advent of science and technology in the last few decades, the changes in the global economy, the changing climate and the growing awareness of the limitations of our environment have been reflected in almost every contemporary industrial or scientific development. The focus of cuttingedge architecture has been steadily shifting from the making of forms, objects and structures towards assembling systems that are complex and intelligent in the way they interact with their surroundings and users, adaptable to the ever changing environment, self‐maintaining and even selfreplicating.

The process of architectural design has shifted from the drawing board of the Architect towards the conference room with a Design Team of experts that work in collaboration to deliver products of ever greater complexity. The role of the architect has also shifted from the designer and creator of form, structure and space towards the professional with the responsibility to synthesize or “bring together” the inputs of all these experts into one coherent, complex system."


In the experimental phase we were divided in 3 groups initially:

1 - Assembly
2- Environment
3- Form Finding

About the specifics tasks:

1. 1 - Self Similar Sincopatyons

- Fibonacci Series : 1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34...
There is scarcely a branch of science where Fibonacci's numbers do not show up in some form or another.
Mathematical modelling- the concept of recursion and it is inevitable outcome > Self-Similarity.

Recursion: defining something in terms of itself ( the process of repeating items in a self -similar way).

Levels of stacking upwards relate to the way branches splitand grow to make trees.

A branch is defined as a bough with two smaller branches at the end (binary spliting systems : like trees)

 Genetic Components

2.1 - Maping the Environment

Example case:  FAVELA is the exactly Arcihtectural Ecosystem.

http://www.descontrolurbano.com/

- Reserach about: society; how build how the people moves; the location of winds/openings and walls
- the same configuration of ancient cities (i.e: India, Pakistan)
* mapping the interaction (the movement)


Kaiak Airport - Hong Kong : uniform network (modules connected)  diagram 3D > mapping space (relationship)

3.1- Let the material find the optimal form

- Gaudí (catenaries, hanging the cables) : from tension to compression (invert)

- Cellular automata (on/off - generating a pattern)

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.zayednationalmuseum.ae%2Farchitecture.html&h=QAQH9uTWnAQHFR9OkRSjLBjSE_gGFDo9MO5Szuf09lyo5wQ

Suggested Literature: 
Gilles Deleuze: A Thousand Plateaus

Manuel Delanda : A thousand years of Non-Linear History