Here’s a great project that came out of the Adapative Architecture and Computation programme at the Bartlett School of Architecture. ‘Adaptive Fa[ca]de’ by Marilena Skavara explores the functional possibilities and performative characteristics of cellular automata (CA). In addition to the unique emergent behaviour of CA, a neural network enables a further computational layer to evolve CA behaviour to the context of its surrounding environment.
Building upon the early work of Conway’s ‘Game of life’ and Stephen Wolfram’s extensive research on the wider implementation of CA, ‘Adaptive Fa[ca]de’ becomes a living adapting skin, constantly training itself from the history of its own errors and achievements. For a more detailed description of the project, read Marilena’s article for Vague Terrain.
As part of the Bartlett School of Architecture International Lecture Series there will be a FREE Digital Architecture Event this coming Wednesday in London.
image credit: Shampoo, AA Design Research Laboratory
Date:Wednesday 9th December , 2009 from 6.30PM
Open to public, arrive early to avoid disappointment.
Location:Darwin Lecture Theatre
University College London
Access through Malet Place. Map
For a special student focused event I have brought together some of London’s most prolific recent graduates in a group presentation of innovative and inspiring projects examining the scope of ‘digitally enabled’ architecture. Presenters include this years’ President’s Silver Medal Winner, Nicholas Szczepaniak, the Bartlett’s Christian Kerrigan and Ric Lipson, AA’s Adam Nathaniel Furman, AA DRL’s ‘Shampoo‘ Group and RCA’s Jordan Hodgson.
To place this in context: from the first generative algorithms of John Frazer, to Cedric Price and Gordon Pask’s proposed interactive buildings, to the technologically inspired hinterlands of Archigram’s walking, reconfigurable, and instant cities, London has long been a provocateur of digitally enabled architecture.
This spirit of speculation and provocation continues in a young generation of designers who slip with ease between computational algorithms and hand drawings, paper models and robotic manufacturing. In November 2009 myself and Sara Shafiei co-authored and published ‘Digital Architecture: Passages Through Hinterlands’ which went further than the exhibition, revealing the processes behind leading graduate work alongside interviews with young practices including Amanda Levete Architects, Plasma Studio, JDS Architects, sixteen* (makers), and marcosandmarjan – discussing how the these innovative explorations have begun to make their mark on the built environment. Following the lecture, there will be a book launch of ‘Digital Architecture: Passages Through Hinterlands’ at the Bartlett. It can also be previewed online at
Digital Architecture: Passages Through Hinterlands is a collection of provocative projects from a young generation of digitally enabled designers. This publication oscillates between the analog and the digital, from concept to realisation, mapping processes as it explores the diverse digital paths that lead innovative spaces, poetic narratives and social interactions.
sixteen* (makers), 55/02 Shelter, Kielder Forest, UK
The book covers a spectrum of London’s leading graduates and young practices, featuring projects from the Architectural Association, Bartlett School of Architecture (UCL), University of Westminster and Royal College of Art, and case studies and interviews with architects including Amanda Levete Architects, Plasma Studio, JDS Architects, sixteen* (makers), Horhizon, marcosandmarjan, Mette Ramsgard Thomsen, Philip Beesley, David Greene, Samantha Hardingham, Usman Haque and Neil Spiller.
Tarek Shamma, “Circus Lumens”
I’m pleased to announce that “Digital Architecture: Passages Through Hinterlands” is now available. Co-Authored by myself (Ruairi Glynn) and Sara Shafiei it has been a real pleasure to put together a book that is intended to expand the envelope of what we might conside “Digital” Architecture to be.
Christian Kerrigan, “The 200 Year Continuum”
I would like to thank all of the architects and artists who have contributed their inspiring work and thank our exceptional graphic designer Emily Chicken bringing it all together with such elegance.
David Greene of Archigram and Samantha Hardingham’s recent L.A.W.U.N.* Project
I am also pleased to announce that one of the young graduates featuring in the book Nick Szczepaniak, has just been awarded the RIBA Silver Medal (The highest award in the UK for student design work) and we are thrilled to be the first publication to be presenting his work. More posts will follow presenting some of the other work featuring in the book and a preview of its contents can be seen here.
The Bartlett School of Architecture has the most comprehensive digital fabrication suite dedicated to education and research out of all UK Built Environment Departments and Faculties. The suite includes a £500,000 3D printing and laser sintering facility and advanced 3D digital fabrication machinery for wood, plastic and metal.
The Bartlett is offering places on this cutting edge course for up to 50 qualified applicants. Students will learn how to export handmade models into a digital format, and how to construct digital models for 3D printing or prototyping in nylon, wood and metal.
Students are expected to bring a design proposal to the course that can be used to explore different modes of 3D digital representation and fabrication. The design proposal can be in the form of a physical model, 2D digital drawings or 3D digital representations. Possible design proposals include a building, a fragment of a building, a component, a piece of furniture, a piece of jewellery, a sculpture or a decorative item.
The course lasts for 4 weeks, is full time, where the majority of learning is project based and developed in tutorials. The first 4-week course includes free attendance to the Digital Architecture Conference 2009.
Declan Shaw’s of Interactive Installation, Bird Soundscapes incorporate a dynamic three dimensional acoustic environment of birdsong which perform accelerated diurnal cycles. Individual ‘birds’ occupy positions in space, which move about in birdlike patterns and also reacting to the movement of the inhabitants. This is accompanied by a coloured light cycle which denotes the times of day.
In this manner the listener may hear an accumulating dawn chorus of bird personalities while her environment is filled with an intensifying morning blue light. She may go on the hear crows and blackbirds interacting in a red evening dusk. Shaws work was developed within the Bartlett School of Architectures Anechoic Chamber hence the menacing image of the spikey walls but the intention is that the constructed environment would be placed within an existing negative waiting space, such as a hospital ward or waiting room, with a view to encouraging positive waiting behaviour in its occupants.
As well as the installation Declan produced a series of college images depicting this changing acoustic environments intended effects in the hospital patients experience of these spaces.
Declan describes how “the context of this project is the construction of a space for waiting and for exploiting the possibilities of waiting. While drawing distinctions between waiting situations as pleasure/play and waiting as punishment/pain, I fixed on the notion of reverie as a crucial condition for the encouragement of the positive possibilities of waiting, which include: rest, renewal, inspired creativity and a sense of satisfaction and wellbeing.” Declans doesn’t have a website but his work and work of many other students from Unit 14 at the Bartlett can be found here
The Royal College of Art Show opened last week with some excellent work which no doubt wmmna will cover in depth. One project I particularly enjoyed was Tom Foulsham, an ex-Bartlett graduate and now graduate of the RCA’s Design Products programme.
In some ways Tom’s work could be compared to Heath Robinson’s imagined machines and certainly he has that mad inventor spirit, but underneath this is a sensitivity that should not be underestimated. His intricate machines are both playful and though provoking.
They are beautifully balanced and responsive objects that play with the forces of nature as well as the forces of information. His work and very much more great work is on display at the RCA this week.
image credit: Shampoo, AA Design Research Laboratory
