architectural design...architectural design architectural design september/october 2014 issn...
TRANSCRIPT
ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014ISSN 0003-8504
PROFILE NO 231ISBN 978-1118-613481
GUEST-EDITED BY CHRISTIAN DERIX AND ÅSMUND IZAKI
05 / 2014
EMPATHIC SPACETHE COMPUTATION OF HUMAN-CENTRIC ARCHITECTURE
All Rights Reserved. No part of this
publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording,
scanning or otherwise, except under the
terms of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988 or under the terms
of a licence issued by the Copyright
Licensing Agency Ltd, 90 Tottenham
Court Road, London W1T 4LP, UK,
without the permission in writing of
the Publisher.
Subscribe to 1
3 is published bimonthly and is
available to purchase on both a
subscription basis and as individual
volumes at the following prices.
PricesIndividual copies: £24.99 / US$45
Individual issues on 3 App
for iPad: £9.99 / US$13.99
Mailing fees for print may apply
Annual Subscription RatesStudent: £75 / US$117 print only
Personal: £120 / US$189 print and
iPad access
Institutional: £212 / US$398 print
or online
Institutional: £244 / US$457
combined print and online
6-issue subscription on 3 App
for iPad: £44.99 / US$64.99
1ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2014PROFILE NO 231
05 / 2014
Front and back cover: Gianni Colombo, Elastic Space, 1967–8. c/o Galleria L’Attico, Rome, 1968. Courtesy Archive Gianni Colombo, Milan
Inside front cover: ART+COM, River is…, Yeongsan River Pavilion, Gwangju, South Korea, 2012. © ART+COM
Editorial OfficesJohn Wiley & Sons
25 John Street
London WC1N 2BS
UK
T: +44 (0)20 8326 3800
EditorHelen Castle
Managing Editor (Freelance)Caroline Ellerby
Production Editor Elizabeth Gongde
PrepressArtmedia, London
Art Direction and DesignCHK Design:
Christian Küsters
Sophie Troppmair
Printed in Italy by Printer Trento Srl
Subscription Offices UKJohn Wiley & Sons Ltd
Journals Administration Department
1 Oldlands Way, Bognor Regis
West Sussex, PO22 9SA, UK
T: +44 (0)1243 843 272
F: +44 (0)1243 843 232
Print ISSN: 0003-8504
Online ISSN: 1554-2769
Prices are for six issues and include
postage and handling charges.
Individual-rate subscriptions must be
paid by personal cheque or credit card.
Individual-rate subscriptions may not
be resold or used as library copies.
All prices are subject to change
without notice.
Rights and PermissionsRequests to the Publisher should be
addressed to:
Permissions Department
John Wiley & Sons Ltd
The Atrium
Southern Gate
Chichester
West Sussex PO19 8SQ
UK
F: +44 (0)1243 770 620
2
1ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
GUEST-EDITED BY CHRISTIAN DERIX AND ÅSMUND IZAKI
In memory of Paul Coates
EMPATHIC SPACE:THE COMPUTATION OF HUMAN-CENTRIC ARCHITECTURE
IN THIS ISSUE
EDITORIAL BOARDWill Alsop
Denise Bratton
Paul Brislin
Mark Burry
André Chaszar
Nigel Coates
Peter Cook
Teddy Cruz
Max Fordham
Massimiliano Fuksas
Edwin Heathcote
Michael Hensel
Anthony Hunt
Charles Jencks
Bob Maxwell
Brian McGrath
Jayne Merkel
Peter Murray
Mark Robbins
Deborah Saunt
Patrik Schumacher
Neil Spiller
Leon van Schaik
Michael Weinstock
Ken Yeang
Alejandro Zaera-Polo
5 EDITORIAL Helen Castle
6 ABOUT THE GUEST-EDITORS Christian Derix and Åsmund Izaki
8 SPOTLIGHT Visual highlights of the issue
14 INTRODUCTION Th e Space of People in Computation
Christian Derix
HEURISTIC GENERATION
24 Generative Design Methods and the
Exploration of Worlds of Formal Possibility Philip Steadman
32 Th e Deep Structure of the Picturesque
Paul Coates and Christian Derix
32
38 Crafting Space: Generative Processes
of Architectural Confi gurations Kazuhiro Kojima
46 Solutions You Cannot Draw Markus Braach
INTERACTIONS IN THE FIELD
54 Embracing the Creativity of
Stigmergy in Social Insects
Guy Th eraulaz
60 Block/Tower: A Vertical Landscape
in Midtown Manhattan
Stan Allen and Rafi Segal
66 Programs as Paradigms Pablo Miranda Carranza
3
COGNITIVE CONDITIONS
74 Spatial Cognition and Architectural
Space: Research Perspectives
Daniel R Montello
80 Empathic Imagination: Formal
and Experiential Projection Juhani Pallasmaa
86 Th e Future is Curved Olafur Eliasson
94 Th e Aura of the Digital
Jussi Ängeslevä
EXPERIENTIAL TYPOLOGIES
100 Th e Generic City and its Origins
Bill Hillier
106 Polyvalence: Th e Competence
of Form and Space with Regard
to Diff erent Interpretations
Herman Hertzberger
114 Encoding User Experiences
Åsmund Izaki and Lucy Helme
FUTURE FORWARD
122 New Curricula: Syntonic Systems
Christian Derix and Åsmund Izaki
130 Near Futures: Associative Archetypes
Christian Derix and Prarthana Jagannath
136 COUNTERPOINT How Can Code be Used to Address
Spatiality in Architecture?
Leon van Schaik
142 CONTRIBUTORS
It is necessary to unlearn space in order to embody space.— Olafur Eliasson
4
EDITORIAL Helen Castle
5
Since the evaporation of the Modernist project, space has been losing ground in architecture. Whereas ‘space’ as a term in the second half of the 20th century was constantly on the lips of every architect, echoing Le Corbusier, by the late 1990s and early 2000s it had receded. The onset of computer-aided generative design had led to new preoccupations with surface and parametricism. Space, though, did not wholly wane in the practice of architecture. It remained locked into the working methods and drafted plans of experienced architects, like Herman Hertzberger (pp 106–13), who projected spatial configurations that intuitively responded to users’ needs. This issue not only effectively reasserts the position of ‘space’ in architecture in a highly current computational context, but reframes its significance in the realisation of work that is ‘human-centric’, or ‘empathic’. In terms of architectural computation this publication builds on an existing lineage of work, which is fully described by Guest-Editor Christian Derix in his introduction (pp 14–23). It picks up the baton from 1960s computing pioneers, such as Paul Coates and John Frazer, who first experimented with self-organising systems and a theoretical framework for the autonomy of space, as well as the ground-breaking work undertaken by Bill Hillier in the 1970s, establishing ‘space syntax’ as a comprehensive method for exploring how people relate to space in the built environment. Understanding the potential for an emphasis on the user and the occupation of space for practice, Derix, as Director at WoodsBagot, and previously Director for Computational Design at Aedas|R&D (2004–2014), has assimilated his knowledge of the work of the likes of Paul Coates, who he taught with at the University of East London, in an approach that applied algorithms in the exploration of human behaviours, which could be fully utilised in the development of large-scale masterplanning, major urban schemes and infrastructure projects, as well as in individual buildings. Just as the Guest-Editors Christian Derix and Åsmund Izaki acknowledge their debt in this issue to an earlier generation of computational designers and thinkers, so do they recognise the work undertaken by others in the field of cognition, perception and phenomenology. This is most apparent in the inclusion of articles by the renowned architectural thinker and author Juhani Pallasmaa (pp 80–5) and artist Olafur Eliasson (pp 86–93). The compatibility between an ‘empathic’ approach and computation is not, however, quite a done deal. Could we be leaving too much to code? Could a focus on the computational aspect of mapping human behaviour lead to architects neglecting to develop their own spatial consciousness or intelligence? Controversially, Leon van Schaik, the author of the Counterpoint thinks so (pp 136– 41). 1
Text © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Image © Illustration by Frances Castle
5
6
Aedas|R&D Computational Design Research (CDR), Circulation resilience analysis, 2010–13 top: Part of the EU research project, Resilient Infrastructure and Building Security, in collaboration with the Jill Dando Institute of Crime Sciences, University College London (UCL).
Aedas|R&D Computational Design Research (CDR), Visual performance of the September 11th Memorial Museum, New York, 2007bottom: Visualisation showing each location has a value of visual performance that approximates visitors’ legibility of the interior space. In collaboration with Davis Brody Bond Architects and Planners, New York.
Aedas|R&D Computational Design Research (CDR), Planning Narrative Visualisation, 2009–12 centre right: Time-based visualisation of online articles about the planning of the London 2012 Olympic stadium, in collaboration with Dr Albena Yaneva of the Manchester Architectural Research Centre (MARC).
Aedas|R&D Computational Design Research (CDR), Visual risk simulation, 2011centre left: CDR has developed multiple visibility simulations for building volumes, multi-floor interiors and urban spaces.
6
7
ABOUT THE GUEST-EDITORSCHRISTIAN DERIX AND ÅSMUND IZAKI
Text © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images: p 6 © Aedas; p 7(t) © Christian Derix; p 7(b) © Ami Izaki
Christian Derix and Åsmund Izaki have developed a unique design strategy using computation as
a vehicle to embed human-centric concerns in spatial systems. With the Computational Design
Research (CDR) group of Aedas|R&D, founded by Derix in 2004, they have created design
simulations for many projects in different contexts, from large professional urban and architectural
projects, to speculative research in academic collaborations, Web-based visualisations and
furniture systems.
Their collaboration started in 2007 on the development of new spatial analysis simulations for the
National September 11th Memorial Museum project in New York. Here, it became evident that they
share a strong interest in spatial qualities and algorithmic design, focusing on the user as occupant
and designer to access phenomena of space through algorithmic processes. Both are architects, with
Derix providing expertise in algorithmic models of self-organisation and spatial cognition, while Izaki
has extensive experience in interactive systems of design. They have integrated their complementary
knowledge for projects based on simulating human perception and user interaction for the analysis and
generation of architectural space. This synergetic set of knowledge and skills has not only provided a
direction for CDR, but also a research focus – user-centric simulation – for the Aedas R&D initiative
as a whole.
They have published their approach and projects through more than 40 academic papers, book
chapters and guest lecturing, leading to a new view of architectural computing that has been adopted
by several architecture schools of universities including ETH Zurich and KTH Stockholm. The work
of CDR has received commendations for spatial simulation at awards such as the 2010 Presidents
Medal for Research in Practice of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), the 2011
Italian Compasso d’Oro for the online algorithmic design engine of the VITA Shelving System for
MDFItalia, and the 2012 Centre for Tall Buildings and Urban Habitats (CTBUH) Innovation award
for the computer-activated responsive facade of the Al Bahar towers. CDR is now advancing the field
of human-centric computational design for spatial strategies at global design and consulting firm
WoodsBagot, of which Derix is a director.
Christian Derix co-founded Aedas|R&D in London. He studied architecture and computation in
Milan and London, and has taught the subject at various European universities since 2001, including
the University of East London, University College London (UCL), Milan Polytechnic and the
Technical University of Vienna, and as a visiting professor at the Technical University of Munich. He
is currently an associate professor at IE University Madrid, and a visiting professor at the University
of Sheffield. In 2002 he founded the Centre for Evolutionary Computing in Architecture (CECA)
at the University of East London with the late Paul Coates, with whom he taught until 2009. Here
he introduced the use of self-organising neural networks to space planning and developed a series of
algorithmic models to investigate artificial cognition and spatial organisation, including models of
evolutionary computing for masterplanning with multi-criteria optimisation.
Åsmund Izaki is a senior designer at WoodsBagot. He previously worked as a senior designer and
researcher at the Aedas|R&D CDR, during which he developed computational models for urban
planning, architecture and furniture through code, in the form of interactive tools. Projects have
included an interactive interface for the VITA shelving system, and visibility analysis for the National
September 11th Memorial Museum to research modelling perceptual and experiential aspects
of architecture. He holds an MArch from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology
(NTNU), where he specialised in architecture and adaptive systems, before sharpening his expertise
with graduate studies in art and technology at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg.
After finishing his studies he worked with the architecture group servo and the interaction design
office Kram/Weisshaar on projects that have been widely exhibited and published internationally.
He has led a number of courses on topics related to design and technology at Konstfack University
College of Arts, Crafts and Design and at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. 1
7
Block/Tower, 119 Third Avenue, Manhattan, New York, 2011Views of the south (left) and north (right) elevations showing the spatial arrangement of programmes.
Stan Allen and Rafi SegalSPOTLIGHT
8
9
Betweenness centrality of Apple Valley, Minnesota, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, 2014The width of the roads shows their betweenness centrality, a measure used in network analysis. It is calculated by counting the amount of shortest paths that pass through an edge or node, for all shortest paths from every node to all other nodes. Calculated using the Open Source Boost graph library.
Pablo Miranda Carranza
10
Your rainbow panorama, ARoS Aarhus Art Museum, Aarhus, Denmark, 2011Situated on the roof of ARoS Aarhus Art Museum, Your rainbow panorama is a 150-metre (490-foot) long coloured glass circular walkway.
Olafur Eliasson
11
12
Artificial Curator, Centre for Evolutionary Computing in Architecture (CECA), University of East London, 2008A multi-stage synthetic machine learning model to generate intuitive exhibition layouts. The figure shows an image composition of various stages of associative networks interpreting exhibition features, schedules and layout modules, before the resulting plans.
John Harding
Text © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images: pp 8-9 © Stan Allen and Rafi Segal; p 10 © Pablo MIranda Carranza; p 11 © 2006 Olafur Eliasson. Courtesy of ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Denmark pp 12-13 © John Harding
13