Architectural Theory Spring 2010 Final Manifesto Jeremy Goucher

Cutaneous Technology and Architecture

Using nature as reference for design, contemporary architecture is another step in the

evolutionary process of the relationship between the case and what it contains. Architecture

began with the primitive hut made of stick and stone, referencing nature as the means of

construction. The Greeks used carving technologies to sculpt stone from the nostalgia for

nature, resulting in the relationship between sculpture and architecture.1 In the Modern era Le

Corbusier advocated carving as a means of surface vitalization as long as the voids produced

are in accordance with the generating geometries to accentuate the complete form.2

As the next step in the evolution, contemporary architecture is relying heavily on

computer sciences as a means of design conception and construction. A prime example of

computer technologies establishing a relationship between surface and structure is the

Contemporary Art Museum by Nieto and Sobejaño. Basing the project on the basic unit of

representation in the computer, the pixel, Nieto and Sobejaño’s resulting structure was of

tessellated polygons. The façade pieces together the individual ‘pixels’ to create computer

based images. Just as the hexagonal units in a honeycomb combine to form the hive, the pixel

bowls combine to form the surface of the museum and the underlying structure.3 This step

displays how computer science technologies are being combined with design conceptions

rooted in our affinity with nature.

New technologies have led to new methods of building construction. Building wall

systems of today are designed to do more than protect from the elements. These envelope

systems act as mechanical ecosystems that wrap the building: providing protection from

precipitation, regulating ventilation, solar gain and lighting.

To continue with the approach that architecture is referencing nature, animal skins can

be used as examples for building envelopes. Exactly like modern envelope systems, animal

skins and furs can be used as insightful resources for new design technologies. Animal skins

act as the perfect natural envelope: providing evaporative cooling, absorbing nutrients,

regulating heat loss and gain, and act as a membrane for moisture protection. Citing references

from patterns on animal skins like those of zebras and leopards, Greg Lynn defends the use of

ornament in regards to the sense that it “corresponds in some way to the armature of bones and

muscles beneath, so that the pattern will vary at points of performative intensity, as at hip or

shoulder joints.”4 With these animals provided as examples one can analyze their patterns to

gain some knowledge of the relationship between their skins (as membranes) and their

skeleton, organs, and muscles (all as structure and mechanics). The patterns reference the

skeletal layout, highlight keys organs like the brain and intestines, and provide visual patterning

differences between appendages that provide mobility (legs) and those that do not (tails).

One can also look to the processes of nature through the medium of environmental

weathering to imagine new ways of construction and design. Project 3 uses a limestone rain

screen as the protective membrane and a tool of establishing pattern on a normative structure.5

The goal of this design was to create depth and variety of shade through ‘removal’ on a micro to

macro scale, mimicking the natural process that nature uses to erode stone. The section of the

façade represents a range of erosion and process of construction the exterior to the interior.

Though not structural, the façade alludes to the location of the structure by way of vertical

massing and horizontal banding. The most exterior surfaces are those that appear rough,

beaten and damaged. These surfaces are rough hewn limestone panels that give way to

smooth limestone panels. This change represents a refinement in craft by displaying the added

effort and time placed into creating the smooth surface (smoothing caused by erosion). Carving

deeper into the façade and displaying a more precise level of technique, the metal sandwich

panel is introduced. These metal panels represent the final layer of which the stone has been

worn enough to reveal other mineral and artifacts that It may contain. A pattern of dominant

verticals with layered horizontal subordinates is established.

The old paradigms of architecture are giving way to a new- that of digital

morphogenesis.6 This new methodology describes an architecture in which aesthetics and

function, ornament and structure are not divorced. This new paradigmatic shift in architecture is

one that emphasizes the marriage between the idea and the built, the skin and the armature.

Equality between issues like form and function does not become an issue: function dominates,

form and pattern reference.

Notes

1. Carving as a form of mimicking leaves, wood grain, trees, etc. Eugene-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, “Decorating Appropriately: Historical Principles of Embellishment,” in The Architectural Theory of Viollet-le-Duc (Cambridge: MIT, 1990), 205-214, first publish ca. 1870

2. Le Corbusier, “Three Reminders to Architects: Surface,” in Towards a New Architecture (New York: Dover, 1985), 33-42, first publish in 1927

3. Example: Buckminster Fuller rooted his designs and construction processes in those of nature with tetrahedrons, triangles and cylinders-“justified in terms of natural precedents.” Fil Hearn, “Honest Structure as the Framework of Design,” in Ideas that Shaped Buildings (Cambridge: MIT, 2003), 223-253

4. Leach, Turnbull, Williams (eds.), Digital Tectonics, op.cit., 65 5. Project 3 is a project assigned to the Design 6 class at the Fay Jones School of

Architecture at the University of Arkansas in spring 2010. The goal of the project is to create an envelope system by studying and understanding different types of cladding systems that can be manipulated to accommodate distinct operations within the envelope that encompasses a 5 level building located in Kansas City Missouri. Project 3 consists of a Limestone rain screen envelope system with CMU backup attached to a concrete one-way joist structural system.

6. Leach, Neil. "Digital Morphogenesis". Archithese April 2006: 44-49.

Bibliography

Eco, Umberto, “Function and Sign: The Semiotics of Architecture,” in Rethinking Architecture: A Reader in Cultural Theory (London: Routledge, 1997), 182-201.

Hearn, Fil, “Honest Structure as the Framework of Design,” in Ideas that Shaped

Buildings (Cambridge: MIT, 2003), 223-253 Kinney, Leila, “Fashion and Fabrication in Modern Architecture,” Journal of the Society

of Architectural Historians, vol. 58, No. 3, September 1999, 472-481.

Leach, Neil. "Digital Morphogenesis," Archithese April 2006: 44-49. Leach, Turnbull, Williams (eds.), Digital Tectonics, London: Wiley-Academy, 2004. Le Corbusier, “Three Reminders to Architects: Surface,” in Towards a New Architecture

(New York: Dover, 1985), 33-42, first publish in 1927 Schumacher, Thomas, “The Skull and the Mask, The Modern Movement and Dilemma

of the Facade,” The Cornell Architectural Journal, Fall 1987, pg 4.

Viollet-le-Duc, Eugene-Emmanuel, “Decorating Appropriately: Historical Principles of Embellishment,” in The Architectural Theory of Viollet-le-Duc (Cambridge: MIT, 1990), 205-214, first publish ca. 1870

Wachsmann, Konrad, “Seven Theses,’ in Programs and Manifestoes on 20th-Century Architecture (Cambridge: MIT, 1964) 156.

Stripe pattern contort around the sensory organs

Stripe pattern shifts direction around major joints of movement

Stripe pattern compresses around smaller joints

Stripe pattern offers slight shift in orientation to divide forequarter from hindquarter

Spot pattern offers slight shift in geometry to display forequarter from hindquarter

Spot pattern representslocation of vertebrae

Spot pattern changes from torso of animal (black outline with lighter infill) to limbs of animal (smaller solid spots)

Spot pattern becomes more intricate around face acting as a mask

Zebra

Clouded Leopard

Project 3

Smooth Limestone Panels

Metal Sandwich Panels

Rough Hewn Limestone Panels

Horizontal Banding Represents Floor Slabs

Vertical Massing Alludes to Structure

Location of Actual Structure