I’ve just returned from the 5-day CitySwitch Architectural workshop in Newcastle organized by UTS lecturer Joanna Jakovich. The participants were asked to choose between four teams, each looking at architectural interventions of one kind or another. As well as team participation, I directed some energy into creating an online live map of the event, as an extension of my current research.
Renew Newcastle
This particular CitySwitch was conducted in collaboration with Renew Newcastle, which works to temporarily populate empty shopspace with galleries, teahouses, etc. to aid revitalization of the area. They work with a fascinating legal arrangement, non-threatening for property owners, which sets up a 30-day rolling “license to use”. The temporary occupier pays $20/week to cover insurance and minor upkeep. It is a framework that could possibly translate to spaces in Sydney. (more…)
Recently, Bruce Sterling featured Voxopolis (below) on his blog. The project extends Conway’s Game of Life into the 3rd dimension in order to evolve a city design. It is one of six presented in the Helvepolis – Urban Design in Vitro! exhibition, showcasing the work of students at ETH in Zurick, studying Masters of Architectural Studies in Computer Aided Architectural Design:
The ETH Masters program looks at “the use of current information technologies as an augmentation of concepts of architecture. [Exploring] new techniques and methods for design that incorporate scripting and programming languages.” As my interest in the use of computer technology in architecture lie in the areas of understanding inhabitants’ spatial practices to inform design, better engineering, and architectural modeling, I am generally quite cynical towards CAAD projects that look cool, but don’t serve actual human bodies. I have given some personal commentary to a few of the CAAD projects. I’d be curious to hear your views.
The small (simulated) depth-of-focus and constant shifting focus helps with convincing the viewer it’s actually real, and it guides the eye across a catalog of gorgeous surfaces. As much as I am concerned with a shift of perception into pure site, when the camera rounds an object and focus slides languidly over it the experience is almost tactile. Perhaps it’s a synesthesial short-circuit?
Following on from my look at image-based reconstruction of the buildings of a city, I want to explore another type of reconstruction; let’s call it psycho-social. While the image-reconstructions build a cloud of architectural feature points, location-tagged micro-blogging allows the formation of a cloud of social/emotional “enunciation points”.
The video shows reconstructed mesh models of the city of Rome. The meshes were constructed using “Structure from Motion“, a “process of finding the three-dimensional structure by analyzing the motion of an object over time”. In this case, the motion is actually the motion of tourists around the city, capturing the same buildings from many different angles. The power of such an approach is that thousands of creative-commons images of a particular city can be retrieved with a quick flickr search. (more…)
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Computer Aided Architectural Design
Sunday, February 7th, 2010(via Bruce Sterling’s Beyond the Beyond blog)
Recently, Bruce Sterling featured Voxopolis (below) on his blog. The project extends Conway’s Game of Life into the 3rd dimension in order to evolve a city design. It is one of six presented in the Helvepolis – Urban Design in Vitro! exhibition, showcasing the work of students at ETH in Zurick, studying Masters of Architectural Studies in Computer Aided Architectural Design:
voxopolis from Dino Rossi on Vimeo.
The ETH Masters program looks at “the use of current information technologies as an augmentation of concepts of architecture. [Exploring] new techniques and methods for design that incorporate scripting and programming languages.” As my interest in the use of computer technology in architecture lie in the areas of understanding inhabitants’ spatial practices to inform design, better engineering, and architectural modeling, I am generally quite cynical towards CAAD projects that look cool, but don’t serve actual human bodies. I have given some personal commentary to a few of the CAAD projects. I’d be curious to hear your views.
(more…)
Tags: 3rd Dimension, Abstract Rules, Aided Architectural Design, Architectural Modeling, Architectural Studies, Attractive City, Better Engineering, Bruce Sterling, Computer Aided Architectural Design, Dino Rossi, Game Of Life, Game Rules, Human Bodies, Human Habitation, Interactive City, Masters Program, Personal Commentary, Programming Languages, Rules Of The Game, Vimeo
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