3 Ideas + 3 Projects from an Architect with 3 Names

Trail of Tears. Monster Trucks. X-ray. Seattle. Dallas. Louisville. Hyperational Process. Architectural Obsession of Signature. Compartmentalized Flexibility.  These words, places, and ideas are the jigsaw pieces from a Ted talk articulated by Joshua Prince-Ramus, principle of REX Architecture.  In February of 2006, Prince-Ramus pieced this lecture together in order to reveal how three separate projects with incomparable  ‘bathtubs’ of constraints are resolved with a singular understanding of three concepts derived from a Hyperational Process.

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Vito Acconci: Writing, Following strangers around the city, Designing buildings

City of Words, 1977 Vito Acconci

This week’s search for great things to share with you all began with that six degrees of separation. This is that fun phenomenon I’m sure most of us are familiar with that consists of bouncing from one wildly interesting article to another. What makes it so enjoyable is that it wonderfully suggests that all things are linked to one another in someway.

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5 Major Technology Breakthroughs that Will Change the Way You Live

Understanding Moore’s Law and its related counterparts, we understand that technological advance is measured exponentially, not linearly. Moore’s Law, specifically, states that transistor speed will double for the same price/size every 18 months. It is no mistake that new computer products are released almost as regularly as new cars. In about a year to two years, technology, like clockwork, will advance enough to make something two times more powerful for the same price. What excites me is to see new functions and gadgets come out, knowing full well that they are starting their journey up the Moore’s Law curve. Below are a few examples that will absolutely make a difference in your life.

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In the Shadow of the Dome

What do Martin Luther King Jr., the Georgia Dome, and Atlanta’s only open air heroin market have in common?

Directly to the west of the Georgia Dome is one of Atlanta’s oldest historically African American neighborhoods. Vine City became popular after the 1917 Atlanta fire, which destroyed parts of another black community in Atlanta, Sweet Auburn. Adjacent to Atlanta University and Morris Brown College, Vine City hit its peak as the center of Atlanta’s black community in the 1940’s and 50’s. As job and housing opportunities for blacks improved in the late 50’s, the wealthier residents moved out of the Vine City area, causing a severe economic decline. The 60’s brought demonstrations, Martin Luther King Jr., and increased attention, but the neighborhood continued its slide into poverty. From the mid-60’s forward, talk of revitalizing the neighborhood was common, but no actions were ever taken. In the late 80’s, the neighborhood civic association fought against the impending Georgia Dome to no avail. The dome is not quite the eyesore residents had feared, but neither did it bring a promised economic upturn. The Vine City Civic Association commissioned a lengthy revitalization plan, published 2004, but nationwide recession has prevented any further movement forward. Read the rest of this entry »

Prepping topo for laser cutter in Rhino

This downloadable 12 page pdf walks you through the steps I follow when prepping a set of topo lines for the laser cutter. The pdf includs explanation on the following commands: importing, exporting, aligning, timing, joining, splitting, and grouping. Next week: different ways to make topo lines into a surface in rhino.

The Souvenir Effect

This is a summary of an article, Vriesendorp Syndrome. Overwhelmed by the geographies of sensation, memory, and plenty, written by Sam Jacob, published in Perspecta 41: Grand Tour.

Within Perspecta 41: Grand Tour the articles are themed around the historic event of the Grand Tour, which was the traditional travel of Europe undertaken by mainly upper-class European young men of means from around 1660 until the 1840s. Sam Jacob writes this article to reveal the evolution of humans and their inability to react when confronted with experience. He blames the essence of tourism and its object, the souvenir (whose origin came out of the Grand Tour in 1775), as the cause of this alienated experience we call tourism.

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“It’s the Market, Not You.”

John Morefield has been laid off for the second time last year from an architecture firm. He decided to control his destiny by opening a booth in the Ballard Farmers Market in Seattle that offers five-cent home-improvement advice. He got this idea from the cartoon “Peanuts” where Lucy sets up a booth for psychiatric help. Morefield thought of this as a way to build clientele for his future once the economy gets better. ¹ He even has a website.

1. Laid-Off Man Offers Nickel’s Worth Of Fix-It Advice by Vanessa Rom

Morphogenetic Typologies

I am currently taking a class here at Georgia Tech called Morphogenetic Typologies. In it we have been investigating various precedents of spatial tectonic systems. Some people have been researching sponges, others natural erosion formations. Lucky me got Math Surfaces. No, actually, I have a profound respect for mathematics, its connection to the sciences and architecture is undeniable. Not only that, the formations of parametric functions can be absolutely beautiful, as in this Enneper surface of degree 4.

But how do you make architecture from that? I see it as a scale less form, it could be on playground as easily as a base for a coffee table in my living room.

For me the issue in looking at these math surfaces is that I find it hard to imagine creating successfully habitable spaces. As beautiful as they may be, I would probably fall out of one if I tried to inhabit it..

FUNctional work environments^^^

However, one architecture student in London, Daniel Piker, has been doing a lot of nice research in rheotomic surfaces, and is working on, to me at least, a successful union between the purity of mathematical formations and architecture.

(The word etymology from greek, Rheo; flow and tomos- cut or section)

These structures are complete, embedded and most importantly, walkable.

Here is an excerpt From Daniel’s Blog regarding the difficulty of practical application of math surfaces:

“…Images of these surfaces have naturally caught the attention of architects, and attempts to use them in the design of buildings go at least as far back as the 1970s (see Pearce and Gabriel). Minimal surfaces which form repetitive 3-dimensional structures –  Triply Periodic Minimal Surfaces(TPMS) such as the Gyroid and its associate P and D surfaces have recieved particular attention. However, attempts at an architecture based on these concepts have so far been been held back by a number of factors:

One is the daunting nature of the mathematics involved. The growing popularity of parametric modeling has meant that architects are now often quite comfortable with surfaces that can be generated from a simple function giving x y z in terms of u and v, but rarely when faced with something more advanced like the Weierstrass elliptic functions used in minimal surface mathematics.

Another problem is their symmetry. Most known minimal surfaces are either single inviolable entities or they are made up of endlessly repeating identical units. To be useful for architecture a geometric system needs a degree of flexibility, the ability to adapt to varied inputs.

One possible approach is to simply reject mathematical purity and take some of the techniques for working with curved surfaces and apply them in a free-form manner. But if the architect does not have real control of the tools he uses, the work is merely a collage or imitation, and without the integrity of the maths behind it, design quickly gets into difficult waters regarding structural performance and buildability.”
Daniel’s work is definitely inspiring to me, more of his work and research can be found on his blog.

Atlanta Neighborhood Survey

I am currently in my 8^th year of living in Atlanta, and I thought I knew the city pretty well. I went to college at Emory, lived in Druid Hills, read Creative Loafing, attended openings at Beep Beep, bought all my presents at Young Blood and never, ever drank Pepsi. Yes, I knew all there was to know about Atlanta. Then my boyfriend decided he might buy a house, and I decided to help him look.

I had no idea. For example, did you know that there are things on the west side of 75/85? Other than Georgia Tech? And to the south – there’s like a whole other city down there! A laundry list of neighborhoods I had never heard of, let alone been to.  In theory, I understood that there were things outside the snug comfort of my lower northeast enclave, but I never really considered it. Now I have begun to wonder – what are people up to over there? How can I have no clue what 3/4^ths of Atlanta is like and still be a good Atlanta citizen, let alone a good Atlanta architect?

This will be a regularly occurring column where I take the opportunity to educate myself and anyone else who might be interested on Atlanta neighborhoods that I don’t already know about. Which is apparently a lot. Every other week I will investigate and profile a different Atlanta neighborhood. Midtown will not be one of them. Or will it?

Next issue: Vine City

Cool Popular Mechanics Article

The World’s 18 Strangest Homes /

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