Final Poster & Text

 

Text from poster.

The design of my building came from the idea of Metamorphosis which is the biological process in which the structure of a body evolves or develops its shape. In architecture it is referred to as digital morphogenesis which is the which is a process of shape development enabled by computation, it can be described as a group of methods used by digital media to create forms and adaptations to express or respond to contextual processes.
Morphogenesis in design usually relates to the processes in nature for example the evolution of a tree as it grows or how the human body changes as it ages. By using this idea of biological process i divided the building into sections and projected a voronoi onto each section creating almost a forest effect, as you walk through the building you can clearly see the path ahead as it is the same voronoi projected onto each section but as the section increase, so does the direction in which you travel. Just like a forest there are many ways to slip out of these corridors but the same thing applies in which you must follow that same corridor or try and find your way out by slipping through each section which is why the building is called “Lost in the Domain”. No matter which direction you travel on the X-axis or the Y-axis all the corridors look the same which creates maze environment where you must figure a way out.
I chose the site was on the corner of Cathedral Street and Crown Street because its surrounding environment was best suit for the building because the building is located directly across from the Domain it is almost like a set of trees in an open plain.
The intial concept came from studying Santiago Calatrva’s works and how he used human metamorphosis to inspire some of his designs and by studying Santiago Calatrava’s work i came across the concept of morphogeneis in architect. Morphogenesis in architecture is the process of which a shape is developed and is usually relates in the process of nature for example trees. I used the concept of a tree to try and define the exterior of the building at first but that first design did not suit the boundaries of the site so instead of designing the exterior of the building i decided to design the interior of the building first and let the interior define the exterior shape of the building.
The final design was achieved by dividing a geometry into section planes, projecting a voronoi onto a box morph so all the voronoi will be the same shape and then projecting the box morph onto the surface of the section planes. After the final design of the building was set the iterations were just a matter of changing the values to try and improve on the building itself by changing the values to increase the size of the voronoi to increase the corridors and also decreasing the values. Another process of creating the iterations was trying to change the exterior shape of the building to try and define the interior spaces so working in reverse of how i came up with the design. This was achieved by increasing and decreasing the height of the overall building and also elevating the ends of the building off the site itself.

Laser Cut Model & Progression Photos

All the pieces

Beginning to put the model together

The internal spaces

Mistakes of the model, notches too big and burnt effect on one side.

The north face of the model.

West face of the building.

Almost completed

Added the external walls.

Completed model with a site cut out.

Laser Cut File & Description File

This is the description file for my laser cut model, since i was happy with the model and decided that the laser cut model will be the final model itself i used the same grasshopper description file.

Abode Illustrator Laser Cut File

Iterations

Assessment 3 Model & Grasshopper File

The basics of the grasshopper file was the create a solid geometry, divided that geometry into multiple planes and using a voronoi that was already projected on a box morph. Project that box morph onto each plane so that they would all be the same voronoi. This was so i could use the voronoi to define the internal spaces in the model, if you were to follow down one path through one hole of the voronoi as the section planes increase so does the size of the hole and this makes the hole or corridor that you are walking through follow the curve of the building.

Final Design called "Lost in the Domain".
The reason it is called "Lost in the Domain" because the model itself is like a maze, where you follow down one corridor but also have the option to sneak through and jump into another corridor which looks similar to the one you just came from which gives you the feeling of being lost and the site that it is situated on is directly across from the Domain.

Model Concept for Assessment Three

Since my topic for assessment two was on morphogenesis i wanted to represent a natural element in my design. The most relevant natural design for my model was to try and make it seem like they were trees placed close to each other since my proposed site was directly across from the Domain. I chose to use the vorinoi because of the randomness.

GH Experimentation & Chosen Site

 This is a screen shot of my grasshopper experimentation, since my essay was based on morphogenesis i wanted to create a element that symbolized a tree and have that element grow within the model to show the biological process of a tree growing because that is my interpretation of morphogenesis. This is like a column structure that will most likely be placed within the building at different sizes and to also define the internal space which also links to parametric design because i can use paramterics to constrain the sizes of these elements.

Ref: Assessment 3 Brief.