The First of Firsts

Evolo: Tower Competition_08
Moto_if you can imagine it, it can be realized!

Competition Parameters: Two Boards
Implications: The idea must be simple and clear but complex through its execution
The Competition: Who Won and Why
06_operational logic of modules based on the programmatic need for temporal habitation
Simple idea: modular variation
07_parasitic, site adaptive system of programmatically neutral habitats counter to the typical stance of tabla rasa Simple idea: responds to site using components
08_performative logic of topology that considers environmental factors (sustainability a biggy). Simple idea: layers that mediate different conditions

Value System: Why are towers important?
Lack of resources (land) hence move up and increase density

Consider the Extremes: What the future holds?

Extreme density: A city in a tower. Everything should be in it. Schools hospitals, theaters, living, parks recreation, night life. Look at Japan
What this means in terms of design: program diagrams showing relationships and adjacencies. Form based on program.

Lack of resources: We grow our buildings out of organic natural materials. Growing and decomposition.
What this means in terms of design: material studies. What is out there and how can it applied to architecture. Looking at natural systems. Beehives?

H2o: Worst scenario. Global warming is not stopped and the tower must reside or adapt to aquatic life.
What this means in terms of design: Does this imply pneumatics. What system can move from a vertical to a horizontal axis. Inflate deflate then reconfigure. Or modules that reconfigure to adapt.


Not so Extreme: what the present holds?
Sustainability: responsive systems. Buildings that adapt to inputs.


Random stuff from internet
Dynamic Structures
In parallel, building technology will continue to improve. Throughout all of history, structures have depended on two fundamental principals, tension and compression -- the one best exemplified by the Gothic cathedral, the other by the suspension bridge. Those are the ubiquitous principals in design, with a few minor exceptions, such as pneumatic buildings. We are, however, on the brink of a paradigmatic shift to dynamic buildings -- structures that will respond to their environment in real time. Dynamic structures could be made of relatively low-density, high-strength structural members based on new composites, with steel cables placed over buildings and down to the ground, attached to motors controlled by a central processor. Sensors located around and throughout structures would identify earth shakes, wind pressure, and so on, enabling buildings to respond in real time by slackening and tensing the steel tendons that hold their skeletons together.

The advantages of dynamic structures will be flexibility in design and the ability to add or remove floors. Such structures may, for the first time, give us truly temporary buildings. Today, temporary buildings are ordinary buildings with amenities left out. Other advantages of dynamic structures may be lower cost and the reuse of structural elements.

acadia›08
Silicon+Skin › Biological Processes and Computation
EditEd by AndrEw KudlEss, nEri OxmAn, And mArc swAcKhAmEr

BENS NOTES
Basics
Meaning of tower concept:
high concentration of social/structural activity
composition of layers, reflection of xy planes through out 3rd Z
(people exist in XY planes)
If these planes are set side by side at XY, to get from one plane to another linear distance is greater than if planes are stacked in which case smaller vertical distance is needed to translate from plane to plane (elevators, stairs)
pure understanding of the concept of stairs. What exactly is happening in the use of stairs. change of levels of height through gradual changes in Z. Ramp is a stair where the level changes -> 0
A tower has a bounding rectangular box with height a and base b. a>b

Complex vs. Simple
Parametric/Scripting? Fad or Real?
Do they want to see that?

Response to current need. Not Ironic
Global warming, water levels rising. Save Venice and Amsterdam. Water tower, kevin costner, water world (haha). Water tower = giant floating device. Generation of energy?

Inflatable structure. Grow a building. Air occupies voids, air acts in compression.

Skins? Function.
Skins becomes structure, monocoque.
Skin as energy harnessing device?
Skin adapts, dinamic?

Growth models
http://biosarch.com/images/index.html


http://www.nae.edu/nae/bridgecom.nsf/weblinks/NAEW-4NHMDX?OpenDocument
nov 12, 08

http://www.labdora.com/index-proj.html Peter macapia Scriptor

http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1082&context=cadrc multistory pneumatics

From Nature: Ant Nests, occur vertically
http://thinkorthwim.com/2007/05/01/plaster-casts-of-ant-nests/