prosthetic knowledge

Phantom Geometry 

Experimental 3D printing using special UV light responsive resin, by Liz and Kyle von Hasseln:

Phantom Geometry from Liz and Kyle von Hasseln on Vimeo.

This is ‘Phantom Geometry’, a masters thesis in architecture by Kyle von Hasseln and Liz von Hasseln, developed in the Robot House at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI_Arc). It was awarded the inaugural Gehry Prize at the SCI-Arc commencement ceremony on September 9.

This work is centered on the development of a system for generating material volume from streaming information. The system uses UV light from a modified DLP projector to continuously and selectively cure photo initiated resin within a shallow vat system we developed for the project. The cured part is simultaneously and continually pulled away from the vat, allowing un-cured resin to flood in beneath it to be subsequently cured. The result is the material reification of streaming data that emerges along the motion path of the Staubli robot maneuvering the vat/projector apparatus.

This system of fabrication relies upon native real-time feed-back and feed-forward mechanisms, and is therefore interruptible and corruptible at any time. The streaming data input may be transformed or modified at any time, and such interventions impact emerging downstream geometry.

Daniel Libeskind’s “Micromegas” (1979) 

Series of drawings which have the impression of architectural style and chaotic geometry - via socks studio:

From a post on the architectural forum “Pushpull Bar”:

Early in his career Libeskind produced two suites of drawings which reflected his thinking about the nature of architectural space: Micromegas and Chamberworks. Developed from his interest in geometry, Micromegas could be considered an alternative blueprint, whilst Chamberworks seems to explore the interaction between architecture and music, deeply rooted in his background and arguably one of his greatest influences. Both are clearly the basis on which Libeskind’s theatrical, geometrically complex architecture was developed and it is remarkable how his vision, borne in these drawings, have been realised in his projects.

More Here

Computer Architectural Designs From Frank Gehry, 1993

Taken from Acquitectura Viva v.28 January-February 1993 - via RNDRD

Arata Isozaki. Arts and Architecture v.4 n.2 July 1985

Architectural illustrations / Polaroids of future ruins - via RNDRD

Plant-In City 

Art installation merges gardening and technology, creating Arduino-powered frames with sensors for plants to be monitored, and interacted with via smartphone app. From the project’s Kickstarter page:

We’re creating a space where a community who loves architecture, technology and plants can meet. Our mission is to integrate these disciplines into a new paradigm that changes the way we live and interact with nature. We believe that interacting with plants will improve our lives.

Plant-in City taps into the natural systems that foster plant life to give the plants themselves a voice. This revolutionary planter system contains built-in sensors that are activated by sun exposure, changes in soil moisture, humidity, temperature, and other natural cycles. Once activated, these sensors translate the environmental data into sounds or visuals, creating an imaginary vibrant wilderness.

More about the project can be found here

Arakawa and Madeline Gins - A+U 255 Dec 1991

Architectural model of multi-coloured polygon playground.

[via RNDRD]

Buzludha Monument

Timothy Allen decided to visit an abandoned Communist monument in Bulgaria:

… Sure enough, 6 months later amidst the worst winter weather the country had experienced for many years, I was back in Bulgaria, and with the help of my friend Kaloyan Petrov we drove the 250km from Sofia to the edge of the Balkan Mountain range in which this magnificent building is located.

Buzludha is Bulgaria’s largest ideological monument to Communism. Designed by architect Guéorguy Stoilov, more than 6000 workers were involved in its 7 year construction including 20 leading Bulgarian artists who worked for 18 months on the interior decoration. A small, compulsory donation from every citizen in the country formed a large portion of the funds required to build this impressive structure that was finally unveiled in 1981 on what was the 1300^th anniversary of the foundation of the Bulgarian state.

Buried in the monument’s concrete structure, is a time capsule containing a message for future generations explaining the significance of the building.

You can read more about the journey, with more photographs, here

Split Time Café by Philippe Rahm

Architectural project that is designed not only considering space but also how the body responds to natural cycles of day and night:

“Split times café” is an architectural project for a café for the FOC Eybesfeld. It is given like a cellular division, from a time unique and single at the beginning, to a split in two parallel times, the night and the day, but both present at the same time. Actually, “Split times Café” gives the possibility of live in three temporalities: The first one is natural; the other two are artificial, physiologically produced. Furniture is drawn consequently, offering a variety of use and atmosphere, to choose freely. The project is thus a machine to cross the time, to pass instantly from the day to the night, to shift from the naturalness to the artificial in a fragment of second. Architecture is here literally the art of the construction of time.

The first temporality, taken in an envelope of clear glass, is, in real time, the time of the natural solar course. Classic furniture of a café is there, tables and chairs.

The second temporality is built with a yellow colored glass envelope, blocking the wavelengths of the light responsible for the fall of the melatonin in the body. It reproduces a true physiological night while being luminous. Furniture is here closer to a lounge and approaches the sofa to the bed.

The third temporality is defined by an envelope of blue glass of which wavelengths block the secretion of the melatonin in the body. It is thus a kind of perpetual day, for action, which becomes a bar, with high tables only, where customers stay upright for short stays.

Architecture becomes not only the design of the space but of the time too. To construct a night, to construct a day: it becomes challenging possibilities for the architectural design. “Split times café” is an architectural project splitting the time in three parallel spaces and customers could shift instantly from one moment of the day to an other.

More information and photos can be found at the designers website here

Olafur Eliasson’s concert hall

Via Sian Lile Makes

Richard Pare, Shábolovka’s radio tower, 1988 

Via ‘We Make Money Not Art’, which takes a look at the Royal Academy’s exhibition Building the Revolution: Soviet Art and Architecture 1915-1935

aedas: 18 kowloon east (via design boom)

Building designed to fit into it’s location at eye level, making it less industrial and intimidating:

international design practice aedas has completed ‘18 kowloon east’, a 28-storey mixed-use building in kowloon, china. seeking to balance out the heavily industrialized blocks making up the site, the design features a multi-storey green base that provides a ‘greening effect’ within the neighbourhood.

More information and images can be found at design boom here.

Room Sized Electric Guitar (via Design Boom)

A fully working guitar in an enclosed space with 8 8-meter long strings:

architect marcelo ertorteguy and sara valente collaborated with takahiro fukuda to create ‘cargoguitar’, a room sized electric guitar. eight strings start from a vertical media column stretching eight meters to another horizontal media spine resulting in a hyperbolic paraboloid. each peg is tuned to a different note, achieving varied sound scales to be captured by the transducers. two amplifiers allow the vibrations to be felt in the room. a glow in the dark coat is applied to the strings, allowing visitors to not just hear the sound but to see it as it as well. the inhabitable instrument is on show at the kobe biennale 2011.

More can be found at Design Boom, with more photographs (including that of its development) and video / sound examples.

Slideshow by Tjeerd de Jong

The design process of this graduation project began with a collection of un-used slides. It was a challenge for me to make a sculptural object with such a simple, practical product. The aim was to get to essence of the product and relive the atmosphere and nostalgic feeling from old times by making a light-object, which projects the entire space.

Tianjin West Railway Station (via Design Boom)

Recently completed railway station in China is an architectural beauty.

More Here

‘Communication Hut’ at Jangdong 4-way crossing by Juan Herreros via Design Boom

A concept board (which is more stylish in it’s own right) which is part of the gwangju design biennale 2011 exhibition, ‘Urban Folly’

‘Urban Folly’ … asked ten architects to explore the urban area of gwangju, korea. the small scale follies act as a link between the public and the city, giving visitors a new space to explore and interact with their surroundings. the structures are placed around the city in carefully chosen locations that work as a network, leading people from one to the other. inside the follies, whether on purpose or simply by the location, activities and programs occur, some connected to the biennale, others not.

More architectural ideas and images can be found here