Course description

Workload

5 ECTS

Prerequisites

Students do not need specific knowledge of Rhinoceros and Grasshopper

Utzon´s legacy

When looking at the constitutive elements of Utzon’s designs, it is possible to discover original approaches to variation and repetition. Because of his awareness on the issues of construction the repetition of a component becomes the expedient by which complex geometrical and constructional problems can be rationally solved, in such a way as to achieve a unified form that while incremental is at once flexible, economic and organic.

Conversely, the variation of a component is related to his refusal of reductionist approaches: in his design he aims at embracing the complexity and the multifarious.

Among the possible ways to reconsider Utzon legacy, one can look at his strategies for variation and repetition in the light of the recent development of parametric modeling, computational techniques, digital fabrication and their application in architectural design. Parametric software enable the possibility to explore almost effortlessly infinite geometric variations that can be coupled with performance simulations, optimization, and iterative design processes, enriching and infinitely expanding a design space whose roots can be found in much of Utzon’s work.

These approaches are translated in a computational environment to Performance-Aided Design (PAD). Performance-Aided Design (PAD) indicates a shift in the use of Computer Aided Design (CAD) tools from the mere translation of the work once carried on paper, to an evolving paradigm where the increasing integration of parametric tools and performative analysis is changing the way we learn and design.

Performance Aided Design (PAD)

The summer school investigates novel tools, methodologies and technologies that foster creativity and innovation in architectural design and trigger new forms of integration between engineering and architectural issues.

PAD approach investigates the role of digital tools in architectural design within the following factors: embedded tectonics, performance simulation and computational methods.

Several questions will be addressed during the summer school:

-how complex geometry can be used to develop architectural bodies that aren’t simply formally expressive, but more adapted to an increasing array of performance factors?

-how the results from diverse performance analysis, eventually conflicting one with another, can be integrated in a creative architectural design process?

-do new technologies enable the conditions for intuitive, creative work, that support the designer in its attempt to make a synthesis of opposite requirements, when dealing with problems that are too complex to solve by pure designer´s intuition?

Summer school theme

The summer school will explore the significance of those questions when dealing with timber construction. The point of departure is the typology of reciprocal structures.

Reciprocal structures embody a changing relationship between form structure and fabrication in architectural design in the sense that the nature of the joint and the elements in use cannot be distinguished from the overall structural and morphological conception. Elements are usually assembled in direct contact one to another, not separated by steel plates. This condition offers the designer the opportunity to deal with the specific properties of wood, to craft joints that express the forces paths, and to explore novel approaches to tectonics in digital design environment.

Reciprocal structures have been recently classified along other woven structures, with the peculiarity of using short and stiff elements with respect to the size of the entire structure. The summer school will investigate the boundary between reciprocal structures and woven structures, with the design and manufacturing of an architectural body whose formal appearance is determined by the specific properties of the material in use and by the response to a large array of performance factors.