project09:Presentations
P4.2
Max Latour
Abstract
In the last few decades the GDP per capita in Europe has been rising very steadily. Simultaneously, labour costs have shown a constant increase and prices of robots have decreased substantially. Besides that, and probably as a result of that, the average working hours per week have been decreasing steadily. These conditions seem to appoint to a societal change, in which society is becoming increasingly automated and the necessity to work slowly dissolves.
In his ‘New Babylon’ works Constant has been philosophizing about such a society. He imagines an evolved human species, Homo Ludens, to be deprived from working duties and be free to satisfy their inner playful desires. In his work, vast floating structures are superimposed on the natural environment, enabling humans to transcend nature. However, why would the lack of necessity to work result in the disjunction of human’s natural origins? Therefore, this design aims to transform a building from an industrial era in order to suit a New Babylonian society, while taking into consideration the natural origins of man and architecture.
The complexity of the underlying logic in natural systems has for a long time been the reason for its own ignorance. They were rendered as random or given by God because of their incomprehensibility. This started to change with research of among others Uexküll, Darwin, and D’arcy Thompson. They started to unravel the basics of respectively the phenomenological, morphogenetical, or morphological aspects in organisms. Later for example Gaudi, Frei Otto and Heinz Isler started to experiment with analogue instruments in order to inform their designs by natural or physical conditions. Their experiments were referring to relatively simple natural conditions as gravity, catenaries and minimal surfaces, suitable for simulation within the means of their contemporary technological capabilities. Today’s knowledge and broad spectrum of (especially digital) devices and applications enable us to calculate much more complex or substantial computations and therefore also to simulate more intricate natural systems. Therefore, the intension of this research was to investigate natural processes that relate to certain architectural features and how to simulate them computationally in order to use them in an architectural design process.
The building that has been transformed was designed in an industrial era, reflected by its homogenous grid and repetition of building elements. In order to meet the requirements of a changed society, an architectural intervention with its own logic penetrates the building. The transformation between these societies is reflected by the emerged juxtaposition of styles. The intervention breaks up the homogeneity of the original building and creates a route with new views and connections. Where the existing structure is informed by its contemporary societal and technical conditions as mass-production, the intervention refers to robotic manufacturing and computational design.
It has been designed in combination with a research in the applicability of simulations of natural processes in architectural design. The processes are abstracted and translated in basic rules that are useful in the architectural design process and applicable computationally. From a technical material perspective this appeared to be valid, because it refers back to similar physical objectives as structural integrity in combination with material efficiency, thermal comfort (metabolism), or topological properties. However, from a social organizational point of view the relation between the chosen natural processes and architectural intentions appeared to dissolve and become more metaphorical. Although, the references in this design phase have still been useful and have been relevant in the design methodology. Yet the more metaphorical the reference becomes, the more the argumentation has to be described from a different perspective.
