Abstract

In a complexly networked society the architect’s core competency is the task of articulation in order to establish the built environment as a communicative frame for its users (Schumacher [9]). A such purposefully designed environment is more legible and navigable than the modernist order of repetition, thus offering a suitable framework for contemporary societal patterns of use.

The adaptation of load bearing structures following different load cases in conjunction with their differentiation according to semiological aspects afford many opportunities for differential tectonic formations, exploiting structural necessities as an instrument of semiotic articulation. Numerous examples of this phenomena can be found in pre-modernist architectural history, from simple structural ornaments and subtle surface articulations to intricately devised surface structures.

Embedded in the studio’s continuous agenda of Parametric Design Research, the project “Parametric Semiology” investigates the semiological capacity of parametrically generated architectural forms and calls for the development of radically innovative and speculative spatial models for the sport venues and their related auxiliary programmes for Rio de Janeiro’s 2016 olympic park.

Buildings are understood as highly integrated complex systems, that are inter-articulated and correlated in order to fulfil urban, architectural, structural, functional, spatial, semiotic and atmospheric criteria.

Using this setup as a testing ground, performance and semiotic aspects become the driving layers of a parametric model in order to test valid tectonic articulations for their semiological potentials. To fully exploit the concept of tectonic articulation the studio closely collaborates with structural engineers, evaluating and orchestrating suitable options. This leads to the development of a series of proto-architectural shell structures, that hold the potential to be organized and differentiated within their own structural logics as well as according to urban and architectural semiological criteria.

Results of this design research and their underlying theories, concepts, logics and strategies are presented and discussed in this paper.

Keywords: design research, parametric design, semiology, semiotics, shell structures, tectonic articulation.

Introduction

Contemporary post-fordist network society is characterized by an unprecedented level of complexity and intensity of communication. Within the context of an ongoing urbanisation process, the ability to navigate dense and complex urban environments is an important aspect of overall societal productivity today. This is facilitated best, if the visual field presents a rich, ordered scene of manifold offerings and also provides clues and anticipations about what lies behind the currently visible layers. The speed and confidence with which one can make new experiences and meaningful connections is decisive. The design of environments that facilitate such hyper-connectivity must be very dense and complex and yet highly ordered and legible. This sets the task set for the semiological project under conditions of variety, density and complexity. (see Schumacher [11])

The core competency of architecture therefore is the task of articulation. Consequently, “The relationship between the technical and the articulatory dimensions leads to the concept of tectonics.” (Schumacher [9]), meaning that technical forms, that are based on engineers’ calculations, are absorbed and further articulated by architects, aiming for increased architectural legibility within the built environment’s framework of social interaction.

At the same time, the development of sophisticated computational design tools – both within architecture and within the engineering disciplines – has opened up the field for nuanced architectonic articulation and multi-layered building configurations. Also, simpler interfaces, common programme platforms and scripting languages make parametric design and engineering technologies alike more tangible for architects, facilitating information interchange and fostering a close collaboration between different disciplines that would have been impossible a few years ago. As a consequence, it has become impossible to conceive architectural design separated from its related disciplines, such as energy design, material science, construction technologies, production techniques, and structural engineering.

In this sense, lately buildings have come to be understood as highly integrated complex systems, sub-systems and components, that are inter-articulated and correlated, complementing each other in order to fulfil architectural, structural, functional, spatial, semiotic and atmospheric criteria. Our built environment is a series of complexly interwoven layers, where a building’s structure is only of them. Functions and programmes can also be integrated by systematic differentiation of one pivotal system, which makes one system work on multiple functional layers, i.e. one series of building components might have structural and atmospheric – or semiotic – properties at the same time.

Within this development, the consequent and strategic adaptation of load bearing structures following different load cases in conjunction with their differentiation according to semiological aspects afford many opportunities for differential tectonic formations, exploiting structural necessities as an instrument of semiotic articulation.

The Structural Ornament

Numerous examples of this phenomena can be found in pre-modernist architectural history, from simple structural ornaments to subtle and intricately devised surface articulations, as structural issues have always had profound impact on a building, not only in terms of its actual form, but also in terms of its ordering elements and surface articulations. Initially facades were ordered and subdivided (and eventually signified) by structural necessities (such as pillars, columns, plinths, beams, or round, pointed or triangular arches) or material formations and patterns (such as stone or ashlar masonry). As a consequence resulting facade articulations were essentially structural.

However, over time most of these elements of ornamentation became part of an historically evolving semiotic system that allowed for an intuitive understanding of the building’s societal functions, its horizontal stratification and the processes and interactions that could take place in them. They were subject to a process of abstraction detaching them from their initial significance and thus becoming mere surface decoration.

This can be exemplified by looking at the ordering principles that were developed for the facades of the typologies of the Italian Renaissance Palazzi. Antique elements were re-contextualized and arranged according to a strict set of abstract rules in order to create a complex system of interwoven semiological elements that enabled contemporaries to unreflectingly understand the buidling’s use and program distribution.

The ground floor’s channeled rustication, for example, alludes to ancient buildings’ massive foundations and suggest a commercial use, the choice of order of columns and the height of each of the subsequent floors hint at the different social strata occupying the respective floors.

Figure 1: Palazzo Rucellai (Source: Wilhelm Lübke, Max Semrau: Grundriß der Kunstgeschichte. Paul Neff Verlag, Esslingen, 14. Auflage 1908)

Alberti’s Palazzo Rucellai was one of the first and most important palazzo types, and the ornamental organization of the Italian palazzi in general remained the dominating model for the composition of all types of representative building typologies throughout the centuries until modernism prepared itself to supersede historicism as the predominant architectural ideology, invalidating its semiological and representational concept of ornament and decoration.

As historicism could no longer find adequate answers to the societal problems of that time, within the wake of the modernist project new and different theories emerged, addressing the very same issue but suggesting totally different solutions. This era of contending ideas might be illustrated best by the famous dispute between Josef Hoffmann and Adolf Loos about the function of the ornament.

Matthias Boeckl points out that during this process “[the] erstwhile comprehensive job description holding the architect to be responsible for the concept, structural design, and form of a building disintegrated into its component parts in the process of moderinsation, which could also be construed to be a process of specialisation; Loos claimed the basic cultural idea, Hoffmann the form – but who was concerned with structural design?” (Boeckl [1]).

Beyond Modernism …

It was precisely this deconstruction of the architectural ideal into its constituent parts on the one hand, and the modernists call for establishing close conceptual connections between architecture and industrially assembled products, like ships, aircrafts or automobiles on the other hand, that gave way to an engineers’ approach to the relationship between form, force and material. First dominated by aesthetic perception (in Le Corbusier’s programmatic book ‘Towards A New Architecture’, a whole chapter ‘Eyes Which Do Not See’ (LC [3]) is dedicated to the description of the aesthetic qualities intrinsic to industrialized products), as industrial objects seemed to be able to transfer a new, much desired machine-like aesthetics to architecture, the adoption of industrial production techniques was soon to give way to a whole range of new powerful materials and technologies that would introduce “more technical beauty” (LC, ibid.) into architecture.

The beginning of the 20^th century also saw the rise of reinforced concrete as one of the most influentual building materials. Initially imitating the structural logic and appearance of the iron- or steel framed buildings of that time, engineers soon started to see the enormous morphological potential of the new material, as new elegant double-curved shell structures, started to emerge. Remo Pedreschi describes this period as being marked by the designers’ ambitions to “[incorporate] a strong desire for structural expression and structural efficiency – to make virtue out of economy. Thus they drew together form, force and architecture.” (Pedreschi [4]).

In relation to the idea of structural semiotics, this early 20^th century development however has some other interesting aspects: These structures were carefully derived from constructed physical models or based on newly developed mathematical concepts (previously structures were designed in empirical ways, mainly relying on tradition, experience and observation) that helped to explain and understand the flow of forces. That lead to an economy of means where structures were optimized according to structural necessities, allowing for an intuitive understanding of the flow of forces through the building. Shell structures allowed the user for the very first time to establish a perceptual relationship between the inside space of a building and its exterior space, as the inner space and the outer form are close to identical. The form could be understood from the inside and the outside alike.

Felix Candela, Heinz Isler, and Eladio Dieste are among the protagonists of this era, as well as Pier Luigi Nervi, whose repetitive, partly precast, yet elegant and delicate rib constructions can be read as first predecessors of today’s differentiated surface articulations.

… and Elegance.

Design research in the wake of new digital design and production strategies with their clear predilection for soft, undulating and malleable architectural forms, has only recently opened up new perspectives for both, the appreciation for shell structures and their potential for optimization and the concept of the ornamental, eventually starting to bring these two strands of research closer together.

Easily accessible software interfaces and ready-to-run scripts as well as the proliferation of advanced fabrication technologies have lead to the widespread generation of sophisticated and differentiated fields of ornamental surface articulations, that due to the increasingly seamless integration of design and production techniques finally start to blur the now long held separation between tectonics and ornamentation. However, while the use of the ornament has become more widespread, there still seems to be a lack of rigor in intellectually pursuing its underlying concepts, or – as Marjan Coletti puts it – based on historic non-figurative ornamentation “[...] a similar generative logic and morphological syntax is nowadays being embraced by parametric and scripted generative techniques to produce myriads of complex, patternised, ornamental topologies, although the endeavour […] usually drifts towards the generic and the dogmatic, and away from the phenomenological and the experimental.” (Coletti [2]).

Almost as if alluding to the inadvertent compartmentalization of the historicist idea of architecture as an all-encompassing effort by Loos and Hoffmann, Coletti identifies two different conceptual strands within the pursuit of the synthesis of digital ornamentation and tectonics, “one [propelling] towards ‘pure form’ through abstraction, [one] towards the purely figural through sensation.” (Coletti, ibid.). Both distinguish the results of contemporary digital form finding processes from representational digital visualizations in the same way a modern painting “[escapes] from the figurative in art.” (Coletti, ibid.). At the same time though, both of them pursue the rationalization of the contemporary ornament as an abstract and theoretical endeavour, that – although intellectually driven – first and foremost speaks to the sensorial and atmospheric qualities of a spatial configuration. While conceptually bridging the gap between tectonic and ornament, it still neglects – following modernism’s threefold distinction – the subject of construction and structure within architectural production. In the context of tectonic articulation it seems to be more productive to develop the underlying logics of surface articulation not as an abstract concept but rather as a goal-oriented process that starts to gradually integrate different systems and subsystems of a building into one coherent and articulate spatial configuration.

The strength of this parametric approach lies in its understanding of architecture as a system of correlations and differentiations seeking adequate and complex articulation. As Patrik Schumacher puts it: “Just like natural systems, parametricist compositions are so highly integrated that they cannot be easily decomposed into independent subsystems – a major point of difference in comparison with the modern design paradigm of clear separation of functional subsystems.” (Schumacher [8]).

The methodical development of these systems aims towards the generation of complex and parametrically controllable geometries, which contain highly adaptive potentials and connectivity (soft patterns). Variation and continuous differentiation of simple elements reflect the changing and mutually influential forces within a system’s different layers in order to eventually articulate a complex architectural system that ties together a spatial organisation, its environment, its inhabitants and their constantly changing patterns of use. This implies controlled and simultaneous development of function, form, structure and material, and requires attention on the associative qualities of all single constituents.

Thus the act of design is no longer framed by “a singular aesthetic end, but by the multiple constraints and ambitions of each project, as negotiated by the architect.” (Rahim A. and Jamelle H. [6]). Nevertheless the result still displays elegance, a contemporary elegance that is supported by articulated complexity rather than by minimalism or simplicity. Successful complex building structures are able to develop a descriptive architectural language that visually reduces the underlying complexity and helps to order, frame and organize the varying patterns of use of their users groups. “An elegant building or urban design should therefore be able to manage considerable complexity without descending into disorder.” (Schumacher [7]).

To design such an ordered architectural and urban environment has become the architect’s core competency in an increasingly complex networked society. Such a clearly articulated environment is more legible and navigable than the modernist order of repetition, thus offering a suitable framework for contemporary societal patterns of use.

Tectonic Articulation

“If we define tectonics as the strategic detournement of an element’s technically induced morphology in order to address substantial functions in the articulatory dimension, then tectonics can be redeemed and integrated within contemporary notions of handling form-function relationships. We might call this strategy of opportunizing on technical details techtonic articulation.” (Schumacher [10]).

If a building’s structure, and consequently its optimization, is understood to be only one layer of its complex and multi-layered organization, then structural expression can not be understood as an end in itself but rather as a means to differentiatedly articulate the substantial social function of the space in question. In this line of thinking, the elegant accentuation of structural elements does not hold any ideological, metaphorical, theoretical, abstract, or sensational value in itself.

Also buildings are not materialized solely to the concerns of technical and structural efficiency, which would be the structural engineer’s approach, but with the clear aim to interarticulate the building’s different systems and subsystems to form one coherent spatial organization, to achieve tectonic articulation, as it is “[the] relationship between the technical and the articulatory dimensions [that] leads to the concept of tectonics” (Schumacher, ibid.)

The Semiological Project

Studio Hadid‘s recent design research project Parametric Semiology – Olympic Park Rio de Janeiro 2016 studies the development of a series of proto-architectural shell structures, that hold the potential to be arranged, clustered, organized and differentiated according to the semiological criteria and that are further articulated within their own structural logics. Semiology and structure become the driving layers of a parametric model in order to test tectonic articulations for their semiological potentials. The Olympic Park’s complex programme, that demands structures of various sizes from large scale stadia to smalll scale auxiliary buildings lends itself to be structurally articulated through a series of related shell structures. At the same time, the vast overall scale of the Olympic Park asks for semiological articulation in order to facilitate orientation, navigation and circulation by meaningfully cohering the builidngs to form a differentiated yet continuous urban field.

In the same way that semiology and a building’s structure become one of the many different interacting layers that all together form what we today consider to be our built environment, “… the architectonic code is one of several fundamental panhuman sign systems which in concert provide individuals and groups with a multi-nodal and multi stereoscopic template for the creation of humanly meaningful realities” (Preziosi [5]).

As a consequence the goal is neither to design a structurally optimised building nor to conduct an exercise in semiological form finding, but the extension of architecture’s formal repertoire through investigation into architecture’s morphogenetic potential within a multi-dimensional solution space that is clearly delineated by previous structural research, which sets the limits for a wide range of possible forms. Parametric design aims towards the exploitation of its generative capacity rather than merely developing a method of discovering inspiring shapes.

Seen from a structural engineer’s point of view on the other hand, these processes might be used to gradually approach “a balance between aesthetic intrigue, innovation and efficiency in new structural forms” as Kristina Shea puts it (Shea [12]).

However, the resulting formal and spatial articulations always remain tectonic, i.e. they remain structurally or technically motivated, rather than being conventionalized and thus becoming ornamental articulations.

Urban and architectural shell prototypes are designed with regards to their semiological readability, based on urban, spatial, programmatic, or social parameters, that were deducted from the specific programme for Rio’s Olympic Park, developing ideas on how semiologic operations can be systematized and intensified in order to be interrelated and tectonically articulated within the framework of the different structural shell systems, that the large span constructions in question require.

Parametric Semiology

During the preparation phase students start to systematically investigate and analyze diffferent structural shell systems, evaluating and cataloguing them according to their architectural, formal, spatial, structural, material, typological, affective and effective properties and their potential to be differentiated according to semiological parameters.

At the same time they try to develop a clear understanding of the project brief and the programmatic and typological components of the Olympic Village in Rio de Janeiro, identifying a series of crucial relations of varying intensities between two or more different components or elements in the brief, that can be described using semiological differentiations.

Subsequently the objective is the development of proto-architectural shell structures, that hold the potential to be arranged, clustered and differentiated according to the semiological relations, that were identified earlier on and that will in turn drive the generation and differentiation of these elements.

During design research phase these proto-architectural shell structures are further developed. Students are required to investigate, if the intended differential qualities actually work in a small scale cluster of buildings. To that end a series of different types in different scales from the list of typologies (i.e. 1 stadium type, 1 housing type, 1 circulation type, …) is selected, arranged and differentiated within the scope of every group’s semiotic concept. The goal of this exercise is a first proof of concept of the group’s architectural hypothesis.

Students are also encouraged to look into the further differentiation of construction, surface articulations, edge conditions, perforations, openings, and ground conditions. Different semiological parameters might affect different components of the shell systems in various ways.

Figure 2: design research phase: devaulting: Testing different column formations.

Figure 3: design research phase: twoFold. Testing different folded surface formations

Figure 4: design research phase: creasedField Testing different surface articulations

During the urban research phase students develop generative strategies to arrange and further differentiate the shell structures according to the urban semiological logics that have been developed through the analysis of site, context and boundary conditions. These strategies might include: aggregation and variation (repeating, multiplying, scaling), packing, flocking, massing, orientation and direction, extremities of scale, hierarchy, sequencing, field conditions, different degrees of transparency, informed grid logics, phenomenological effects, or exploitation of perspective views. In this process organizational and navigational logics, that have been incorporated earlier on, are not discarded but further appropriated and synchronized with the site’s contextual parameters.

Finally all the research and design results are evolved into one coherent semiological design proposal, that simultaneously operates on the urban, architectural, structural, and component level.

The following student projects presented in this paper are selected from design research conducted at Studio Hadid at the Institute of Architecture at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. Professor: Zaha Hadid. Assistant Professors: Mario Gasser, Christian Kronaus, Jens Mehlan, Robert R. Neumayr, Patrik Schumacher, and Hannes Traupmann.

Selected projects of the studio’s design research were on display at the 13^th Architectural Biennale “Common Ground” in Venice.

Project: devaulting

Students: Tudor Sabau, Jakob Travnik, Matthias Urschler

The project aims at redefining the typology of vaults as a means of creating a complex semiotic system, by which its signified content is expressed through the relationship between two fundamental layers of communication: one layer represented by a unified yet continuously differentiated ground condition based on a strict grid logic, which is working in parallel with a second layer of homogeniously differentiated shell typologies.

The project operates semiotically in various scales. On a global scale the masterplan consists of three parts: a housing zone (grided shells), a non-sport venue zone (full shells) and a sporting venue zone (cracking shells). On a local scale these zones are subdivided into ”islands” on which groups of relevant programs (shell types) are further differentiated according to their intrinsic logics. In between the islands it is the landscape that is subjected to contextual differentiation.

The programs are articulated through systematic shell manipulation, such as cracking logics, structural differentiation, material differentiation, formal operations and the adaption of figure-ground relationships. Ultimately, the resulting hierarchies result in a complex yet clear matrix of semiotic readings, which serves as direct as well as indirect guidance to inform the user of the locally, programmatically and socially relevant use of a particular space.

Figure 5: devaulting: Continuous urban field of differentiated shell structures

Project: Semantic Fields

Students: Elena Krasteva, Emanuele Mozzo, Daniel Zakharyan.

Starting off with the research of shells in nature the team decided to concentrate on mushroom structures as they offer an incredible diversity within a single type of species. Grouping Principles, structural behavior and morphological properties were analyzed, abstracted and translated into proto-architectural shell structures.

Semiologically three different layers of intervention were identified:

On the Grouping Layer the main driving force of differentiation is the application of packing principles. Depending on regulatory parameters and based on behavioural patterns different types of deformed agglomerations and necessary strategies for a controlled shell deformation are developed.

On the Shape Layer different morphogenetic parameters (height, size, inclination, …) are exploited to form a differentiated yet semiotically coherent field of shapes. To that end parametric particle spring simulation systems are used, allowing the students to create physically correct curvatures in real time interaction.

On the Surface Layer the key aspect was the transformation of different natural surface articualtions into architectural yet structurally valid components. Several types of gills (linear, additive, branching) were identified and translated into a structural system that establishes a tectonic connection between a surface’s curvature and its level of detail resolution, thus allowing for a structurally efficient and curvature-dependant distribution throughout the entire system.

Site implementation: As any activity can be defined by two main aspects, the activity itself and the connections it establishes within its surrounding, the project explores these connections and emerging relationships between the program and surrounding field and reflects them through the superimposition of these three layers. It studies how the appearance of a particular program triggers certain behaviors and reactions in the field. It examines how the field can capture programmatic identities, propagate them as a system of visual clues and articulate their presence.

Figure 6: Semantic Fields: Development stages of a proto-architectural shell structure with increasing differentiation.

Figure 7: Semantic Fields: One of the final shell strcutures housing a series of different programmes.

References

[1] Boeckl M., Form follows …?, in Ways to Modernism. Josef Hoffmann, Adolf Loos and Their Impact, Thun-Hohenstein C. et al. (eds.), Birkhäuser, 2015. ISBN 978-0356-0377-4.

[2] Coletti M., Ornamental Pornamentation, in Exuberance. AD 02/2010 March/April 2010, Coletti M. (ed.), Wiley, 2010. ISSN 0003-8504.

[3] Le Corbusier. Ausblick auf eine Architektur. Braunschweig: Vieweg & Sohn Verlag, 1982. ISBN 3-528-18602-X.

[4] Pedreschi R., Form, Force and Stucture – A Brief History, in Versatility and Vicissitude. AD 02/2008 March/April 2008, Hensel M. and Menges A. (eds.), Wiley, 2008. ISSN 0003-8504.

[5] Preziosi D., Architecture, Language and Meaning – The Origins of the Built World its Semiotic Organisation. Mouton Publishers, The Hague/Paris/New York: 1979.

[6] Rahim A. and Jamelle H., Elegance in the Age of Digital Technique, in Elegance. AD 01/2007 January/February 2007, Rahim A. and Jamelle H. (eds.), Wiley, 2007. ISSN 0003-8504.

[7] Schumacher P., Arguing for Elegance, in Elegance. AD 01/2007 January/February 2007, Rahim A. and Jamelle H. (eds.), Wiley, 2007. ISSN 0003-8504.

[8] Schumacher P., Parametricism as Style – Parametricist Manifesto. London 2008. Presented at 11th Venice Biennale 2008. http://www.patrikschumacher.com/ (last visited 27 04 2015).

[9] Schumacher P., The Autopoiesis of Architecture. A New Framework for Architecture. Wiley & Sons Ltd., Chichester, 2011. ISBN 789-0-470-77298-0.

[10] Schumacher P., The Autopoiesis of Architecture Vol. II. A New Agenda for Architecture. Wiley & Sons Ltd., Chichester, 2012. ISBN 978-0-470-66616-6.

[11] Schumacher P., Architecture’s Next Ontological Innovation, in Not Nature, tarp – Architectural Manual, Pratt Institure (ed.), New York, 2012.

[12] Shea K., Directed Randomness, in Leach, Neil et al. (eds.) digital tectonics. Wiley & Sons Ltd., Chichester, 2004. ISBN 0470857293.

STRUCTURAL SEMIOLOGY is the title of my latest article, that is going to be published in the forthcoming issue 05/2014 of Time +  Architecture, one of China’s most inflluential architecture magazines. As it is going to be published in Chinese only, the English version can be found here.

Structural Semiology – The Semiological Potentials of Tectonic Shell Structures

Abstract

In a complex networked society the architect’s core competency becomes the task of articulation in order to establish the built environment as a communicative frame for its users. The adaptive differentiation of load bearing structures according to different load cases or to semiological aspects afford many opportunities for tectonic articulation. A thus differentiated environment is much more legible than the modernist, isotropic order of repetition. To fully exploit this, architects need to closely collaborate with engineers, orchestrating the most suitable options.

Buildings have to be understood as highly integrated systems, that are inter-articulated and correlated, complementing each other in order to fulfil architectural, structural, functional, spatial, semiotic and atmospheric criteria. Studio Hadid Vienna has – within their agenda of Parametricism – been striving to integrate these systems’ different layers seamlessly into the digital design process.

Researching the semiological capacity of parametrically generated architectural forms, the project Parametric Semiology – Olympic Park Rio de Janeiro 2016 calls for the deveopment of radically innovative spatial models for the sport venues and their related programme. To that end semiology and structure become the driving layers of a parametric model to test tectonic articulations for their semiological potentials. This leads to the development of proto-architectural shell structures, that hold the potential to be organized and differentiated according to semiological criteria, that are further articulated within their own structural logics and subsequently contextualized on site.

Results of this design research and its underlying theories, concepts, and strategies are discussed in this paper.

Introduction

Traditionally the delineation between structural engineering and architecture relies on the clear distinction of the built environment’s technical necessities from its social requirements. While the technical necessities include stability, physical integrity, performance or constructability in realtion to its users, architecture considers a buiding’s social functions, i.e. its performance as an ordering communicative frame, that mainly works via its appearance and legibility for its users within their social context.(i)

The core competency of architecture therefore is the task of articulation. Consequently, “The relationship between the technical and the articulatory dimensions leads to the concept of tectonics.” (Schumacher, 2012:19), meaning that tecnical forms, that are based on engineers’ calculations, are absorbed and further articulated by architects, aiming for increased architectural legibility within the built environment’s framework of social interaction.

In order for architects to exploit tectonic articulation they need to guide and orchestrate the engineer’s investigations, evaluating and selecting the engineering options most suited to their primary task, namely to fulfil the posed social functions via framing communications.

The adaptive differentiation of load bearing structures according to different load cases and varying geometries, the adaptive differentiation of volumes and envelopes according to the building’s environmental performance (with respect to its exposure to sun, wind, rain etc.), and their differentiation according to semiological aspects as well as issues of circulation and navigation, afford many opportunities for differential tectonic articulation. A thus lawfully differentiated built environment is much more legible and navigable than the modernist, isotropic order of repetition.

With the development of sophisticated computational design tools – both within architecture and within the engineering disciplines – the scope for nuanced tectonic articulation has much increased. The adaptation of structural morphologies to the force distribution within a structural system offers new opportunites for architectural articulation. In turn the more complex architectural orders proposed within contemporary architecture are reflected and potentially accentuated by sophisticated, adaptive structures.

Simpler interfaces, common programme platformes and scripting languages make engineering technologies more tangible for architects and facilitate information interchange and foster a close collaboration between these two disciplines that would have been impossible a few years ago.

Studio Hadid Vienna therefore closely collaborates with engineers and integrates both, analytic and generative engineering tools wihtin its design research methodology, while maintaining a clear understanding of the distinct agendas and core competencies of architects and engineers but at the same time encouraging students to develop reliable intuitions about the repective logics and concepts.

From Space To Field

Furthermore our conception of architecture has changed considerably, as the renunciation of linear and binary systems of perception, which for a long time have been dominating our world view, has only recently opened up new areas of scientific research. Rather than seeing the built environment as a number of independent entities, we have now come to understand it as a continuous field of diverse elements, as a spatial organisation that is able to negotiate and interpolate between those elements, which are subjected to the changing forces and currents that guide their use.

As Stan Allen remarks, “Field conditions move from the one toward the many, from individuals to collectives, from objects to fields.” (Allen, 1999: 92).

Complex architectural configurations like urban structures in general and buildings in particular can be perceived to have an intrinsic networked nature, as they are organized primarily around currents and lines of exchange where people, services, ideas and goods are collected, organised and redistributed in a multitude of directions (for an account of these phenomena see: de Landa: 2000). They consist of a multitude of different layers (some of which are not even architectural), that react and interact with each other, that are influenced by internal and external forces, and that all together form what we observe as our built environment.

In this sense, buildings have to be understood as highly integrated complex systems, sub-systems and components, that are inter-articulated and correlated, complementing each other in order to fulfil architectural, structural, functional, spatial, semiotic and atmospheric criteria. All systems stay associative to each other and adaptive to their internal and external conditions, that drive their differentiation. Functions and programmes can also be integrated by systematic differentiation of one pivotal system, which makes one system work on multiple functional layers, i.e. one series of building components might have structural and atmospheric properties at the same time.

As a consequence it has also become impossible to conceive architectural design separated from its related disciplines, such as energy design, material science and structural engineering. Understanding our built environment as a series of complexly interwoven layers, where a building’s structure is only of them, Studio Hadid Vienna has been striving to integrate them more seamlessly into the digital design processes.

Parametricism – Integration and Inter-articulation

For more than ten years now, Studio Hadid Vienna has been developing and exploring advanced digital design concepts in an attempt to expand the architectural repertoire and to find appropriate architectural answers to today’s societal complexity. Working within the agenda of Parametricism architecture is seen as a system of correlations and differentiations seeking adequate and complex articulation. As Patrik Schumacher puts it: “Just like natural systems, parametricist compositions are so highly integrated that they cannot be easily decomposed into independent subsystems – a major point of difference in comparison with the modern design paradigm of clear separation of functional subsystems.” (Schumacher, 2008)

The methodical development of these systems aims towards the generation of elaborated and parametrically controllable geometries, which contain highly adaptive potentials and connectivity (soft patterns). Iteration (as in opposition to simple repetition), variation and continuous differentiation of basic elements are crucial aspects in this process, as the respective driving forces are applied in order to articulate complex architectural systems. According to their scale, all evolved systems and their subsequent components are designed to eventually form integral parts of an overall system, ranging from large urban schemes down to precisely defined functional architectural elements. This implies controlled and simultaneous development of function, form, structure and material, and requires attention on the associative qualities of all single constituents.

In this way, working in constant feedback loop, iteratively reorganising and expanding the parametric model becomes an important issues of the design process. Slowly building up a system of high complexity starting from a rather simple logic leads to increasingly elaborated, unpredictable yet controlled results, thus shifting the research focus beyond the point of mere digital representation.(ii)

“Only if virtual evolution can be used to explore a space rich enough so that all the possibilities cannot be considered in advance by the designer, only if what results shocks or at least surprises, can genetic algorithms be considered useful visualisation tools.” (Manuel de Landa: 2002)

“Aesthetics link the strutural, formal and political and social. What is more political and cultural than aestethics?” (Greg Lynn)

Architecture always encompasses a concurrent series of complex design problems, which require an architectural solution. However most scripted and parametric systems can not but produce one aspect of architecture’s underlying systematics and logics, which then guide the generation of project-specific geometries and shapes. This additional architectural layer, which is designed to cohere and operate with all the multiple systems and sub-systems, will vary according to the designer’s capacities, needs to be understood as an integral part of the overall design process.

Parametric tools produce, when applied, a series of possible outcomes and enhance responsiveness between the designer and his design project. However, they can neither substitute creative potential nor are they capable of producing viable architectural results without the constant intervention of the designer, who in the end still holds responsibility for the project’s aesthetic qualities, that emerge out of the complex digital design processes.

Tectonic Articulation

“If we define tectonics as the strategic detournement of an element’s technically induced morphology in order to address substantial functions in the articulatory dimension, then tectonics can be redeemed and integrated within contemporary notions of handling form-function relationships. We might call this strategy of opportunizing on technica details techtonic articulation.” (Schumacher, 2012: 21).

If a building’s structure, and consequently its optimisation, is understood to be only one layer of its complex and multi-layered organisation, then structural expression can not be understood as an end in itself but rather as a means to differentiatedly articulate the substantial social function of the artefact/space in question.

In this line of thinking, the elegant accentuation of structural elements does not hold any metaphorical value in itself, such as one might be able to detect in late modernist or structuralist buildings, where the pointed display and over-articulation of structure stems from long held ideological positions rather than tectonic considerations.

Also buildings are not materialized solely to the concerns of technical and structural efficiency, which would be the sturctural engineer’s approach, but with the clear aim to interarticulate the building’s diffferent systems and subsystems to form one coherent spatial organisation, to achieve tectonic articulation, as it is “[the] relationship between the technical and the articulatory dimensions [that] leads to the concept of tectonics” (Schumacher, 2012: 19)

The Semiological Project

Following up on previous research on the semiological capacity of parametrically generated architectural forms, Studio Hadid‘s recent design research project Parametric Semiology – Olympic Park Rio de Janeiro 2016 calls for the research and deveopment of radically innovative spatial models for the sport venues and their related auxiliary programmes. The future Olympic Park in Rio is used as a testing ground because the complex programme, that demands structures of various sizes from large scale stadia to smalll scale auxiliary buildings lends itself to be structurally articulated through a series of related shell strcutures, while at the same time, the vast overall scale of the Olympic Park ask for semiological articulation in order to facilitate orientation, navigation and circulation by meaningfully cohering the builidngs to form a differentiated yet continuous urban field. To that end semiology and structure become the driving layers of a parametric model in order to test tectonic articulations for their semiological potentials. This leads to the development of a series of proto-architectural shell structures, that hold the potential to be arranged, clustered, organized and differentiated according to the semiological criteria and that are further articulated within their own structural logics.

The design of these proto-architectural elements is based on the thorough research of different shell structures, their formal properties and their multiple potentials for parametric differentiation.

In the same way that semiology – and a buidling’s struture – is one the many different interacting layers that all together form what we today consider to be our built environment, “… the architectonic code is one of several fundamental panhuman sign systems which in concert provide individuals and groups with a multi-nodal and multi stereoscopic template for the creation of humanly meaningful realities” (Preziosi, 1979: 3).

Creative Potential

As a consequence the goal is neither to design a structurally optimised building nor to conduct an exercise in semiological form finding, but the extension of architecture’s formal repertoire through investigation into the multitude of architectural possibilities within a multi-dimensional solution space that is clearly defined by previous structural research, which sets the limits for the wide range of possible forms.

Investigating the morphogenetic potential is one of the most intriguing aspects of parametric design. The distinct difference between form-generating and form-finding should be clearly understood, as the parametric design aims towards the exploitation of its generative capacity rather than merely developing a method of discovering inspiring shapes. A systematic variation of intrinsic and extrinsic forces results in an immense range of possible outcome whereas the range of parametric values determines the capacity of generating unexpected results.

Seen from a structural engineer’s point of view on the other hand, these processes might be used to gradually approach “a balance between aesthetic intrigue, innovation and efficiency in new structural forms” as Kristina Shea puts it (Shea, 2004: 89).

However, the resulting formal and spatial articulations always remain tectonic, i.e. they remain structurally or technically motivated, rather than being conventionalized and thus becoming ornamental articulations.

Urban and architectural shell prototypes are designed with regards to their semiological readability, based on urban, spatial, programmatic, or social parameters, that were deducted from the specific programme for Rio’s Olympic Park, developing ideas on how semiologic operations can be systematized and intensified in order to be interrelated and tectonically articulated within the framework of the different structural shell systems, the large span constructions in question require.

Parametric Semiology

Studio Hadid Vienna always operates as a “vertical studio”, meaning that students of different years and experience form teams to work together on one year-long studio briefs. In this specific learning environment new students get directly exposed to innovative design techniques and the studio’s digital culture, whereas more experienced students can profit from new ideas floating into the studio from all over the world.

During the preparation phase early in the semester students start to systematically investigate and analyze diffferent structural shell systems, evaluating and cataloguing them according to their architectural, spatial, structural, material, typological, affective and effective properties and their potential to be differentiated according to semiological parameters.

At the same time they try to develop a clear understanding of the project brief and the programmatic and typological components of the Olympic Village in Rio de Janeiro, identifying a series of crucial relations of varying intensities between two or more different components or elements in the brief, that can be described using semiological differentiations

Subsequently the objective is the development of proto-architectural shell structures, that hold the potential to be arranged, clustered and differentiated according to the semiological relations, that were identified earlier on and that will in turn drive the generation and differentiation of these elements.

During design research phase these proto-architectural shell structures are further developed, Students are required to investigate, if the intended differential qualities actually work in a small scale cluster of buildings. To that end a series of different types in different scales from the list of typologies (i.e. 1 stadium type, 1 housing type, 1 circulation type, …) is selected, arranged and differentiated within the scope of every group’s semiotic concept. The goal of this exercise is a first proof of concept of the group’s architectural hypothesis.

At this point students are also encouraged to look into the further differentiation of construction, surface articulations, edge conditions, perforations, openings, and ground conditions (i.e. how do the shell structures meet the ground and how does the ground react/interact semiologically with them). Different semiological parameters might affect different components of the shell systems in various ways.

During the urban research phase students develop generative strategies to deploy, arrange and further differentiate the proto-architectural shell structures according to the urban semiological logics that have been developed through the analysis of site, context and boundary conditions. These strategies might include: aggregation and variation (repeating, multiplying, scaling), packing, flocking, massing, orientation and direction, extremities of scale, hierarchy, sequencing, field conditions, different degrees of transparency, informed grid logics, phenomenological effects, or exploitation of perspective views. In this process organizational and navigational logics, that have been incorporated earlier on, are not discarded but further appropriated and synchronized with the site’s contextual parameters.

Finally all the research and design results are evolved into one coherent semiological design proposal, that simultaneously operates on the urban, architectural, structural, and component level.

The following student projects presented in this paper are selected from design studio work done at Studio Hadid, Institute of Architecture, University of Applied Arts, Vienna. Professor: Zaha Hadid. Assistant Professors: Mario Gasser, Christian Kronaus, Jens Mehlan, Robert Neumayr, Patrik Schumacher, Hannes Traupmann, Mascha Veech.

The results of the studio’s design research was on display at the 13^th Architectural Biennale “Common Ground” in Venice.

Project: TwoFold. Students: Marie Drescher, Min Yin.

At the core of this design research are three contrasting folding patterns, discovered during experimentation with paper models. The flexible, semi-flexible and rigid fold enrich not only the structural capabilities of the designs, but also their ability to communicate their varying functions to the visitor. Sport venues use a single row of the flexible fold, manipulated in various ways in order to create prototypes for the different types of sports. Buildings containing accommodation facilities are created with a variety of scales within the folding pattern, resulting in a readable system informing the user about the spacial qualities in the interior. Service buildings are characterized by the semi-flexible fold. The individual functions are distinguished by differences in the placement of openings. The rigid fold creates various types of support buildings. Subtle differences within the folding pattern are used to distinguish functions such as transportation, information and administration. A unique systemof distribution and differentiation is constructed in order to translate the catalog of proto-shells into an intelligent semiological urban field.

Project: Semantic Fields. Students: Elena Krasteva, Emanuele Mozzo, Daniel Zakharyan.

Starting off with the research of shells in nature the team decided to concentrate on mushroom structures as they offer an incredible diversity within a single type of species. Structural behavior and morphological properties were translated into the architectural domain.

Semiologically three different levels of intervention were identified:

On Group Level the main driving force of differentiation is the application of packing principles. Depending on regulatory parameters and based on behavioural patterns different types of deformed agglomerations are developed.

On Shape Level different morphogenetic parameters (height, size, inclination, …) are exploited to form a differentiated yet semiotically coherent field of shapes. To that end parametric particle spring simulation systems are used, allowing the students to create physically correct curvatures in real time interaction.

On Surface Level the key aspect was the transformation of different natural surface articualtions into architectural components. Several types of gills (linear, additive, branching) were identified and translated into a structural system that establishes a tectonic connection between a surface’s curvature and its level of detail resolution, thus allowing for a structurally efficient and curvature-dependant distribution throughout the entire system.

Site implementation: As any activity can be defined by two main aspects, the activity itself and the connections it establishes within its surrounding, the project explores these connections and emerging relationships between the program and surrounding field through the superimposition of these three levels. It studies how the appearance of a particular program triggers certain behaviors and reactions in the field. It examines how the field can capture programmatic identities, propagate them as a system of visual clues and articulate their presence. Finally it investigates, how visitors can learn from this environment and navigate through established systems of signification.

Project: devaulting. Students: Tudor Sabau, Jakob Travnik, Matthias Urschler

The project aims at redefining the typology of vaults as a means of creating a complex semiotic system, by which its signified content is expressed through the relationship between two fundamental layers of communication: one layer represented by a unified and continuously differentiated ground condition based on a strict grid logic, which is working in parallel with a second layer of continuously differentiated shell typologies.

The project operates semiotically in various scales. On a global scale the masterplan consists of three parts: a housing zone (grided shells), a non-sport venue zone (full shells) and a sporting venue zone (cracking shells). On a local scale these zones are subdivided into ”islands” on which groups of relevant programs (shell types) are further differentiated according to intrinsic logic. In between the islands it is the landscape that is subjected to contextual differentiation.

The programs are articulated through systematic shell manipulation, such as cracking logics, structural differentiation, material differentiation, formal operations and the adaption of figure-ground relationships. Ultimately, the resulting hierachies result in a complex yet clear matrix of semiotic readings, which serves as direct as well as indirect guidance to inform the user of the locational, programatic and socially relevant use of a particular space.

Notes And References

All images are (c) studio HADID vienna and respective students.

(i) For an introduction to the theory of The Autopoiesis of Architecture please refer to (Schumacher: 2011).

(ii) For a short introduction to the basic ideas of parametric design please refer to (Neumayr, Budig: 2009).

Allen, Stan. Points + Lines. Princton Architectural Press, New York: 1999. ISBN 1-56898-155-4.

De Landa, Manuel. A Thousand Years Of Non Linear History. Zone Books, New York:1997. ISBN 0-942299-32-9.

De Landa, Manuel. Deleuze and the Use of the Genetic Algorithm in Architecture in Leach, N. (ed.) Designing for A Digital World Wiley Academy, London: 2002. ISBN 0-470-84419-1.

Lynn, Greg in An Aesthetics Of Calculus in Leach, Neil et al. (eds.) digital tectonics. Wiley & Sons Ltd., Chichester, 2004. ISBN 0470857293.

Neumayr, R. and Budig, M., 2009: Generative Processes – script based design research in contemporary teaching practice, in Paoletti, I. (ed.) Innovative Design and Construction Technologies Maggioli S.p.A.. Milano: 2009. ISBN 978-88387-4369-X

Preziosi, Donald. Architecture, Language and Meaning – The Origins of the Built World its Semiotic Organisation. Mouton Publishers, The Hague/Paris/New York: 1979.

Schumacher, Patrik. Parametricism as Style – Parametricist Manifesto. London 2008. Presented at 11th Venice Biennale 2008. http://www.patrikschumacher.com/ (last visited 18 06 2014).

Schumacher Patrik. The Autopoiesis of Architecture. A New Framework for Architecture. Wiley & Sons Ltd., Chichester, 2011. ISBN 978-0-470-77298-0.

Schumacher Patrik. The Autopoiesis of Architecture. A New Agenda for Architecture. Wiley & Sons Ltd., Chichester, 2012. ISBN 978-0-470-66616-6.

Shea, Kristina. Directed Randomness in Leach, Neil et al. (eds.) digital tectonics. Wiley & Sons Ltd., Chichester, 2004. ISBN 0470857293.

After tracing its ideological background throughout Future Systems history in part 1 of this article, i want to investigate here, whether the pursuit of this strong conceptual idea has proven successful. Based on the assumption, that every coherent set of technologies works best in its own environment, I will examine, up to which extent ship building techniques could be incorporated into the construction process of the Lord’s Media Centre, without losing the significant advantages, they are praised for.

Commissioned on the occasion of the then forthcoming Cricket World Cup 1999, the new Lord’s Media Centre was intended to provide a better accommodation for press and TV commentators, replacing the existing and by then inadequate media facilities, that could only house 90 journalists and were dispatched around the cricket ground. The new Media Centre accommodates 250 journalists and photographers and also comprises a 50 seat restaurant with a bar and two hospitality areas.

A winning competition entry in 1995, the Lord’s Media Centre was, as the first sketches (Future Systems, 2001: 16) indicate, conceived as a “giant camera lens” overlooking the Lord’s Cricket Ground in London. It was constructed as a semi-monocoque aluminium structure, resting on two columns of reinforced concrete, approximately 14 metres above ground. Whereas the columns were cast on site, the aluminium pod itself was entirely fabricated in a boatyard in Cornwall, pre-assembled there to for checking, then dissipated again into its 32 parts and transported to site by lorry, where it was bolted and welded together. After filling the weld lines, the exterior surface was sanded down and spray painted to provide a smooth seamless finish. The entire interior claddings as well as finishing and electrical, mechanical and ventilation fittings and devices were added after completion of the exterior skin.

The object’s dimensions are roughly 40m x 20m x 21m (without the concrete columns), comprising a floor area of approximately 600 m2. The shell structure’s overall weight is 90 tons, consisting of 32 elements, 20m x 3.6m in size and 3 to 6 tons in weight. The shell is constructed of aluminium 5038 grade sheets with a thickness of 6 to 12 mm.

Shipbuilding Techniques And Its Alternatives. As the structure’s shape exhibits a three-dimensional complexity, which is common to most of their projects, Future Systems decision to involve a shipyard, rather than a conventional construction company for competent expertise seems obvious. Considering Future Systems’ claim, that the Media Centre’s complex structure could not be realised in the desired quality with traditional building methods, we should briefly investigate, whether other alternatives besides the construction of a aluminium monocoque could have yielded an equally satisfying result, as this seems to never have been considered by Future Systems.

Looking at precedents for the construction of non-classical (i.e. non-rectangular) spaces in modern architecture, that could serve as models for the Media Centre, interestingly enough, a project by Eero Saarinen, to whose work Future Systems often refers to (Field, 1999:22), bears the most striking resemblance. His 1964 IBM Corporation Pavilion for the New York World’s Fair, also featured the “Ovoid Theatre”, a huge ellipsoid shaped dome theatre capable of housing an audience of 500 people. It was elevated above the pavilion’s roof structure resting on tree-like supporting elements. The theatre itself was constructed conventionally using a set of interlocking elliptically bended structural frames, that were clad with curved panels, which could, because the theatre’s shape showed a certain geometrical regularity, be produced easily. As the exterior surface was entirely covered with the letters of the client’s logo, a smooth surface finish was not required. For the conception of the IBM Pavilion Saarinen was closely collaborating with Charles Eames, another architect much admired by Kaplicky (ibid.:32).

Charles Eames also pioneered the successful usage of plywood to generate large-scale three-dimensionally shaped smooth surfaces back in the 1940s. Although the basic techniques to form plywood had already been discovered around 1850, it was only in 1941 that Charles and Ray Eames developed a machine that allowed a quick and cheap production of plywood objects, that could be molded into any desired three-dimensional shape. In the beginning restraining itself to furniture production, the industry’s focus soon shifted to the construction of large scale plywood objects, mainly due to an extensive research agenda set up by the military during World War Two, when plywood was intended to replace then unobtainable metals. In 1942 the production range included leg splints, pilot seats, tail sections and other molded plywood aircraft parts.

Research finally lead in 1943 to the design of an experimental lightweight glider, called “Flying Flatcar”, a cargo aircraft designed to hold two Jeeps. It consisted of compound-curved plywood units up to a size of 400 on 250 cm, that were seamlessly fixed onto a wooden construction. Molds for forming the required plywood sheets were developed using a technique devised for smaller plywood shapes. The maximum size of the single sheets was limited by the high amount of electricity that was needed to produce enough heat for curing the length of the wood. The use of lightweight molded plywood for aircraft was later replaced by the use of aluminium as the predominant material for aircraft construction. The use in large-scale aircraft production nevertheless demonstrates the capability of plywood to be formed into complex three-dimensional forms while even meeting the high quality standards of aircraft industry. Because of its properties, the use of molded plywood surfaces now gets more widespread as a by comparison cheap method to realize organic shapes in building construction.

Although having to be mounted onto a conventional frame construction, compound plywood sheets obviously represent, at least as far as its material properties are concerned, a considerable alternative to the use of an aluminium monocoque, and would maybe have deserved a more thorough investigation. The fact that this was not done, might be more related to what one might call the “ideological properties” of wooden constructions. Wood, within its long cultural tradition always associated with a human and more natural architectural approach, does not fit into modernist conceptions. The first bent plywood furniture pieces were conceived to represent “the expressive nature of human imagination.” because “Steel is […] not suitable from a human point of view.” as Alvar Aalto put it in 1931 (Quantrill, 1983). challenging the machine aesthetics of modernism.

The Transfer of Ship Building Technology. The processes of planning and constructing large vessels differ largely from the processes that can be found in conventional building industry. With the replacement of wood as the predominant material of construction, as soon as iron, and later steel became common practice in shipbuilding, the vessels’ construction methods and their structures underwent significant changes. Formerly ships consisted of a wooden frame, deck beams and longitudinal joints that were clad with a wooden hull. This separation of structural elements and external surface was finally abandoned with the introduction of electrical welding.

Unlike a conventional structural system where the beams alone guarantee the structural integrity of the object, the metal plates constituting the skin contribute to the overall strength of the building, as, after being welded to the metal ribs, they replace the top flanges of any one beam, leading to a reduction in both, weight and cost. As structure and hull work together, conventional construction becomes impossible.

Because contracting a shipyard to carry out building action had been unprecedented, until finally the Pendennis Shipyard in Cornwall was commissioned to do the Media Centre’s construction work, all practices involved encountered new difficulties. At first, to comply with all applicable building codes, alterations had to be made to the initial structural proposals, that were submitted by the shipyard, as vessel construction, in contrast, is controlled according to Lloyds Register shipping. As it turned out, the structure had to be additionally reinforced to comply with building regulations, adding more material to a formerly optimised structural system.

Prefabrication And Transportation. Shipbuilding is highly mechanized. During the planning process huge vessels are subdivided into several smaller entities, that are prefabricated separately to be assembled later on a slipway. To guarantee a seamless integration of the different entities, all parts are produced computer numerically controlled. The maximum size and, more important, the maximum weight of every single entity that will later on form the vessel, depends on the capacity of the construction shed it is assembled in. The capacity and size of the assembly facilities influence the overall scale of the vessels that can be built in the shipyard, because it is not cost effective to divide huge vessels into too many small parts. The bigger, and consequently fewer, the single parts can become the more efficiently a shipyard can operate. Average assembly facilities can have a hoisting capacity of about 240 tons.

The maximum size of the parts that were designed to later form the Media Centre on the other hand were depending on other parameters. As they had, unlike real naval structures, to be transported from the shipyard in Cornwall to a site in Central London, size and weight had to be adjusted to enable transportation on a lorry. Due to the application of transport regulations, each of the 26 constituent parts was averagely only about 3.5 tons in weight, an almost insignificant number compared to an average assembly facility’s maximum capacity. Considering the overall mass of the Media Centre’s superstructure of 90 tons, under normal circumstances assembly pieces twice as large as the entire shell itself could be prefabricated on an average assembly facility.

This suggests, that shipyards of average size cannot operate cost efficiently when prefabricating parts, that are designed for road transportation, due to the inadequacy of size. Dividing a hull according to road transportation requirements consequently leads to a increase in cost and a decrease in efficiency. Additionally a considerable increase in the number of prefabricated parts means a significantly longer duration of both, of the production period in the shipyard itself and of the assembly work later on site. To make full use of prefabrication methods without limiting efficiency requires the solution of the problem of transportation first.

In 1959 R. Buckminster Fuller encountered a similar logistic problem when working on his geodesic lightweight constructions. Those domes, conceived as mobile prefabricated shelter units for the military, and huge enough to house several cargo helicopters, had to be assembled completely on the ground to gain their stability, before they could be dispatched to remote locations. The problem was solved by using helicopters to move the entire structure, as the structure’s low weight implied easy aerial transportation.

Although normally assembled entities are just lifted onto the adjacent slipway, were they are welded together to form the vessel, also ship building industry itself sometimes faces the problem of long distance transportation. After subdividing the vessel into its prefabrication units, it is a usual procedure for contractors to outsource different parts of the production to other shipyards, either because of the need to meet a close deadline or simply a lack of capacity. Different parts of the same ship can be produced in shipyards all over the world according to a set of precise CAD drawings supplied by the initial contractor. But due to their natural proximity to water, prefabricated parts, previously assembled in remote shipyards, are transported back by huge barges, where almost no size or load restrictions apply.

Another innavative project of that time, the Yokohama International Port Terminal by Foreign Office Architects also made use of construction techniques closely related to ship building industry, and similar to those used for the realisation of the Media Centre. Starting off with “a folding floor structure [… that] also forms the mechanism to transfer stress” (FOA, 2001:19) and consequently needed no beams or columns, constant technical development during the planning process eventually lead to a construction, where complexly folded steel plates, resting on two lines of box girders, would form self supporting skins throughout the building. The whole terminal was planned as one single overall structure, in which no expansion joints would be used, but which would be assembled in site mainly by welding or riveting together prefabricated steel units. As the terminal lies next to the waterfront, pre-assembled parts could be produced at a large scale and be delivered by means of sea transportation. This enabled a short and cost effective construction process, as elements of adequate size could be prefabricated.

Assembly. Following the normal ship construction procedure, after prefabrication the single parts of the vessel are electronically welded together directly on the slipway, from which the ship will be launched directly into the sea later at a point near to completion. Before being finally connected, every part is temporarily stitch-welded to the already existing adjacent parts of the structure to fix it in its position and to check for tight fitting, as maximum construction tolerances in shipbuilding are extremely low. This is done by welding aluminium cross-bracings on the elements. If they can be fitted together seamlessly the final welding process begins. If refinement should be required, parts can be easily brought back to the assembly facilities.

In case of the Media Centre, while still in the shipyard the upper and the lower halfs of the shell were assembled to two semi-spherical hulls by stitch-welding to check for a seamless integration of every single part into the whole structure. To enable their transportation to the actual construction site, they had to be disassembled afterwards, only to undergo the same mounting procedure again, this time after being elevated 14 metres above ground. Conducting construction work high above ground, especially when assembling a complex shape has a lot of obvious drawbacks. During construction in a ship yard one tries to avoid such hindrances by making the pre-assembled parts as large as possible in order to have most of the construction work done on ground level. Additionally prefabricated elements can be easily rotated to provide convenient working access.

The division of the Media Centre’s aluminium semi-monocoque shell into transportable parts in consequence lead to the introduction of two additional, repetitive procedures, the disassembling and reassembling the entire shell into the construction process. It also necessitated the final assembling works to be carried out under more difficult circumstances.

Interior and Fittings. Having most of the work completed rather in the prefabrication facilities than on the slipway, is essential for the entire ship construction process. Consequently as many electrical, mechanical and ventilation fittings, ducts and devices, as well as prefabricated sanitary units are integrated into the pre-assembled elements before they are transferred to be finally welded together. In some cases this even comprises interior finishing and furniture. In the Media Centre mechanical and electrical components were not integrated during prefabrication, presumably because the size of the prefabricated elements proved to small for this to be done efficiently.

Normal vessels show their curvaceous shape on the outside but not necessarily on the inside. In big vessels conventional straight interior panelling prevails, as space is not an issue. In small yachts interior finishing is done in the controlled environment of the shipyard were workers and materials are at hand. As Future Systems wanted the Media Centre “[…] to be considered a spatial achievement too” (Field, 1999: 93), plywood panels, which later received a car paint finish, had to be tailored to the complex interior shape of the shell. As no two elements had exactly the same shape, exact measurements for all panels had first to be taken in situ before being individually produced in a remote workshop, brought back and being mounted.

Standardisation. The Lord’s Media Centre is, with its almost iconographic appearance, like almost all of Future Systems projects and buildings a one-off. It is unique in its design and shape, realised in an unconventional and highly demanding way by introducing experimental technologies, that had formerly never been used in building industries.

Future Systems frequently stressed the importance of re-applying the knowledge gained in such experiments to inform more conventional design and construction processes. (Wessely, 2001: 1447). Considering experimentation with prototypes as an integral part of architecture, Future Systems claim that a fusion of the advanced shipbuilding prefabrication technologies and the traditional building industry would lead to the realisation of affordable large scale housing projects that show an “aesthetically rich and spiritually uplifting form of architecture.”(Field, 1999: 21).

In fact it is mainly the shipbuilding industry’s ability to effectively construct highly individual shapes with a high precision, that suggests the application of its techniques to realise artefacts like the Lord’s Media Centre. As almost every vessel has its unique requirements due to its intended use and singular specifications, shipyards on the whole only deal with the production of one-offs. This is not only true for comparably small yachts, but also for big cargo vessels. Further on, since almost the entire steel cutting is done by CNC machines, the importance of element standardisation decreases, as the production of metal sheets of similar shape no longer reduces manufacturing time or costs. Although very advanced in prefabrication technologies, the standardisation is not one of the major issues in ship building.

Analysing the projects that Future Systems developed and published after 1995, it becomes evident, that the number of buildings featuring a semi-monocoque aluminium roof, has increased significantly since the Lord’s Media Centre has been realized. More interestingly, most of them are highly individual, detached single family houses, or interior installations.

In a 1997 case study, the Josef K House project, the building is designed with a single semi-monocoque lightweight aluminium roofing that allows curvaceous forms and exterior spray paint finish. The 1997 Mr B House is designed “as a simple blockwork structure topped with a semi-monocoque aluminium roof. This roof would be hard wearing and provide an organic and inspiring volume for the space inside.” (Field, 1999: 158) as Kaplicky states thus again reconfirming his more aesthetical than structural approach. The aluminium structure that was designed and realised for the Comme des garcon flagship store in New York was constructed by the Pendennis Shipyard in Cornwall, shipped to the United States and there re-assembled. The artefact’s conception and production followed, on an even smaller scale, precisely the Lord’s Media Centre’s manufacturing processes. Although definitely showing apprenticeship, advanced working skills and craft, again no gain of knowledge for the broader issue of standardisation can be induced.

All this indicates that although the direct application of monocoque metal structures has become a reoccurring theme within their work, Future Systems have not succeeded in establishing a conceptual transgression from the design of one-off building structures to a more systematic exploration of the possibilities of industrialisation, mass production or standardisation. Further on, the facts that only small shipyards, which use accordingly smaller prefabrication units, can produce road transportable elements cost efficiently, and that ship building itself is specialized in manufacturing custom-made unique objects, seem to generally contradict the idea of standardisation and mass production.

So, to sum up, a close examination of the Media Centre’s actual construction procedure reveals that certain integral processes of vessel construction are difficult to transfer into architecture without partially losing the advantages they previously seemed to offer. The necessity of moving the process of final assembly out of the shipyard onto the building site, which literally means relocating shipbuilding techniques into a different environment, turns out to be most problematic as it triggers a number of interdependent disadvantages that gradually dissolve existing advantages.

The construction of the Yokohama Terminal demonstrates, that the introduction of shipbuilding techniques, when carried out on a larger scale regarding essential parameters and when implied more by technical than by ideological necessity, can lead to promising results. The realisation of the Lord’s Media Centre might indicate that small scale projects, could turn into a conceptual tour de force, merely resulting in a memorable artefact without a convincing constructional history.

It seems evident, the incorporation of ship building technologies, its materials and production techniques, allows the creation of non-linear curvaceous shapes in qualities, generally impossible to achieve with conventional building methods. Other questions however, like those of standardisation and industrialized mass production techniques have not even been properly addressed yet, and are far from being solved. It seems, the issue of technology transfer from ship building to architecture would need more systematic and rigorous technical investigation, rather than ideological trimming in order to overcome its initial shortcomings, which is something that Future Systems were not able to pursue anymore. Let us hope that contemporary architecture practice takes it up from there.

Bibliography:

Field, Marcus. Future Systems. London:Phaidon Press Ltd., 1999. ISBN 0-7148-3381-4.

Foreign Office Architects. “FOA Yokohama International Port Terminal” . Verb Processing. Barcelona: Actar, 2001. ISBN 84-95273-55-1

Quantrill, Malcom. Alvar Aalto. A Critical Study. London: Secker & Warburg, 1983. ISBN 0-436-39400-6.

Van der Giessen – de Noord N.V. (Ed.). Iron Men And Steel Ships. 125 Years Remarkable Shipbuilders. Krimpen aan den Ijssel: van der Giessen – de Noord, 1995.

Wessely Heidi. “An Interview with Jan Kaplicky” in Detail. Review of Architecture: Experimental Building. 2001/8 (2001). ISSN 0011-9571

]]> http://www.unsquare.at/?feed=rss2&p=276 0 http://www.unsquare.at/?p=268 http://www.unsquare.at/?p=268#comments Mon, 06 May 2013 19:57:45 +0000 0801 http://www.unsquare.at/?p=268 In late April 1999 Future System’s Lord’s Media Centre was officially introduced to the public. 14 years on I think  it is about time to revisit Jan Kaplicky‘s probably most pivotal building (and the one he was said to like best). Its realisation is widely regarded as a major breakthrough in modern architecture, as it is considered to be the first building constructed according to principles normally common to ship building technologies.

I am not interested in questioning the building’s position as a piece of (absolutely undisputed) design qualities within the canon of modern architecture, but would rather like to critically evaluate, whether the attempted technology transfer from ship-building technology to building construction technology has yielded economically successful results.

I want to argue that the design and the realisation of the Lord’s Cricket Ground Media Centre were not the results of parametric processes or of contemporary digital design strategies, whose complex curvilinear results or large-scale arrangements necessitated the introduction of ship building technology, but in fact rather stem from pointed ideological positions, that I intend to trace back and exemplify along a series of deeply modernist trajectories throughout Jan Kaplicky’s education and architectural work.

So, if, as a consequence, the construction method chosen for the Media Centre is in fact an idealized one, rather than the ideal one, it seems worth investigating then, up to which extent ship building techniques could be incorporated into its construction process without losing the significant advantages, they are praised for.

The architectural practice of Future Systems has always been dedicated to the ideas of prefabrication and industrialization. Looking at the still lingering ideologies of modernism, the realisation of their concept devised for the Lord’s Media Centre, of having an entire building produced, assembled and completed by one single contractor, taken from the field of ship building industries, seems to be the fulfilment of the ultimate modernist dream.

However, the idea of establishing close conceptual connections between architecture and large-scale industrially assembled products, like ships, aircrafts or automobiles, can be traced back to the beginning of the modernist movement. These comparisons were first dominated by aesthetic perception, as industrial objects seemed to be able to transfer a new, much desired machine-like aesthetics to architecture, capable of replacing the then prevailing traditional styles. This preliminary visual preoccupation is evident in Le Corbusier’s programmatic book ‘Towards A New Architecture’, in which the whole chapter ‘Eyes Which Do Not See’ (LC, 1982: 75) is dedicated to the description of the aesthetic qualities intrinsic to industrialized products. The adoption of industrial production techniques on the other hand, was envisioned to give way to a whole range of new powerful materials and technologies that would introduce “more technical beauty” (LC, 1982: 82) into architecture.

At the same time another reoccurring theme of modernism, the issue of standardization and prefabrication became related to ship- and aircraft industries. Based on social considerations, the rationalisation of building production was supposed to solve the existing housing problems. The application of new automated production techniques and new materials like aluminium or plywood, should provide affordable industrialized products of high quality, ranging in size from furniture to entire housing schemes.

Ivan Margolius gives us a rather comprehensive account of Jan Kaplicky*s architectural and cultural education in his homage published in AD Vol.79 No.4 “Digital Cities”. As a small child he seemed to have been fascinated by the powerful imagery of “[...] military machinery of the times: tanks, armoured cars, weapons and aeroplanes [...]” (Margolius, 2009:101), and his parents’ house “[... ] was furnished with Bauhaus metal tube chairs, tables and sofas.” (Margoluis, 2009:103). Kaplicky travelled to Moscow and the US to “[visit] the national US exposition, where he saw Richard Buckminster Fuller’s houses, Charles Eames’ furniture and American automobiles.” Car technology turned out to be a re-ocurring theme, when later on after having set up his own practice, he became infatuated with the design and construction of a Czech car, which he even tried to borrow and park in his office. Margolius even claims that Kaplicky’s fascination of “[its] monocoque skin, a frameless structural shell construction […] developed into Future System’s central passion” (Margolius, 2009: 105). Consequently it should not come as a surprise, that the trajectories of most modernist ideological positions could always be found in the architecture of Future Systems.

The range of objects presented as sources of inspiration to Future Systems in their publication of 2001 bears more than a strong resemblance to those Le Corbusier referred to in his 1922 publication. Nine out of seventeen images depict ships or aircrafts (Future Systems, 2001:14). The concept of using ship building technologies to solve current social problems is most strikingly visible in Future System’s 1990 ‘Boatel’ project, providing “a temporary accommodation for 150 homeless people on the Thames in London.” (Field, 1999: 36). Comparing the claim of Jean Prouvée, that “[…] if aeroplanes were put into production in the manner of buildings they would not fly.” (Huber, 1972: 23) and Jan Kaplicky’s statement “I am glad the jumbo jet was not designed by an architect – if it had been, it would never have flown.” (Field, 1999: 33) indicates, that both of them share the same ideological position.

“[…] convinced, that the architecture of straight lines is history.” (Field, 1999: 33), Kaplicky had always been investigating into buildings that encompass spatial complexity and go beyond the traditional orthogonal conception of space, which still prevails in modernism. An examination of Future Systems’ works and projects shows, that their design process has always been driven by the urge to move from the classical eight-cornered understanding of space to more curvaceous propositions. The fact, that such shapes are more familiar in aircrafts and boats, explains Future Systems early preoccupation with the manufacturing technologies of the aircraft and ship building industry.

The fabrication techniques used in shipbuilding and in related industries have proven highly successful in their own domain, and have, since their introduction to architecture by modernism, always been related to building construction by architects, who were referring to a number of advantages they appeared to have. Until the realisation of the Lords Media Centre nevertheless they had only been thoroughly applied in their own fields of construction. The realisation of an artefact, whose fabrication and construction process, for the first time, was largely informed by this set of technologies inevitably leads to the question, up to which extent construction methods can be transferred from their intrinsic environment to an architectural environment, where entirely different rules and parameters apply.

Ship and aircraft building technologies have been developed over the years to optimise a ship’s or an aircraft’s performance as means of transportation in a liquid or aerial environment. Consequently ships and planes are always planned and constructed in respect to the latest related techniques. Driven, as indicated above, by aesthetic and ideological intentions, the shapes that Future Systems assign to their buildings, on the other hand, reach a point of spatial complexity that suggest the introduction of ship building technologies into building construction.

Consequently basic rules and implications of ship building technology no longer influence the act of form finding, but production techniques have to be adapted in order to be applied to a previously designed arbitrary shape. This reversal of the normal construction concept affects the manufacturing process considerably and leads, as is going to be explained in the second part of this text, at certain points to situations, where the advantages of ship building methods start losing their significance.

Part 2 will investigate into the contextual parameters, that link or distinguish the fabrication of large vessel from the construction of a building like the Media Centre and analyse, if a given conception of a curvaceous architectural spatial organisation can subsequently be constructed by means of ship construction methods.

Bibliography:

Field, Marcus. Future Systems. London:Phaidon Press Ltd., 1999. ISBN 0-7148-3381-4.

Future Systems. Unique Building. Lord’s Media Centre. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 2001. ISBN 0-471-98512-0.

Huber, Benedikt et al. Jean Prouvé. Prefabrication: Structure and Elements. London: Pall Mall Press, 1971. ISBN 3-907044-93-2.

Le Corbusier. Ausblick auf eine Architektur. Braunschweig: Vieweg & Sohn Verlag, 1982. ISBN 3-528-18602-X.

Margolius, Ivan. Jan Kaplicky. In AD Vol. 79, No. 4 (July/August 2009) Digital Cities. ISSN 0003-8504.

]]> http://www.unsquare.at/?feed=rss2&p=268 0 http://www.unsquare.at/?p=132 http://www.unsquare.at/?p=132#comments Thu, 30 Aug 2012 19:20:45 +0000 0801 http://www.unsquare.at/?p=132 the results of this year’s research into parametric semiology will be on display at the 13th venice biennale titled “common ground” in the arsenale. the selected models will – together with zaha hadid’s centre piece installation Aurum, her models and research and additional pieces of work of heinz isler, frei otto and philippe bloch – be part of a comprehensive body of research about parametric shell structures, that fills an entire room in the arsenale.

hats off to all our students and special thanks to josip, maya, rhina, indre, matthias, bogdan and daniel for helping out with the installation.

this year’s studio brief “Parametric Semiology II– Olympic Park Rio de Janeiro 2016” called for the research and development of radically innovative spatial models for the sport venues and related auxiliary programmes of the future olympic park in Rio. within the scope of Parametricism this semster’s research focus lies especially on shell structures and their manifold potentials.

students in the studio have been continously researching within the paradigm of Parametric Design for the last few years, testing contemporary design strategies in various scales and within different studio agendas. most recently the semiological capacities of parametrically generated architectural forms were investigated.

following up that research agenda, this semester students will develop urban and architectural prototypes with regard to their semiological readability, based on the urban, spatial, programmatic, or social parameters, that were deducted from the specific programme for Rio’s Olympic Park.

the design of these proto-architectural elemets is based on the thorough research of different shell structures, their formal properties and their multiple potentials for parametric differentiation.