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Arch is __________________.
Infrastructure and its relation to the superficial has long been a point of productive contention in architec-
ture. This history has been marked by two radically different sensibilities, one concerned exclusively
with the visible realm, stuffing structure and building services into the spaces between walls and behind
ceilings, and the other a modern rationalist desire to express or represent technology for its own sake.
It is a tired dance in which both partners, postmodernism and structural expressionism, have run their
course but continue to appear on our skylines. With Architecture of the Well-tempered Environment
(1969), Reyner Banham was one of the first to suggest that the history of building infrastructure in archi-
tecture is characterized by general neglect simultaneously manifested in the repression of environmen-
tal systems and an assumption of the primacy of structure in determining form. While problematic for its
humanist underpinnings, his argument that re-tooling the relation of form, structure, and lowly mechani-
cal services can be generative in terms of design is intriguing, and to a great extent, still unexplored
territory.
Going one step further, I would like to suggest that assuming separation between the realms of building
infrastructure and affect may be similarly unproductive. As interest in single-surface and topological
projects wanes in contemporary digital design, there arises the possibility to think about surfaces not as
abstract, endless, and of zero-thickness, but as spaces of variable thickness, embedded and laced with
structural, environmental, plumbing, and lighting systems. Once the sanctity of the surface as an
independent agent exclusively responsible for affect is challenged, other logics and systems can begin
to operate in a space that opens up between performance and sensation, infrastructure and ornament.
This is architecture of extreme integration, where vectors dip in and out of architectural surfaces, recon-
stituting them in a complex way. Imagine the potentials of surface-to-strand geometries, embedded
hollows, structural pleating, bundled micro-capillary systems, and deep relief, where the iconography of
technology and infrastructure dissolves as they are woven into architectural form.
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Wild Structures
2008
Design today must find ways to approximate … ecological forces and structures.
To tap, approximate, burrow, and transform morphogenetic processes from all
aspects of wild nature, to invent artificial means of creating living artificial environ-
ments.
-Sanford Kwinter
The project is about the universality of flat planes, and the purity of endless metric space. In this sense, it is a conceptual project. Columns are
removed from the interior and dissolved with his trademark cross-section; there is no response at the location of maximum shear where column
meets roof, and the roof structure is equally deep, independent of the variable bending forces at work within it. Nervi’s Giatti Wool Mill (1951),
in comparison, begins to exhibit a materialist flow of forces, a proto-wildness. In this project, the structural ceiling morphology begins to
organize in response to force flows along its surface. The vertical is not suppressed, but rather begins to effect transformation in the horizontal.
The variability and elegance of the relief can be experienced on a conceptual level, as intensive forces at work, but also on an immediate,
sensate level. Jeff Kipnis has referred to this kind of simultaneity as a “dual-ontology.”
Wild structures are not simply expressive structures. The drive toward legibility, in the sense of being able to trace a genealogy of forces back
to a source, is actually quite tame. Wild structures are instead a seething combination of behaviors that coalesce into an emergent whole with
effects that may exceed the structural. Butterfly wing structures are wild in that sense: their porosity is certainly related to structural lightness
and aerodynamics, but it is also unpredictably related to the production of visible color effects. It turns out that color-variegated wing patterns
are often not based on pigment, but on the micro-patternings of variable-depth pores modulating wavelengths of light. Structural Expression-
ism, as a movement in architecture, has been more about zero-sum, one-to-one legibility—no doubt a late permutation of the modernist instinct
toward transparency. But it also must be noted that its practitioners have often gone to great lengths to produce legible images of efficiency at
the expense of actual efficiency. This drive toward excess for the sake of producing affect in terms of structure is quite interesting, and
re-examined in the contemporary environment, opens up ways of thinking about legibility versus obfuscation in structural design. I would argue
that engineering efficiencies do not have to exclude excesses, that these territories can cross over, creating complex formations that might do
unexpected work, and might be felt as well as read.
While the term “wild” is easily associated with the biological, it is important to remember that in architecture, we are talking about artificial,
inorganic constructions that don’t literally grow. Wild behavior can be synthesized through any number of opportunistic processes, however,
wherever material logics operate within shaping environments. In a military-industrial setting, exactly where we would expect not to observe
wildness, we find salient examples. The F-22A Raptor is a radically heterogeneous construction that reflects local, opportunistic thinking in
terms of materials, engineering, and manufacture. Instead of one continuous material system, this aircraft was designed using several interwo-
ven materials and structural morphologies. Boeing made the fuselage from a deep-celled aluminum and steel egg-crate system and the wing
spars from cast titanium, while Lockheed Martin made the wings, fins, and duct manifolds from formed thermoplastics and carbon-fiber
composites. The structural patterning that results is patchy but nonetheless coherent. This is not an ‘exquisite corpse’ or collage of parts, but a
radically responsive model for structuration that injects variable materiality into a system of variable patterning. The result is technically
intelligent, but also beautiful, articulated, exotic.
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Notes on Biomimicry and Technology
Branching Structures
Giant lily pads are characterized by their wide circumference allowing maximum pho-
tosynthesis. A pattern of deep, tapered veins on the underside of the lily pads have
evolved to increase stiffness and buoyancy. Vein patterns are driven by a branching
logic but also a cellular logic, both driven by a differential of vascular performance
versus structural capacity. The pattern, based on incremental subdivisions, has a
bio-mathematical similarity to dragonfly wings and alligator skin.
Co-Evolution
The bloodcomb jelly consists of two interlaced creatures. The jelly itself is transpar-
ent, but colonies of bioluminescent bacteria live on its ‘combs’ (racks of little
paddles), creating a kaleidoscopic color output. The jellies‘s predators live at lower
depths, and the interference pattern created by the bacteria and the motion of its
combs works as a stealthing mechanism. The bacteria gain increased mobility and
access to more food sources. Both species benefit, and have evolved into a single,
irreducible organism.
Performative Ornament
A survey of historical military armor and contemporary wetsuit design reveals the complex relationship of ornamen-
tal sensibilities and structural and ergonomic patterning. Pleating stiffens surfaces without increasing their overall
depth and seaming allows flexure within assemblies or between materials.
The hammerhead shark did not emerge slowly, step-by-step, from small to large
hammer as is commonly thought. In fact, the first hammerhead to appear was the
winghead shark, with a very wide hammer. This mutation offered no discernible
advantage- it was, at that point, “ornamental.” Through the process of optimization
(a.k.a. natural selection), other species have appeared with a range of hammer sizes
better adapted to hunting in various environments, and more or less ornamental.
Rain Harvesting
Some desert-dwelling species of lizard have the ability to harvest rain by channelling water along the fine crevices of
their skin towards their mouths. These variegated skin patterns also serve as camouflage against predators.
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Prototype I: Tracery Glass
Los Angeles, 2009
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Prototype II: Thermo-Strut
Los Angeles, 2009
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Prototype III: Lizard Panel
Los Angeles, 2009
The algae and grey water systems are not simply adjacent, but
rather interwoven in such a way that unexpected structural
behavior arises: the grey water channels become the bottom
‘flange’ to the upper ‘flange’ of the algae channels, while
interstitial webbing connects the two into a hybrid beam
morphology.
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Flower Street BioReactor
Los Angeles, 2009
A solar array, used to collect energy during the day, spirals and
winds up into the branches of an adjacent tree, jungle-style.
This energy will be stored in a battery and used during the
night to run the various systems.
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Garak Fish Market
Seoul, Korea, 2009
Our point of departure was to split the site into two zones, one
‘natural’ and one ‘urban’. The West area, adjacent to the Tan
Stream, is to be developed into wetland preserve and leisure
area. The displaced market program is stacked onto the
Eastern side of the market creating a hyper-dense, two-level
organization. The intention is to urbanize the market by
stemming its organic sprawl and creating sectional properties.
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Batwing
Matters of Sensation Exhibition, Artist Space, 2008
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Huaxi Urban Centre Tower
Guiyang, China, 2008
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Taipei Performing Arts Center
Taipei, Taiwan R.O.C., 2008
The aim for this design for the Taipei Performing Arts Center is
to create a world-class urban experience defined by hybrid
urban environments not traditionally associated with perform-
ing arts theaters. The three theaters are woven together by
way of an elevated Concourse, creating a unified whole which
has significant presence in the city. The Concourse is a
bridging element which acts as circulation for the theaters but
also as a commercial zone which includes lively urban
activities such as shopping, restaurants, bars, and other public
amenities. It will be a 24 hour space which will support the
theater functions but also operate independently. Below the
Concourse is both the orientation space for the theaters, but
also a place for urban events, meeting people, or simply
passing through.
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Sundsvall Performing Arts Theater
Sundsvall, Sweden, 2008
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Novosibirsk Summer Pavilion
Novosibirsk, Russia, 2007
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Dragonfly
SCI-Arc, Los Angeles, 2007
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MoMA/ P.S.1 Urban Beach
New York, 2003
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