090105-07_Rhinoscript Workshop (Calgary)

LOG 2009.01.05-07: Marc Fornes will run a three days Rhinoscript Workshop at the FACULTY OF ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN | University of Calgary | Canada
(invitation: Jason S. Johnson)


THEVERYMANY will also produce & build a new proto-arch - more to come...
(opening on Friday 9th)

081205_(n)certainties2_FINAL

Few work samples of this year opus of (n)certainties - the studio we are teaching with Francois Roche (R&Sie) at Columbia University GSAPP this fall 2008.

PAPER | Mariliis Lilover




SMEARING | Mathew Staudt




PLASTIC | Charles Valla



GLASS | Matthew Lutz


GLASS | Chi-Chen Yang





STRAW | Leuyu Chen

081112_Rhinoscript Workshop (McNeel Europe)

Due to current teaching positions on both sides of the Atlantic (Columbia University in New York and Die Angewandte in Vienna) – I happen to recently develop the highly specific skills of low end jetsetters: deploying a standard 15” screen laptop in any squeezed space airlines! I am talking here about those ones that obviously based on your financial contribution are pushing to the extreme the basic space efficiency algorithm by taking to new levels the competition of packing the maximum seats in the same exact airplane than everybody else – one can argue fair split? Yes! Though in the case of someone attempting to work it generates an inverse relation between the angle of the sit in front of you and the orientation of your screen (supposedly normal to your eye sight) – add to the conflict of the necessary elbow angle to access the touch pad and the comfort of your side neighbor…

Anyway based on those parameters - which obviously have two solutions: afford other airlines or simply buying a 13” laptop! - I recently surprised myself producing quick renderings as a third solution to the equation: enjoying back in my seat the advantage of performative computing! you don't have to focus on your screen while processing is taking care of your render!...

Anecdote aside – Since I didn't post for a little while now (btw sign of production!) - I thought I would upload my first ever renders in a plane! I can only agree not the best ones - but those were done leaving Paris last September after providing for McNeel Europe a two days Rhinoscript workshop for professionals…



Within this two days workshop the students were introduced to Rhinoscripting through the basics of "building up": from points to curves, from curves to surfaces, and from surface back to extract curves, etc... while on the same time gaining some syntax knowledge it allows to cover in a short period of time some simple patterning (dia-grid, honeycombs), tessellation (non air-tight planar quads) and finally some highly requested components – or basically an introduction toward topology and production of similarity on host surfaces...


Depending on the level – and as a conclusion during the last hour - I tend to introduce the relation between parameters and information (obvious path toward environmental feedback) such a simple possible correlation between a imported direction and the orientation of component, inverse related size of aperture and color coding...

Here are the very modest results of such a workshop - no pretention what so ever - few faces missing here and there! – but simply an introduction to a path going away from render maps and shaders toward the actual informed control of geometry…



Hopefully a small step toward globalization of environmental feedback into the design process? At least many offices pretends to – yet from my experience too often only beautiful colored diagrams for conferences or justification for excessive patterning – but yes like my plane story at the beginning: performance and confort - it all depends on how much you are ready to endure if not willing to pay...

080906_THEVERYMANY_Log

THEVERYMANY LOG - FALL 2008:
(will be completed on the side column as confirmation & precision arrive):

- 2008.FALL: M.F. is co-teaching a design studio at GSAPP - Columbia University / New York, US (invitation: Francois Roche / R&Sie(n))
www.ncertainties2.wordpress.com (one more webLog!!)

- 2008.FALL: M.F. is co-teaching this year cross-over studio 08/09 at die Angewandte - Universität für Angewandte Kunst Wien, Institut für Architektur / Vienna, AU (invitation: Francois Roche / R&Sie(n))
http://www.dieangewandte.at/architecture/
www.ncertainties3.wordpress.com (and a last one!!!)

- 2008.09.18: M.F. lectures at the Rhino reseller meeting 2008 in Barcelona / Spain (invitation: Carlos Perez / McNeel)

- 2008.09.20: M.F. lectures at C.STEM 2008, Arte Generativa, Sistemi Elettronici e Software-art / Torino, Italy (invitation: Fabio Franchino)
http://www.cstem.it/artists_i.php

- 2008.09.22-23: M.F runs a two days Rhinoscript workshop for McNeel Europe in Paris (invitation: Carlos Perez / McNeel)
http://blog.rhino3d.com/2008/07/rhinoscript-workshop-in-paris-september.html
http://www.eu.rhino3d.com/e-news/rhinoscript_france0708.htm

- 2008.10.08-09-10: M.F. lectures at the "EleganTech" conference in Mexico City, Mexico (invitation: Gabriel Esquivel) - CANCEL!!!

- 2008.10.24-25: M.F. is the curator for the European section of the Architecture Beijing Biennale (present for the opening - October 24th) / Beijing, CHINA (invitation: Neil Leach)

http://www.abbeijing-emarch.com/

Back from summer vacation after a long road trip crossing the US:
8500miles (13700 km) through 22 states, stopped in 21 cities, many national parks (Arches, Zion, Death Valley, Mojave, Grand Canyon,...), and much more "rencontres" and memories...

- (NY) > NEW YORK
- (PENNSYLVANIA)
- (OHIO) > Cincinnati
- (INDIANA) > Indianapolis
- (ILLINOIS)
- (MISSOURI)
- (KANSAS) > Kansas City
- (COLORADO) > Denver
- (UTAH) > Moab - Page - Hurricane
- (NEVADA) > LAS VEGAS
- (CALIFORNIA) > Mammoth Lake - SAN FRANCISCO - Santa Barbara - Palm Springs - Needles
- (ARIZONA) > Flagstaff
- (NEW MEXICO) > Albuquerque
- (TEXAS) > Amarillo - Dallas - Houston
- (LOUISIANA) > NEW ORLEANS
- (MISSISSIPPI)
- (ALABAMA)
- (TENNESSEE) > Nashville
- (VIRGINIA)
- (MARYLAND)
- (NEW JERSEY)
- (NY) > NEW YORK

for the record - fuel prices going from 3,24 (Houston, Texas) to 5.79 (Death Valley, California) per gallon...

080905_CoLab: R&Sie + THEVERYMANY (003)

LOOPHOLE (Cieszyn, Poland - Cesky Tesin,Czech / 2008)
Collaboration with Francois Roche, principal of R&Sie
http://www.new-territories.com/




Far from being the final scheme - here is one of the many options studied in February...
Further away from weaving - it had its own flavor as well: the "clips" build up was looked at as an assembly of single ring type with standard pipes (of custom length); a ring-pipe steel interface would have still needed to be developed in order to allow the rings to follow the direction of the weave for perfect snapping...



CREDITS:

LOOPHOLE / Design of a pedestrian bridge on the boundaries of the two countries
Cieszyn, Poland-Cesky Tesin,Czech / 2005-2008

Architect: R&Sie(n)… Paris
Associated partner: Marc Fornes on clips parametric version.
Creative team: François Roche, Stéphanie Lavaux, with Sylwia Bogdan, Toshikatsu Kiuchi
Engineer: VP&Green, Paris
Key dimensions: 60 m linear
Client: The city of Cieszyn, in both part, Polish and Czech
Cost: 2 million €

080727_CoLab: R&Sie + THEVERYMANY (002)

LOOPHOLE (Cieszyn, Poland - Cesky Tesin,Czech / 2008)
Collaboration with Francois Roche, principal of R&Sie (www.new-territories.com)



THEVERYMANY was primarily asked to develop a 3D weaving system.
Weaving protocols are quite straight forward to code as extremely explicit by nature: basically a set of procedure telling up/down/up/down based on a specific period or pattern.

Though in that specific case THEVERYMANY was required to weave through an existing primary direction (or loom) which is non linear - basically a set of "randomly" weaved curves not following one overall set of rules - therefore as no under laying order or "grid" one can't expect within the loops to understand its front, back, left & right neighbors, and therefore if those are up or down... no global sequence of weave can't be applied...

Following a series of tests and options - Marc Fornes / THEVERYMANY in collaboration with Francois Roche / R&Sie ended up developing a set of local agraffes/clips - having to search for their state - here was the very first attempt (February 2008)

(Obviously at that stage no need to run any clash procedure to understand membrure/rib's integrity limit or structural weakness - but enough though to validate the hypothesis of scenario and its possible effect...)



You can find the proposal on new-territories;

CREDITS:

LOOPHOLE / Design of a pedestrian bridge on the boundaries of the two countries
Cieszyn, Poland-Cesky Tesin,Czech / 2005-2008

Architect: R&Sie(n)… Paris
Associated partner: Marc Fornes on clips parametric version.
Creative team: François Roche, Stéphanie Lavaux, with Sylwia Bogdan, Toshikatsu Kiuchi
Engineer: VP&Green, Paris
Key dimensions: 60 m linear
Client: The city of Cieszyn, in both part, Polish and Czech
Cost: 2 million €

080603_CoLab: R&Sie + THEVERYMANY (001)

Collaboration with Francois Roche, principal of R&Sie (www.new-territories.com)& THEVERYMANY / February 2008



THEVERYMANY was initially asked to developed a plug-in looking at weaving structures - first from a series that post is showing the very first generic tests.



Side notes: WEAVING (ie wikipedia.org)

WEAVING is the textile art in which two distinct sets of yarns or threads, called the warp and the filling or weft (older woof), are interlaced with each other to form a fabric or cloth. The warp threads run lengthways of the piece of cloth, and the weft runs across from side to side.
Cloth is woven on a loom, a device for holding the warp threads in place while the filling threads are woven through them. Weft is an old English word meaning "that which is woven".

The manner in which the warp and filling threads interlace with each other is known as the weave. The three basic weaves are plain weave, satin weave, and twill, and the majority of woven products are created with one of these weaves.

Woven cloth can be plain (in one color or a simple pattern), or it can be woven in decorative or artistic designs, including tapestries. Fabric in which the warp and/or weft is tie-dyed before weaving is called ikat. Fabric decorated using a wax resist method is called batik.

The ancient art of handweaving, along with hand spinning, remains a popular craft. The majority of commercial fabrics, in the West, are woven on computer-controlled Jacquard looms. In the past, simpler fabrics were woven on dobby looms and the Jacquard harness adaptation was reserved for more complex patterns. Some believe the efficiency of the Jacquard loom, and the Jacquard weaving process makes it more economical for mills to use them to weave all of their fabrics, regardless of the complexity of the design.


WEAVING / PROCESS
In general, weaving involves the interlacing of two sets of threads at right angles to each other: the warp and the weft. The warp are held taut and in parallel order, typically by means of a loom, though some forms of weaving may use other methods. The loom is warped (or dressed) with the warp threads passing through heddles on two or more harnesses. The warp threads are moved up or down by the harnesses creating a space called the shed. The weft thread is wound onto spools called bobbins. The bobbins are placed in a shuttle which carries the weft thread through the shed. The raising/lowering sequence of warp threads gives rise to many possible weave structures from the simplest plain weave (also called tabby), through twills and satins to complex computer-generated interlacings.

Both warp and weft can be visible in the final product. By spacing the warp more closely, it can completely cover the weft that binds it, giving a warpfaced textile such as rep weave. Conversely, if the warp is spread out, the weft can slide down and completely cover the warp, giving a weftfaced textile, such as a tapestry or a Kilim rug. There are a variety of loom styles for hand weaving and tapestry. In tapestry, the image is created by placing weft only in certain warp areas, rather than across the entire warp width.

080530_WORKSHOP_Rhinoscripting (McNeel)

RhinoScript workshop for professionals organized by McNeel Europe in Paris
E.N.S.A.P.L.V. - 17-18 juin - 9:00 to 17:00
http://blog.rhino3d.com/2008/05/rhinoscript-workshop-in-paris.html
http://www.eu.rhino3d.com/e-news/rhinoscript_france0508.htm

Marc Fornes will teach how to get the most from RhinoScript starting from the basics (operators and functions, conditions, arrays) to the final analysis, description, reconstruction and tessellation of NURBS surfaces.

Marc Fornes, Architect DPLG, is the founder of THEVERYMANY, a design studio and collaborative research forum engaging the field of architecture via encoded and explicit processes. Rhino and RhinoScript expert, Marc collaborates with McNeel on a regular basis.

Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture de Paris La Villette
11, Rue de Cambrai
Rez-de-chaussée, Bâtiment Nº. 31
Paris 75019
Metro : Corentin Cariou

080528_National Science Foundation Workshop

THEVERYMANY (Marc Fornes & Skylar Tibbits) have kindly been invited by Conrad Gleber to present their work within a workshop on "Algorithms and Scripting for Visual Art" at La Salle University.

THURSDAY 29 MAY (afternoon) / La Salle University, Philadelphia, PA
http://conradgleber.com/conradgleber/nsf_cpath/

National Science Foundation CPATH Grant
Revitalizing Computer Science Education Through the Science of Digital Media

Jennifer Burg, Wake Forest University, Principal Investigator
Conrad Gleber, La Salle University, Co-Principal Investigator

While computers have become indispensable in communication, social networking, creativity, business, science, academics, and research, the number of students majoring in computer science has fallen dramatically in recent years. Clearly, computer science educators are not taking advantage of the exciting and relevant nature of their discipline. This project investigates ways to make computer science curriculum more interesting and relevant to today's students by linking it to the science of digital media. The interdisciplinary nature of digital media -- with connections to the visual arts, engineering, music, scientific visualization, movies, television, and mobile media -- will be explored through workshops at seven colleges/universities throughout the United States. Representatives from business and industry and diverse academic fields will be asked to identify the knowledge and skills they would like to see in computer scientists involved with them in interdisciplinary collaborations. Over a three-year period, a proposal for college-level computer science curriculum changes will be made that reflects input from educators, industry representatives, artists, and practitioners in areas involving digital media. The resulting curriculum is intended to have a strong scientific base linked to practice in other disciplines in ways that motivate learning and take advantage of the centrality of digital media in modern-day life.

La Salle University: Algorithms, Scripting, and Programming for Visual Art

Can computer programming in a visual context serve as a foundation for teaching computer science? This workshop will research the use of programming for architecture, 3-D design and prototype development, data visualizations, dynamic and interactive displays and will look at the use of computer programming in commercial and academic fields. The aim is to suggest ways to incorporate the findings into computer science curricula.

Participants:
Ken Baldauf, Florida State University, Director of Interdisciplinary Computing
Tom Blum, La Salle University, Computer Scientist
Deloy Cole, Greenville College
Cezanne J. Charles, rootoftwo and ArtServe Michigan
H. Quynh Dinh, Stevens Institute, Computer Scientist
Marc Fornes with Skylar Tibbits, THEVERYMANY, Architects
Ira Greenberg, Miami University, Associate Professor, Interacitve Media Studies/Art
Kyle Gower-Winter, Florida State University, Program in Interdisciplinary Computing (PIC)
Hubert Johnson, Montclair State, Computer Scientist
Dan Falabella, Albright College, Computer Scientist
Abbe Forman,Temple University, Computer Scientist
Jeff Nyhoff,Calvin College, Computer Scientist
John Marshall, University of Michigan, School of Art & Design
Margaret McCoey, La Salle University, Computer Scientist
Todd Pashak, Miami University
Mike Redmond, LaSalle University, Computer Scientist
Gail Rubini, Florida State University, Visual Art and Design
Bill Weaver
David Wicks

080522_INSTALLATION_Tesselion

TEST ONE-TWO ONE-TWO...
Great blogging again since experiencing some issues with blogspot (and by now kindly sort out by their technical team - THX!) - so hopefully this post will start a series of updates on few projects, colab or research I have been involved with those last few weeks/months...


As a very first update - I would like to congratulate Skylar Tibbits for his final thesis project - "Tesselion" - MANY CONGRATS!!

Skylar - now associate within theverymany on several projects - has invited me several months ago to extend one of THEVERYMANY's on going research and investigation onto Nurbs surface - recently entitled "Partly Surfaces" - or ways to describe them and reconstruct them through different tessellation studies exclusively using flat parts (for simple "constructability" issue)...

Officially invited as thesis advisor my only reserve at the time was -in order to step ahead from the now over crowded paradigm of cosmetic components array onto surface- to require a scale one test proof of the system that would eventually be developed - so here it is finally standing! (hopefully more pictures to come & already many more on the Tesselion blog)

and yes - this can not been seen as "architectural" but rather to my eyes as required "prototypical"...


TESSELATION : Adaptive Quadrilateral Flat Panelization.
www.tesselion.wordpress.com

THEVERYMANY
Skylar Tibbits (design & code)
Marc Fornes (thesis & code advisor)

Material Sponsor: Alliance Metals (www.alliancemetals.com)
Fabrication Sponsor: Jared Laucks and Continental Signs (www.continentalsigns.net)

080507_"let's go MENTAL"_Lopud Seminar 2008

Last minute log - Marc Fornes / THEVERYMANY has been kindly invited (through Francois Roche / R&Sie) to join Lopud Seminar 2008.

"let's go MENTAL"
Lopud Seminar 2008
DURATION: May 9 - May 12, 2008
LOCATION: Lopud Island, Croatia
http://tba21.org/program/seminars/53/page_2?category=seminars

FundaMENTAL
The most prominent interdisciplinary areas of human interest today are probably those often referred to as generative sciences. The chaos theory, information theory, social network analysis, philosophy of science, epistemology, cybernetics, systems theory and process physics, to mention just a few, belong to this category.
A salient "member" of the group, the complexity theory, explores concepts essential for our understanding of nonlinearity underlying to all reality. It deals with emergence, a construct used to describe a universal phenomenon of a system's increasing complexity spawning processes and/or properties which cannot be detected in the constituting elements or subsystems. The logic of this quantum leap relentlessly applies in a single cell or a living organism, whole eco-systems or man-made structures and systems, whether they are real or virtual, concrete or abstract, material or theoretical.
Often, the related dependency graph is counter-intuitive and a largely non-symmetrical function - our knowledge of any particular level may be useless when it comes to understanding the workings of the next one. We need a different set of tools and concepts. New sciences. Cognition itself is a generative process.
This is a broadening field, which we believe to incorporate an intellectual synthesis of art, architecture music and science which is reflected in the foundation's commissions and events. Peter Corning wrote in 2002: “The synergies associated with emergence are real and measurable, even if nobody is there to observe them." This 2008 workshop, organised on the occasion of the reopening of Your Black Horizon art pavilion by David Adjaye and Olafur Eliasson on Lopud, is the third in a series of such investigations and shall deal with conservation, architecture, design, music, toxicity and botany as well. Experts from all fields are invited.

MedicaMENTAL
Shamanism, healing, religious practice, collective experiences, rituals... Indigenous medicine appears to implicitly rely on emergent properties of both the cure and the organism. This opposes the reductionist approach reflected in extraction of active substances and division of the body to subsystems treated independently. Is this holistic view inherent to all traditional healing techniques? If so, assumed these sets of practices are supervenient to the respective social contexts, how is this cross-cultural feature explained? To which extent was discontinuity of these techniques a transformative process rather than manifest suppression? How much of it was assimilation and/or diffusion into other domains and how did those changes occur? Who are today’s shamans? If rituals can be understood as markers of transformation, does the proverbial use of entheogens have an analogue function? Arcane nature of the knowledge involved affords authority - does that make shamanism as such virtually impossible in a culture increasingly defined by instant access to an accumulated abundance of information - an emergence we're only beginning to evaluate?

ExperiMENTAL
The Garden of Earthly Delights alias Toxic Garden engages with the historical site of the Renaissance garden on Lopud by trying to create a continuity of its actual history and adding a new layer. In this case, the architects introduce the rumours of fear and awe, as it is well documented that the monks of the region actually had standardized their expansive pharmacological knowledge on the medical as well as toxic use of plants and experimented with dosage and effectiveness (possibly on themselves) and the production of antidotes and forms of decontamination. Alongside with the tangible, the intangible heritage is revived and further transformed into an active element of the project - an experiment involving (phyto-) therapy and the confrontation, incorporation and embracement of danger and fear through the actual presence of the toxic substance. More than just participation is taking place: a cathartic cleansing, actively keeping the history intact/alive by accepting it in its very nature. This is also expressed in the morphology of the green house, the form of which actually follows the gravity force by sliding and dripping over the existing terraces - wild in nature rather than domesticated. But, while the randomness is just apparent on the material layer of the carefully "architected" project, the interactions that it triggers represent its indeterminable and experimental aspect.

EnvironMENTAL
Concepts of sustainability and sustainable environmental technologies are essential when contemplating development ranging from the urban landscape to Mediterranean islands. Ecological strategies play a crucial role in redesigning and rehabilitating of cultural landscapes. But concepts of sustainability and environmental solutions often function as ethical branding, driven by market interests, whereas tourism as the main industry of any region involves tendencies that contradict the principles of both sustainability and conservation alike. Many areas suffer from a paradoxical discrepancy between the growing interest they generate and the banality of the daily problems resulting from unresolved environmental and infrastructural issues. Lopud is no exception. Which usable options are presently offered by environmental technologies to a site defined by parameters similar to Lopud's? What are the limits of deployability of such solutions? Which constraints are to be considered? Which experiences can the local community benefit from? Which emergent processes have been reported? Ideally, such solutions should be part of a sustainable strategy that would integrate social and economical aspects as well. Is it conceivable to devise one that would restrain the negative implications of tourism? Which role could and should be played by architects in designing and implementing those strategies? What are the incentives for artists and architects to work with and within such systems in introducing change?

MonuMENTAL
How can one actively make use of or revive the information that is stored in today’s places of memory? What strategies do art and contemporary architecture follow in this process? How can cultural heritage be made accessible without transforming the city and countryside into a big open-air museum? An integral part of a conservation process, rehabilitation by definition implies enabling either continuity of original or compatible contemporary use of a historic site. Is it possible to formulate an approach that would more aptly take into account the evolving and fluctuating circumstances of the site? If the measures of preservation are given the necessary attention - does conservation have to be conservative?

InstruMENTAL
Implementing the results of our experiments and the creation of new radical projects as a result of these departures is instrumental to create a spirit of change and collaboration. We all want that so lets go MENTAL!

Participants of the Debate Sessions are:
Alisa Andrasek (architect, Biothing)
Ben Aranda/Chris Lasch (architects, Aranda/Lasch)
Allora Calzadilla (Jennifer Allora & Guillermo Calzadilla)
Beatriz Colomina (theoretician, Princeton University)
Klaus Daniels (ecological sustainable architecture / technical)
Marc Fornes (architect, THEVERYMANY)
Helene Furjan (architect, Princeton University),
Vit Havránek (curator, tranzit Prague)
Florian Hecker (artist)
Russell Haswell (artist)
Carsten Höller (artist)
Mark Oppitz (ethnographer, Ethnographic Museum, Zurich)
Boris Ondreicka (artist / curator, tranzit Bratislava)
Damian O’Sullivan (designer)
Jorge Otero-Pailos (architect, preservation, Columbia University)
Neri Oxman (architect, MATERIALECOLOGY)
Barbara Ozimec (botanist)
Antonia Majaca (curator, critic)
Marina Mlakar (Rudjer Boskvic Institute)
Maroje Mrduljas (journalist, ORIS)
Tony Myatt (MRS York)
Christian Rätsch (anthropologist)
François Roche/Stéphanie Lavaux (architects, R&Sie(n))
David Rych (artist)
Ognjen Skunca (UNDP Coast Project)
Goran Stojanovic (Dolphin Dream Organization)
Slaven Tolj (artist)
Superflex - Jakob Fenger/Bjørnstjerne Christiansen (artists)
Mark Wigley (architect, Columbia University)


RELATED:

as part of the program we will visit the historic gardens, the proposed site of "The Garden of Earthly Delights" by R&Sie(n) - François Roche and Stéphanie Lavaux.
http://new-territories.com/toxics%20gardenlopud.htm

"The Garden of Earthly Delights" reintroduces rumor and the unknown as a potential narrative of the site, and proposes to keep its vitality and productive imaginary. It is a toxic garden which serves as a link to the historical presence of medicinal gardens, medieval botany, and the preparation of medical tonics, poisons and antidotes by the knowledgeable Franciscan and Dominican monk community in Dalmatia, with contemporary architectural form. This biosphere will serve as a water harvester, a green house, a tea-room (for phyto-therapy) and will be energy self-sufficient. It will serve as a model for eco tourism in Croatia, as well as becoming a historical reference to the past and the distant future of the region.

080406_APERIODIC VERTEBRAE v2.0.2

Finally back from several events and wanderings all over the place (Paris, New York, Frankfurt, Strasbourg, Barcelona,...) - here is a first update on the prototype THEVERYMANY produced for Node08 / Frankfurt.

Its assembly has this time been a success (and hughe improvement since v1.0) as it took less than 24 hours & 2 people & 2 laptops to (re-)assemble the 360 panels and 320 nodes...

Once more demonstrating us "one better spend its time within development embedding assembly logic rather than waiting the material world to solve the fuzzines..."

(I will update the "information modeling" improvements on the previous post more focused on the digital back bone approach of the piece...)




"Aperiodic Vertebrae v2.0"
THEVERYMANY (project team: Marc Fornes / Skylar Tibbits)
NODE08 (www.node08.vvvv.org)
April 5th - 12th, Frankfurt / Germany

Many thanks to Eno Henze (http://www.enohenze.de/) & the entire VVVV team (http://vvvv.org) for their invitation & sponsorship

Also many more thanks to our sponsors for the piece:

- Quadrant EPP USA, Inc. (www.quadrantepp.com) > provided us sheets of polyethylene (3/16″ thick)

- Continental Signs (www.continentalsigns.net) and Jared Laucks > CNC cut of the panels

- Dick Dunlop > laser cut of the 320 unique connections (3/16″ acryclic)

080406_APERIODIC VERTEBRAE v2.0

"Aperiodic Vertebrae v2.0"
THEVERYMANY
(project team: Marc Fornes / Skylar Tibbits)
NODE08 (www.node08.vvvv.org)
April 5th - 12th, Frankfurt / Germany

Many thanks to Eno Henze (http://www.enohenze.de/) & the entire VVVV team (http://vvvv.org/) for their invitation & sponsorship


TEMPLATES FOR FABRICATION:
Like the form finding, all the panels, connections pieces and "helpers" coded strings engraved have all been 100% the result of a performative explicit protocol entirely coded in vb...
That part - even though presented down the row as a formal exercice / sculpture - has always been though from scratch as performative test / prototypical methodologie/process to convince further consulting work...








Here are the templates for CNC milling of the panels; 12 unique shapes only are much easier to nest (simple arrays) than all custom pieces...
Many thanks to Quadrant EPP USA, Inc. (http://www.quadrantepp.com/) for providing the 7 sheets of polyethylene required (3/16″ thick)
Many thanks to Continental Signs (http://www.continentalsigns.net/) and Jared Laucks for the CNC cut of those panels






Here are 5 (out of 7) templates for the connections to be laser cut on acrylic sheets (3/16″ thick) - total of 320 unique pieces
Many thanks to Dick Dunlop for the access to the laser cutter (3/16″ acryclic)

080406_CONSULTANT_Automatic(Notche+Unroll)

(credits: original photos by Arkfinder via CONTEMPORIST)

[C]space is the winning competition entry in the ‘AADRLTen’ Pavilion project, an advanced technology concrete structure that will be erected in Bedford Square,London. The AADRL10 exhibition will open on the 22 February 2008 and the Pavilion will officialy open on 13 March 2008 along with the release of the DRL10 Book. The structure is being designed and developed by Alan Dempsey and Alvin Huang with Adams Kara Taylor and members of the DRL. (http://cspacepavilion.blogspot.com)



In advance of the work on site, the team built a 1:10 scale model to do a final check on the fit of all 850 peices. The model uses 3mm thick mdf, which is about twice the thickness of the real elements so the real structure will look even more delicate than the model.....but it will still come to around 30 tons of concrete and 7 tons of steel. (http://cspacepavilion.blogspot.com)



This post is finally an update about a consultancy job done already quite some times ago now (last November!); THEVERYMANY was then asked by Alving Huang /[C]SPACE Pavilion to write some codes to generate all the assembly notches at the intersection of the structural members and automatically unroll their profiles; the different codes were finally wrapped up within a vb.NET plug-in.


(credits: original photo by photographer Philippe Brysse)

CREDITS: DRL TEN Pavilion

Alan Dempsey / Alvin Huang
Material Consultants: Wolfgang Rieder, Maria Pixner, Gerhard Enn,
Arnold Leiter, Bodo Röder
Structural Engineers: Hanif Kara, Reuben Brambleby,
Oliver Bruckermann, Jugatx Ansotegui
3D Scripting Consultants: Marc Fornes, Eugene Han
Construction Team: João Bravo da Costa, Arnold Leiter,
Aditya C Chandra, Alan Jinsoo Kim, Jwalant Mahadevwala,
Rashiq Muhammad Ali and current Phase 1 students, DRL V.11.1

Special respect to Alvin Huang for the quality of the design... and congrats to everyone else involved!!!

080330_LOG

Currently working in parallel on many projects/collaborations while being temporally delocated back and forth to Europe (currently in Paris) - here is a fast furious post to log on three future events I will be participating within the coming two weeks: MIND08 (New York), SIMAE (Barcelona), NODE08 (Barcelona)

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- MIND08 Design and the Elastic Mind Symposium (New York)
http://www.mind08.com/

Marc FORNES & SKYLAR TIBBITS will be giving a talk entitled "Partly surface";

Friday, April 4 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM
Parsons The New School For Design
Tishman Auditorium
66 West 12th Street, New York City

Collaboration between science and design is yielding a radical new way of visualizing, understanding, and manipulating the natural world. MIND08 is a conference, presented by Seed and MoMA and inspired by Design and the Elastic Mind, which aims to catalyze this convergence. Bringing together an eclectic group of speakers and participants, including leading scientists, designers, and architects, the conference will explore topics such as the personal genome, brain visualization, generative architecture, and collective design. MIND08 is an opportunity to interact with the ideas and thinkers transforming our visual and intellectual landscape.

"Experiments in Organic Design"
11:15 AM – 12:45 PM Introduction by Paola Antonelli and Adam Bly
- Neri Oxman - Materialecology
- Erik Demaine - Computational Origami
- Bradley Samuels - Nature and Artifice
- Skylar Tibbits / Marc Fornes - Partly Surface
- Greg Lynn - New City

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- SIMAE Contemporary Techniques, New Strategies (Barcelona)
http://simae.net/en/simposi.php

Marc Fornes / THEVERYMANY will be giving a talk (Friday April 11th)

2008 International Architecture Symposium
9-11 April 2008

Everything we see and witness around us is affected by technological progress and the force of social issues, especially the economic factors of our times. We have experienced fundamental, irreversible changes in a myriad of contexts: globalization, the technological and digital revolution, and new production systems, with delocalization to other continents, and their subsequent increase in purchasing power. These changes even affect the delicate balance of our ecosystem.

SPEAKERS (Friday 11th)
Denis Dollens ( EXODESIC / Santa Fe Art Institute )
Frederic Fol Leymarie ( University of London, UK )
Alvin Huang & Alan Dempsey ( Future Systems Architects, UK )
Marc Fornes ( THEVERYMANY, USA )
Joan Guash ( RDI, Grans Projectes ASCAMM )
Alberto Estevez ( Director Ma Arquitectura Biodigital EsArq_UIC )

Bernard Cache ( Objectile, France )
Evan Douglis ( Chairman, Pratt School of Architecture, USA )
Ali Rahim ( University of Pennsylvania PennDesign, USA )

Moderated by Evan Douglis
Special Guest: Alejandro Zaera ( FOA, UK )

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- NODE08 (Frankfurt)
http://node08.vvvv.org/?

THEVERYMANY ( Marc Fornes & SKYLAR TIBBITS ) will be giving a talk entitled "Explicit&Encoded" and setting up "APERIODIC VERTEBRAE v2.0";

APRIL 5-12TH - VELVET CLUB - FRANKFURT

NODE08 is dedicated to the arts of digital media. Whether its about media art, controlling lighting systems, interactions with the real world, synaesthetic experiences or video projections into 3d spaces – either way, software becomes the central working media. The focus of this event lies in the workshops and speeches in which artists, designers, architects and the technical minded share their knowledge and works by means of various exhibitions and situations with the Luminale audience. Meet renowned artists from all over the world and developers who – inspired by the many possibilities – realize a great deal of their projects employing the software project vvvv, which started out in Frankfurt am Main.

TUESDAY APRIL 08TH
Symposium moderated by Eno Henze at the Velvet Club
(Weissfrauenstrasse 12-16, Frankfurt)

Joreg + Sebastian Gregor + Sebastian Oschatz + Max Wolf
Paul Prudence (www.dataisnature.com)
Berthold Scharrer "SINE Matters - computed geometry in architecture"
Herbert W. Franke "Grafik aus dem Computer - Auf dem Weg zum Cyberspace"
Casey Reas (www.processing.org) "FORM + CODE"
What are the relationships between code (computer programs) and visual form? This presentation is centered around seven themes: What is Code?, Computers and Form, Repetition, Transformation, Parameters, Visualization, and Simulation. Using these themes as a foundation, the history of procedural and algorithmic work is discussed through examples from visual design, art, and architecture.
Mark Fornes & Skylar Tibbits (THEVERYMANY) "Explicit & Encoded"
Regine Debatty (www.we-make-money-not-art.com) "Genetically Modified Art"
Verena Kuni - "back to the future".

080308_RecursiveGrowth_Series03

RECURSIVE SERIES (update 080308)

SIDE_TRACK ON RECURSION: "Droste effect" (wikipedia.org)
The Droste effect is a Dutch term for a specific kind of recursive picture[1], one that in heraldry is termed mise en abyme. An image exhibiting the Droste effect depicts a smaller version of itself in a place where a similar picture would realistically be expected to appear. This smaller version then depicts an even smaller version of itself in the same place, and so on. Only in theory could this go on forever, practically it continues only as long as the resolution of the picture allows, which is relatively short, since each iteration exponentially reduces the picture's size. It is a visual example of a strange loop, a self-referential system.



LOG "SMART GEOMETRY 2008":
I am just back from the smartgeometry conference 2008 hosted within the Coop Himmelblau BMW building in Munich (Germany) - even more than during the last year event in New York the historical consensus within the founding partner of the event on the specific platform sponsoring the event is definitively re-questioned - hopefully that artificially maintained monopole (clearly understood as a funding issue) will shift in the next venue toward a much larger agenda on the use of computation within the field of architecture - anyway many interesting work presented - sustainability and solar gain are definitively the hot topics...

to all the many people I have met through the conference keep in touch...

080219_RecursiveGrowth_Series02

First images of a second series based on Recursion - here the major difference in morpholgy is due to tests for future connexions panels to panels - each panel is now sharing an entire edge with its neighbor but also with its previous generation...
Also the recursive subdivision isn't uniform anymore through the entire aggregate...

080217_RecursiveGrowth_Series01

BIO(x)...

"BIOmorphic" it first became (or eventually came back for the one who believes in trend periodicity...)

"Architectural theory" directly responded early 2000 by the concept of "BIOmimetism" as the hot topic for architects surfing on the what's next weave after the "BIOmimicry" which emerged in parallel from the animation software at the end of the nineties... yes it does make sense to look "how nature would solved a problem" rather than looking at nature itself - though each of us had to re-discovered that yes "in nature form is free and structure is expensive"... and therefore -except if your extreme diva character allows you to afford sometimes absurd ways of manufacturing- one might rather look at post modernism as the human Nature way of saving on form (though btw also often wasting on structure via demonstrative cantilevers)...

"Ecologies" -which emerged nearly five years ago within the architectural discourse- seems to be still the current natural evolution of the Bio(x) phenomenon: yes there should be some kind of balance since so many different feedbacks can be input as parameters onto what is often simply pictured as a gigantic "design process dash board" aiming toward performances - it is somehow making sense, or eventually once more it should make sense...

This Bio(x) history has no intention to be accurate or exhaustive - it can definitively be seen as a very cliche summary - though here required as frame work or axiom of that specific series...



"BIOmodelism"

THEVERYMANY "series" have yet no pretention to be smart as biomimetism or aiming toward new ecologies... there are based on a very simple and straight forward oldschool empiric lab approach trying first to understand existing mathematical/geometrical models as explicit and ordered sets of instruction, learn to replicate them through coding and finally within that process strategize in terms of design...

That last step often result in compromising the integrity of the original model - I am calling that approach "Modelism" as a derivate from "building model" where you're first trying to understand the kit of parts and then reassemble it to match the model - THERYMANY "series" are based on such process except that it is somehow like building blind or simply without the schematic where the emergent tolerances are distinguishing the result as "design" from its diagram...

Though yes - as some of those models are directly coming from early ways trying to replicate natural phenomenon - a direct resemblance to nature often emerge through the resultant form and structures...

this can sometimes reveal itself quite tricky looking at the current trend of Voronoi mimicry, soon it will replace the post modern box as standard! though at least for once intricate detailing about it and a slight notion of scale could transform it into architecture rather than simply inhabitable diagrams... sorry for such sarcasm as THEVERYMANY has actively collaborate to its success but as sort of young Jedi constantly trying to master new techniques within the field, I am afraid many more prototypical models will than unfortunately follow such downfall...

THEVERYMANY « Series » - "une histoire a suivre..."








RECURSION in mathematics and computer science, is a method of defining functions in which the function being defined is applied within its own definition. The term is also used more generally to describe a process of repeating objects in a self-similar way. For instance, when the surfaces of two mirrors are almost parallel with each other the nested images that occur are a form of recursion. (ie wikipedia),

RECURSIVEGROWTH - Generation 1 to 7 - is based on a coming back to "Recursion" (ie previous tests on subdivision, etc...) as the ultimo model of periodicity - why periodicity after many non-linear approaches? simple: the last series based on aperiodic tilling or replication were used because of high repetition within its model - therefore whenever one is approaching the concept of repetition its ultimo and endless quest is maximizing it...

periodicity for its advantages: easy nesting because exact same elements, also therefore easy nomenclature, ornamentation can be more intricate as repetitive, etc...

material system: flat panels - 4 types - also high repetition within the connections
to be continued...

080131_Exhibition: Aperiodic_Vertebrae (day4)

"Generator.x 2.0: beyond the screen..." an exhibition curated by Marius Watz at the DAM(Berlin) with works by Jared Tarbell (US), Commonwealth (US), Theverymany (FR/US), Leander Herzog (CH), Marius Watz (NO) and participants of the Generator.x 2.0 Workshop...

THEVERYMANY (Marc Fornes, Skylar Tibbits) / Aperiodic_Vertebrae
LOG_assembly_day_04: things are going smoother - one day to go before the opening...

080130_Exhibition: Aperiodic_Vertebrae

THEVERYMANY has been set up based on a continuum research on explicit and encoded protocols within design - the first implicit consequence of its core is to let traces; those traces - often under the format of simple text files - allow to exactly reproduce or alter the model, eventually share axioms... but it somehow also requires to admit and assume those traces, if so, one can learn from mistakes, errors and/or tolerances of previous stages or generation based on feed back...