MAS CAAD ETHZ 2010-2011 · ITA(Institute of Technology in Architecture), Faculty of Architecture ETH Zurich

09.06.2011 / PHILIPPE RAHM

2011-06-17T12:29:55Z

09.06.2011, 16:00, Philippe Rahm @ HIT E 51

www.philipperahm.com

Constructed Atmospheres

Might not climate be a new architectural language, a language for architecture rethought with meteorology in mind? Might it be possible to imagine climatic phenomena such as convection, conduction or evaporation for example as new tools for architectural composition? Could vapour, heat or light become the new bricks of contemporary construction?

Philippe Rahm, born in 1967 studied at the Federal Polytechnic Schools of Lausanne and Zurich. He obtained his architectural degree in 1993. He works currently in Paris (France). In 2002, he was chosen to represent Switzerland at the 8th Architecture Biennale in Venice and was one of the 25 manifesto’s architects of the Aaron Betsky’s 2008 Architectural Venice Biennale. He is nominee in 2009 for the Ordos Prize in China and was in 2008 in the top ten ranking of the International Chernikov prize in Moscow. In 2007, he had a personal exhibition at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal. He has participated in a number of exhibitions worldwide (Archilab 2000, SF-MoMA 2001, CCA Kitakyushu 2004, Frac Centre, Orléans, Centre Pompidou, Beaubourg 2003-2006 and 2007, Manifesta 7, 2008, Louisiana museum, Denmark, 2009). Philippe Rahm was a resident at the Villa Medici in Rome (2000). He was Head-Master of Diploma Unit 13 at the AA School in London in 2005-2006, Visiting professor in Mendrisio Academy of Architecture in Switzerland in 2004 and 2005, at the ETH Lausanne in 2006 and 2007, guest professor at the Royal School of Architecture of Copenhaguen in 2009-2010. He is currently visiting lecturer in Princeton, USA. He is working on several private and public projects in France, Poland, England, Italy and Germany. He has lectured widely, including at Cooper Union NY, Harvard School of Design, UCLA and ETH Zurich.

Philippe Rahm’s lecture:

Click here to view the embedded video.

31.05.2011 / HEINRICH LÜBER

2011-06-17T12:27:49Z

31.05.2011, 16:00, Heinrich Lüber @ HPZ F

www.lueber.net

The World is a Museum

This stunningly photographed film captures the various works of Swiss artist Heinrich Lüber, for whom the world is a museum. Rather than set up his work—which usually involves his own body contorted into an unbelievable stance—in a gallery, he plays with the perception of public space, with onlookers becoming part of the art. Their slack-jawed gaze heightens the surreal nature of his installations, as we see him suspend himself off the side of buildings or hold an enormous bird in his mouth in a crowded subway station. The film not only captures the work and the onlookers, but also provides us with a behind-the-scenes look at the modelers and engineers who aid Lüber in developing contraptions that allow him to defy proportion, gravity and, in some cases, comfort. We follow Lüber through dozens of works, as he stretches the limitations of the body as well as those of our own amazement.

Heinrich Lüber’s lecture:

Click here to view the embedded video.

M7: MUNICH – STUTTGART WORKSHOPS

2011-05-29T15:20:09Z

For two days MAS CAAD class moved to Munich and Stuttgart for some intensive programm. BMW Museum with exhibition and scenography by ATELIER BRÜCKNER was visited. Afterwards MAS class had an opportunity of seeing The Persians – written by Aischylos and directed by Johan Simons. The play was held in old warehouses, neighbouring Munich’s refugee camp. It was followed by a meeting with the director of the play.

BMW Museum in Munich

The Persians, foto by Andrea Huber

Short lecture on persians, greeks and neighbours from Johan Simons.

The following day started with a breakfast at ATELIER BRÜCKNER in Stuttgart. Our host – Professor Uwe R. Brückner introduced the MAS class to the office and atelier’s working methods. The tour was followed by a lecture and workshops. Italo Calvino’s text from “Invisible Cities” was part of an exercise on taking positions in architecture. Students were also assigned a homework – that ‘s just so they didnt forget!

ATELIER BRÜCKNER

25.05.2011 / PIP GREASLEY

2011-06-17T12:26:11Z

25.05.2011, 16:00, Pip Greasley @ HIT E 51

Sonic Artist. De Montfort University Leicester UK.

‘Now play the building in 7/8′.

The shared language of harmony, pulse and rhythm has historically been a connect between music and architecture based on the notion that the blueprint as ‘score’ will generate a unique sound signature – an acoustic ident engineered from material and form. But because great architects like great composers will continue to create works that move us and spiritually engage us – buildings will continue to transcend functionality and draw us into pervasive world of their inner vocalizations.

‘Architecture is frozen music’ said Goethe. I’m not so sure. For me, architecture even in its passive state, is an experiential sensation that goes well beyond 3D, and whilst future scanarios will increasingly embrace more dynamic, interactive and transformable structures, certainly Goethe’s ‘frozen music’ becomes more a journey towards melt-down with the merging of sonics and architecture in a state of 4D fluidity.

The architect’s manipulation and transformation of voids and mass will dictate a new form of performative aesthetic driven by a hybrid of installation art, kinetics, dance and sound.

A substantial body of my work has inhabited this ambiguous state between environment and sound, between the real, the fictive and the virtual; between the traditional and synthetic, between generative and linear, and the music of improvisation, ambience, and electronics.

In the lecture we’ll look at the 5K Pursuit Opera, which pioneered the idea of a wired-up interactive environment – velodrome as sonic instrument – within which competing cyclists could generate a musical score. And Accelerato, which interrogates transitional structures by utilizing the lift shaft as synthesizer within which users can compose a score and audition by riding the lifts.

Pip Greasley’s lecture:

Click here to view the embedded video.

23.05.2011 / GERT SCHUBRING

2011-06-17T12:24:27Z

23.05.2011, 13:00, Gert Schubring @ HPZ F

Research on the History of Teaching and Learning Mathematics. Universities of Bielefeld and Rio de Janeiro.

Conviction by Means of Visualization, Not Logics: Graphical Representation of Complex Numbers as a Way to Accept Their Existence Within Mathematics.

Complex numbers were used in mathematical practices since the sixteenth century; yet, their acceptance as legitimate mathematical concepts occurred only during the nineteenth century. The eventual acceptance was due to their construction via graphical representations. What is revealing, moreover, is that this visual mode of conviction had been propagated not by famous mathematicians, but by persons marginal to the community.

Gert Schubring’s lecture:

Click here to view the embedded video.

16.05.2011 / UWE R. BRÜCKNER

2011-06-17T12:23:37Z

16.05.2011, 16:00, Uwe R. Brückner @ HIT E 51

www.atelier-brueckner.de

Scenography or the Art of Choreographed Spaces.

The most important aspect of scenographical design lies in the translation of content into spatial images that can be walked through, and more generally even, in the generation of staged spaces with narrative qualities. In the best of all possible cases, the space itself turns into a medium. It is characteristic for scenographical design to work with an integrative design approach which integrates the artistic potentials and means of different disciplines like architecture, interior design, set design, as well as installation and media art into a coherent composition in the sense of a “Gesamtkunstwerk”.

Prof. Uwe R. Brückner is founder and creative director of Atelier Brückner in Stuttgart. He will present a series of projects like the BMW Museum in Munich, the visitor center at CERN in Geneva or the pavilion for the world-largest energy company State Grid at the Expo Shanghai which took place last year. Furthermore he will also present students projects to illustrate that exciting and consistent scenographical design is not purely a question of large budgets.

Uwe R. Brückner’s lecture:

Click here to view the embedded video.

M6: PROTOTYPES: DEVELOPING CONCEPTS

2011-05-03T18:51:04Z

This short video is a compilation of the prototypes we produced in one week towards the final project, an installation that focus on the application of thin film electroluminescent foils combined with data gained through a multitude of Kinect Cameras. This project is developed by the 2010-2011 CAAD MAS class. The goal is to create and immersive environment as a combination of behavior, perception, material and space to engage the users with the piece and create an emotional spatial situation.

The video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

M6: EXPERIMENT: DIY EL SCREEN

2011-05-29T12:51:10Z

This first experiment aimed to understand how do an Electroluminescent display works. Electroluminescence is a direct conversion of electric energy to light, and it happens when a solid phosphor is subjected to an strong alternating electric field, typically 90VAC @ 500Hz.

This is how it works:

– The copper precipitates to form nanocrystals of copper sulfide. These enhance the strength of the electric field in the phosphor.
– The zinc sulfide and silver form a semiconductor matrix.
– When a positive field is applied, holes enter the matrix; when a negative field is applied, electrons enter the matrix.
– Light is produced when electrons and holes recombine on a silver atom in the matrix.

There are four basic components inside an Electroluminescent display:

1. Transparent, conductive electrode
2. Phosphor
3. Dielectric (Insulator)
4. Non-transparent, conductive electrode

Components diagram:

For more information about this process visit:
http://sites.google.com/site/elen4193/

And this is us, making some screens:

Placing the film for the screen

Applying the second dielectric layer

The last layer, silver

Waiting for it to dry

EL screens working

Step by step video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

M5: FINAL PROJECT

2011-05-24T20:48:46Z

The final task of this module was to develop an installation using the Kinect as an interaction medium. This project was mostly based on the knowledge obtained during the first tasks and each one of us explored our own interests or what we thought was the most interesting and with most potential ‘misuse’ of the ‘camera’. All of these projects were developed using Eclipse as a programming platform, also, some of the projects, like Set Me Free, used OOP.

Find students’ work here:

Agata Muszynska:

Animal Extended

Click here to view the embedded video.

Hideaki Takenaga:

Kinect XBox x Waterdrop Screen x Colour Motion

Click here to view the embedded video.

Jesper T. Christensen, Nikola Marincic:

Set Me Free, Sketching Autonomous Probabilistic Structures

Goal of this work is to liberate sketching from the constraints of projection into 2D space, with its static traces, and allow for an embodiment of the mind through gesturing. Using Markov chains to incorporate probabilistic structures, that change the conditions of the space and the properties of the objects drawn in it, allows the sketch to develop on its own, in autonomous – non deterministic way.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Jorge Orozco, Mihye An:

The Fountain in the Space

The Fountain in the Space is an interactive installation that detects objects and projects on them (augments them) differently according to their location in space.

The installation consist of multiple moving objects, a beamer, and a Kinect camera that feeds the data flow of the space (x, y, z coordinates) to a laptop. Using Eclipse as programing platform, the Kinect detects and sorts in real time the moving objects by similar depth area (blob detection). These blobs become masks for a series of videos. A pixel calibration is needed to obtain a one to one projection.

The initial state of the installation is a single video on the whole space. But as soon as the user moves an object, a different video appears on it. The more the object moves far from the wall, the more the video becomes clear and vivid. Finally, the installation gets back to the initial state when there is no interaction.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Magda Osinska:

Kinect DJ

Click here to view the embedded video.

20.04.2011 / STEPHEN GAGE

2011-05-03T18:35:18Z

20.04.2011, 13:00, Stephen Gage @ HIT E 51

Bartlett UCL, London

A-Functional Architecture.

I argue that the experience of architecture, the delight and wonder of finding oneself in beautiful places and spaces resides both in highly designed interactive spaces and events and in spaces from which close functionality has departed or in which close functionality was always transient. I describe the latter as a-functional spaces and places. The combination of transient functionality with a-functional spaces and places is a rich and challenging future for architecture. This paper is an attempt to suggest representations of the way that observers make sense of a-functional spaces and places and representations and models of the way that architects might design them.

The suggested model is not based on an understanding of any one particular space and place. It is derived from Gordon Pask’s description of his understanding of an aesthetically potent environment. The resulting type of architecture is, in principle, similar to both the highly designed architecture and vernacular architecture of the past.

An extreme example is that given by Evans in his description of the architecture of the 15th and 16th century palazzo, where corridors and spaces off them hardly existed, where spaces where all “ en suite” and activity was supported by furniture. The incorporation of “slack” in the design of these spaces and places is critical to their long-term success.

Stephen Gage’s lecture:

Click here to view the embedded video.