SMART GEOMETRY
Workshop & Conference, New York, Jan 2007
SIAL Team:
Jane Burry
Rory Hyde
The Smart Geometry workshop and conference was held in New York from the 26th to the 29th of January 2007. It was an opportunity for around 100 professionals, educators and students from across the world to come together and share ideas on parametric and computational design through real project work. SIAL was represented by Jane Burry who was invited as an instructor, and Rory Hyde who attended as a participant. This page is a report on these few days.
Workshop
The workshop was structured as 3 days of assisted work on a particular project or problem brought to the workshop by the candidates. Bentley's Generative Components was used as a common software platform for the workshops. As it was still in the beta development stage, with little or no help documentation, being surrounded by others exploring similar problems was a great advantage in picking up this program. However because of this, much of the discussions focussed on the specifics of the software, as opposed issues of design, or the implications of working in this way. Each day concluded with a lecture from a local firm and a review of the project work produced in the workshops.
Selected projects from the workshop
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Conference
Architecture in a Parametric Age
The 3 day workshop was then followed by a full day conference at the Cooper Union. The work produced in the workshops was presented alongside presentations from each of the members of the Smart Geometry Group; Lars Hesselgren (KPF), Robert Aish (Bentley), J Parrish (ARUP Sport) and Hugh Whitehead (Foster and Partners). Presentations were also given by, Axel Killian (MIT), Rob Woodbury (Simon Fraser), Shane Burger (Grimshaw), Jalal El Ali (Buro Happold), Chris Williams (Bath University) and Jeroen Coenders (Arup), Gregg Pasquarelli (Shop) and Andrew Kudless (materialsystems.org).
Selected images from the conference
J Parrish, ARUP Sport
Project
Expanding Retreat House
As part of the workshop, participants were invited to bring a project, problem or idea to be explored throughout the 4 days with assistance from the tutors.
Rory Hyde took this opportunity to respond to some issues raised by a real project for a weekend house that was in design at BKK Architects. The site for the house is located in the North-East of Victoria, a landscape frequently plagued by bushfires and drought, which poses particular challenges for safety and maintainence.
A system of mechanical louvres was developed that in their closed position form a secondary weather and fire seal around the building, while in their open position fold up to form sun-shading for the windows. This system also interrogates the constructability issues of much contemporary digital architecture, by generating a complex formal outcome using only standard straight components.
Progression of expanding louvres from closed to open.
Animated GIF
Interviews
Robert Aish
Dr Robert Aish is Director of Research at Bentley Systems. He is a member of the Smart Geometry Group and has developed the Generative Components software, the common platform for the workshop.
Interview with Robert Aish - 14.55 mins, 3.4Mb
Andrew Kudless
Andrew Kudless is the founder of materialsystems.org, a design studio which explores the emergent relationships between architecture, engineering, biology, and computation. Andrew was one of the instructors at the workshop, and also presented his work at the conference.
Interview with Andrew Kudless - 7.25mins, 1.7Mb
These interviews were conducted by Rory Hyde for 'The Architects' program on Triple R.
Links
Additional Pages
Selected workshop images
Selected conference images
External Links
Smart Geometry Workshop, New York 2007
Smart Geometry Group
Design Science Archive of past workshops
Generative Components
GC User wiki
24.03.07
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