RE-invention

The subject of re-inventing brings a lot of words that can explain this as the innovation of something. This is something that came as a natrural path of development in the human world. The re-invention in our day is something that comes with a obvious concept, Sustentability. We are agree that if the re-invention of materiality had to be, in some way part of the solution in this new era.

In somehow the re-inventing of a material became more in re-conscience nature. Sustentability in materials in our idea is part of the brands that are coming out, Intelligents material, synthetic material. Now we are looking for materials that are more concience about the balace of create new from others waste like Quarella that has a large range of stone products that are suitable for counters, bench tops and tiling applications. And their products are made from recycled marble. quartz or limestone which is mixed with a polyester resin, creating a hard wearing natural looking product. The water used in their manufacturing processes is filtered and recycled. Other way is the combinations from recycle and mix other for create a suplement, like the Husque which is a range of products are the result of melding recycled macadamia nut shells with a polymer to form a dense mould able material similar to Bakelite from the 1930s. Like this examples we what to show that part of the re-inventing materility is also be in the path of the sustentability of the world.

In other form, the subject re-inventing materiality is act with that. As we were talking of sustentable materials, desing is other way to innovate in materiality. Part of the constant develop of new materials is the requirements of the architecs of today. The creativity is the key for ideas that can change the use of some particular material or create the need for it, like desings for shelters that in some point re-think the ideas and the concepts to bring with new ones.

To conclude this, we think that is important the way to re-innovate something. In our days the balance with nature and human develop is not equal. That’s why we talk about the re-invention as a re-thinking of materials.

(re)Inventing Materiality: The Developers of Sustainable Materials

As sustainable ideas flood the design field to attempt to quell the effects of global warming it is sometimes hard to decipher all of the information and the directions that the ideas might be going in. Sustainable Material development is one of these many emerging fields, but we consider it to be extremely important, and decided to research it with respect to the question "what is (re)inventing material?".

As previously mentioned, sustainable material development is part of the explosion of "green" ideas that have emerged in the last 30 years (though exponentially greater in the last 10). A simple search engine search for sustainable material development produces countless hits ranging from sustainably grown bamboo to natural yarns which might be able to be used as structural elements. It is estimated that Architecture causes almost half of CO2 emissions in the USA alone and the development of these materials is crucial in lowering our impact on the world. We looked thoroughly through these and emerged with a plethora of information, the best of which we have highlighted below.


The National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) in Japan is an amazing institute, dedicated to the science behind sustainable materials and their possible uses. Not only does the site list it's research, discoveries, and patents, but it takes an in depth look at each one of them with diagrams and full explanations. One of the most important aspects of this institute is it's multidisciplinary approach, not a singular look at materials, but a look at how they can be used in many different fields. Another Japanese institute of higher learning is the International Research Center for Sustainable Materials at the University of Tokyo

Half way around the world, but developing the same types of ideas, is the University of Toronto Department of Material Science ad Engineering. The research pages of their website contain multiple pdf's of their research but also broad overviews of things such as what nano-technologies are and what their sustainable significance is for the world.

Overall the idea of Sustainable Material invention is similar to any other process of invention: a combination of innovation of existing materials and a need for something new to solve a problem. The ideas and products highlighted in these pages are the technologies that need to be used to reduce our impact on the planet and ensure the survival of the world as it is today.


Other Websites of Note:
Arc-Architects
Timber Building in Australia
The Association for the Advancement of Sustainable Materials In Construction (AASMIC)

Interactive Buildings…Exploration of Smart Material

Smart Materials are materials that respond to environmental stimuli, such as temperature, light condition, moisture, pH, or electric and magnetic fields with particular changes in some variables. For that reason they are often also called responsive materials. Depending on changes in some external conditions, "smart" materials change their properties (mechanical, electrical, appearance), their structure or composition, or their functions. These materials can be used directly to make smart systems or structures or embedded in structures whose inherent properties can be changed to meet high value-added performance needs.
Application of responsive material in Architecture definitely makes it more responsive, interacting, interesting and adaptable.

L'Institut du Monde Arabe
Architect: Jean Nouvel
Paris, France
In this Islamic Cultural building, Jean Nouvel developed an interacting façade system that responses to the outdoor light condition thus enabling the building interior to get adapted to the surrounding. Behind metal sunscreen with active sun control diaphragms .The huge south-facing garden courtyard wall has been described as a 60m 'Venetian blind'. It is an ocular device of striking originality, made up of numerous and variously dimensioned metallic diaphragms set in pierced metal borders. These diaphragms operate like a camera lens to control the sun's penetration into the interior of the building. The changes to the irises are dramatically revealed internally while externally a subtle density pattern can be observed. Thus the whole effect is like a pierced screen, giving significance and an audacious brilliance to this remarkable building."

Federation Square
Lab architecture studioMelbourne, Australia
The architects developed a grid system that allowed the building facades to be treated in a continuously changing and dynamic way, while simultaneously maintaining an overall site coherence, instead of being traditionally composed as a regularly repeating flat surface. Three cladding materials; zinc (perforated and solid), sandstone and glass have been used within a modular basis established by the triangular pinwheel grid. This fractally incremental system uses a single triangle, the proportions of which are maintained across the single tile shape, the panel composed of five tiles, and the mega-panel construction module composed of five panels. The unique quality of the pinwheel grid lies in the possibility of surface figuration and framing shapes to be independent from the grid's smallest component unit, the triangle.

Links:

http://www.arcspace.com/architects/Lab/federation_square.htm

http://www.interactivearchitecture.org/

Media:new materiality?

Materiality in architecture is the concept of, or applied use of various materials or substances in the medium of building

In the age of interaction and media, new materials keep appearing in the field of architecture. But could we say that interaction or media themselves represent the new materiality of architecture?

Development in display technology and building materials are leading to new forms of hybrid architecture that breakaway from existing conceptions of surface, structure, lighting and moving imagery. Therefore media facades are starting to integrate in an architectural and urban context.
The first example of interactive architecture with media facades was the building of Galleria West Shopping Center in Seoul, Korea, designed in 2002 by UN Studio architects in assosiation with Arup Lighting. The building has become the latest, intriguing style icon in the city and a world first for electronic facade technology.



Together UN Studio and Arup Lighting, have created a new facade that projects a lively, ever changing surface, with a total of 4330 glass discs mounted on the existing concrete skin of the building, and transformed the Galleria into a continuously changing, light-reactive and computer-programmable radiant surface.
The chameleon-like facade reflects the details of natural light on opalescent, dichroic glass discs during the day. At night the discs are individually backlit and controlled by a computer program to create brilliant and unique color schemes all aver the building-each disc acting like a big pixel on a giant screen.
4330 discs, each 850mm in diameter, make up the entire facade of the mall. They can be programmed to show outstanding displays in every imaginable shade. At other times the building can even become a giant billboard, its pixels feeding text or images around the entire external structure.
Although the technology is not new, its application on such a big scale makes it exceptional. The fact that it can interface with video and film makes it a unique hybrid project.

Advertising billboards, interactive facades and new technologies create a new field in architectural design and materiality and in a way (re-)define architecture and urban space as we know it. The integration of media facades with architectural structures produces a new type of architecture-media architecture-which informs not only the building but also urban space.

Reinventing/dematerialising materiality

As digital space is redefining almost all the common terms of physical space, materiality seems to be a top priority to be updated with this new order. Multiple tendencies actualize this new wave of reinventing materiality. We are dealing with a revolution of different methods and totally new tools to actually manipulate and fabricate the traditional materials. At the same time, a huge amount of the current research is being held on how a material is transformed to a media that carries information, dematerializing in this way materiality.

In the first category, materials such as concrete and glass are treated in such a way that we eventually "question" their rules and disciplines. We are able to interfere in the material and make it contradicting itself while the principle of its origin remains the same. Unexpected characteristics to traditional materials introduce stimulating spatial mutations. Francis Bacon comments on this inevitable replacement that enriches the experience of an action. In one of his paintings he represents a foot opening a door (instead of a hand that would make sense to everyone). He is convinced that if you represent a particular action by replacing a common feature of the action with an unexpected one, the experience of this action becomes even more powerful.

- bending concrete -

In this sense, concrete can be trasparent, flexible and lighter in weight and can be used for ephemeral architectural structures, features that were not familiar with concrete in the past.

Of course it is not only a matter of a strong stimulus. The idea of "hypermaterial" that puts together the advantages of multiple materials and examines the behavior of composite materials in order to create improved versions and promote innovation is equally popular among the researchers. The University of Michigan has developed a new type of fiber-reinforced bendable concrete whch looks like regular concrete, but is 500 times more resistand to cracking and 40% lighter in weight. Tiny fibers that comprise about 2% of the mixture's volume partly account for its performance. Traditional concrete has many problems including the lack of durability and sustainability, failure under severe loading, and the resulting expenses of repair. U-M's Victor Li beleives that Engineering Cement Composites (ECC) addresses most of those problems. It looks exactly like regular concrete, but under excessive strain, the specially coated network of fibers veining the cement is allowed to slide within the cement, thus avoiding the inflexibility that causes brittleness and breakage, Li said.

Another example is the Concrete Canvas Shelter (CCS) is a shelter that conists of a cement-impregnated fabric (Concrete Cloth) bonded to the outer surface of an inflated plastic inner structure. The CCS is a rapidly deployable hardened shelter that requires only water and air for erection. It can be deployed by two people without any training in approximately thirty minutes and is ready to use in twelve hours.

The latest research on artificial intelligence and robotics is the frame of the second category, a process that tends to dematerialize materials and almost introducing to them "software" that interacts with the environment in order to gather and give back information. An almost sculptural form that invites people to touch it and sweats as a response making a sharp comment on the "wet" domain of nature and the "dry" domain of electronics. When multimedia is built in the material's own fabric, the material itself is more like a complicated system, an "installation" that is more powerful than the material itself. That affects the haptic and optic experience of space redefines human perception.

"Light-Emitting Roof Tiles" is an example that allows the intergration of additional functions within roof tiles are intergrated light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and designed to display text, pictures, and other graphical content in multiple colors. Information may also be animated, such as with an illuminated news trailer.

- bubble sccreen strip -

Another example is the Bubble Screen is a dot-matrix display that uses air bubbles as pixels. Developed by Eval Burstein at Beta Tank, this display can show images, text, and patterns and may be used as a low-resolution screen. The project required two years of development during which experts in the fields of automation, pneumatics, and academia were employed to solve a fluid dynamics challenge. The Bubble Screen is the intended to reveal alternative methods of information display and consumption and is exemplary of Beta Tank's ongoing ambient information-design project. [Contact: Beta Tank, London, UK]

All the examples are from the site of the book Trasmaterials:

http://www.transstudio.com/tm/

http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2000/11/40108

http://www.nettime.org/Lists-Archives/nettime-l-0304/msg00011.html

FOA's material- Material FOA

The architectural education of FOA took place in the 80’s, in a time that the main research aimed to peripheral fields of architecture such as sociology, politics and economy. FOA recognized that this kind of analysis was not effective enough in a context that was gradually becoming more and more complicated and fluxionary. So, they gave more emphasis to the construction, the materiality and organization of their projects. In that way their proposition for the way of analyzing and composing architecture focuses on the geometry, the construction, the organization, the materiality, the technique, the tectonics and the technology.
FOA’s main theoretical aspect aims directly at the reality. Their “design ethics” propose that architecture concerns the need and not the excess. With a dose of irony, they call their way of thinking “theory of excuse”, because they tend to follow a design path only if they find a pragmatical point to start, such as the function, the structure or the circulation. And though their architectural production consists of parametrical and digital procedures materiality and construction are very active from the very beginning of the design.
Very important is the definition that FOA give for the notion of material. Material is considered anything that can be used to the production of architecture. Everything used for that production has the properties of material that is coherence, density, weight. As an example they mention the function of a project. They try to approach it as something that has natural and geometrical properties such as weight, friction, hardness, resistance and texture. In that way function can be considered as just another construction material. Their target is to surpass the social and linguistic meaning of function and to extract its materiality. In this way the notion of material is very widen- as flows, function, natural and artificial materials, functions, even representations compose new complex materials that can perform many different tasks at the same time.
And this is what is considered to be the edge of the architectural evolution in the architecture of FOA. As they say the construction of even more sophisticated and cohesive materials is what they think they should do as architects in the non-standard way of designing.

The unconventional materiality

Along with the advances in the methods of construction and the discovery of materials employed for buildings, throughout history materiality has been employed not only to realize the building itself, but also as part of a conceptual idea or to make representational statements. The use of concrete was nothing new for the ancient Romans, but the technological innovation of the use of Pozzalana, a retardant additive, represented a break through which made possible the proliferation of western ideals throughout the Roman Empire. In the same way, the industrial revolution brought technologies which allowed for a different use of traditional materials such as glass and steel. The new era of modernity brought rapid social changes that were expressed in the buildings of the time through materiality. Today the new materiality seems to depend on scientific and technological advances which could bring new light to the building industry, but this is not quit tangible yet. The demand for rapid construction and budget limitations seem to restrict to a minimum the experimentation necessary to make considerable advancements in the field. It appears that inventiveness and creativity is a more suitable tool in order to achieve an innovative and expressive materiality.

Such is the case of Rem Koolhaas who in the turn of the new millennium has largely depended in the use materials to reinterpret program. In tow different project he has been able to accomplish this under different constrains and requirements. On one hand the Prada stores in New York and Los Angeles have given a new meaning to the shopping experience engaging the shopper with the product but manly with process of buying. for instance, the use of technology here comes to hand by giving control to the customer. The doors of the dressing room are made of Privalite glass that the customer can switch from transparent to translucent for control the privacy. Furthermore, a new material was specifically developed for Prada. It is a half matter/half air sponge like plastic which provides a porous artificial background for the merchandise and further expands Prada’s physical identity in the store. But here budget was not a problem allowing for experimentation at the level of introducing technology and giving some room for the introduction of unconventional material.

On the other hand, the Student Center of the IIT in Chicago addressed materiality in a similar way in a much larger building with only a fraction of the per-square-foot budget of the Prada stores. The unconventional use of material allows Koolhaas to recreate the urban experience of the campus inside the building. For example, the use of unfinished sheetrock as ceiling gives a different dynamic to the ceiling still providing the sensation of a monolithic and unifying element complemented by the sealed concrete floor. Also the use of Panelite panels in the restrooms and a portion of the exterior façade play with the ambiguity of privacy and the duality of inside and outside. The use of graphics also plays an essential role communicating the intentions and the distribution of spaces.

In general, Koolhaas’ non conventional use of material and the introduction of technology and graphic design help to minimize the dependency to the introduction or employment of new and revolutionary materials which are hardly available and would drive the cost of a building to the sky.

References:

http://www.arcspace.com/architects/koolhaas/prada/prada.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pozzolana
http://www.galinsky.com/buildings/prada/index.htm
http://www.arcspace.com/architects/koolhaas/McCormick-Tribune/
http://panelite.us/

Bamboo

“While bamboo is a very traditional Japanese building material, it can also be considered a digital material that is composed of many independent, separable, and flexible elements. Unlike concrete, which is all fused together in one inseparable and inflexible lump, bamboo has a quality of imper-manence.”

Kengo Kuma

The choice of the Bamboo both as structural element and not structural it had the purpose to rediscover the linear essence of the Asian architecture.
The theme of the wall suggested by the nearby monument and the use of bamboo as a primary construction material informed the design stage. The Great Wall has always symbolized China’s desire to avoid contact with other cultures, the attempt to preserve a vast national heritage by closing off its territory. The fragility of the bamboo canes that are used to build Kengo Kuma’s house are in contrast to the solidity of the Wall’s stone and bricks. An immediate contrast is created with the hermetic essence of the world’s largest monument. Absolute separation is replaced by a wall that lets wind and light filter in. The density of the canes defines the different filtering thresholds of natural phenomena. The wall remains a boundary, a place of contact between two different systems and a place of exchange.
The bamboo becomes therefore the skin of the manufactured article and it covers the carrying structure of it type traditional.
This skin, strongly characterized by a vertical texture, it dresses again attics and pillars.
The bamboo auctions are bound to form constructive elements that, in correspondence of the openings, they become flowing elements brise-soleil.
The basic form of the bamboo plant consists of a branch system of segmented axes. The canes of bamboo consists of nodes, segments and diaphragms. The average length of the canes is amount 8-15 with a diameter of 5-12 cm and a wall thickness of 10 mm.
The nodes, as a form of reinforcemed, increase the resistance of the cane against splitting and buckling.
After about the first three years of growth the canes start to lignifying and silicate slowly. It is only then that they become useful as structural timber. Before that period, between 6-12 months, they are extremely flexible, and can be used in order to generate curve shapes, morphologically complex.
The bamboo is a material that modifies its mechanical ownerships according to the age, of the date of harvest, of the degree of damp, of the climate and of the ground.
The reeds are naturally composed by linear forms connected through of the joints.
In proximity of these joints it is found a hard membrane that serves for stiffening.
The material, of local origin, has been worked in Japan because of the technical incapability, in China, to dig the inside of the reeds.
The employed system is an ancient Japanese method everything in use now and consists in an express flame heating of the side surface of the reed (270°) up to provoke the issue of one it resins that naturally polymerizes, forming a auto protect film.
Then, the bamboo has covered with an oil, as suggested by the Chinese local carpenters.
After the removal of the inside marrow he is passed to the realization of a structural pillar inserting to the inside of the reed an auction in steel for the whole length of the stem.
Then proceeds to the throw of cement.
In practice the bamboo reed has been used as form to lose.
One of the most ecological materials to disposition of all the architects, not only for the rapid growth, that guarantees boundless reserves, but also, above all, for the unbelievable abilities to oppose the atmospheric pollution: a bamboo plantation is in fact able you capture up to 17 t of carbon, for hectare, to the year , ones it ciphers 40 times superior in comparison to a normal wood.

http://www.metropolismag.com/html/content_0100/tok.htm

http://bambus.rwth-aachen.de/eng/fr_referate.html

http://www.materiamagazine.com/materia/progettoScheda?id=0889777103

Constructive Materialism

Furniture constructed with plastic made from recycled, pirated CDs. Translucent, yet insulated, skylights made from featherweight gel. These are some examples of how the world around us is changing with the influx of the new made with the old. The best part of it all is that half the time we re not even aware of it.

Technological advancement and productivity has reached high levels of both quality and quantity. Aerogel, memory foam, and whatnot were developed by NASA and the military in the 1960s and are just hitting the market now. The materials industry is a moving target. That it's trendy to look at new materials now means that there is a lot of creativity, and the creative spirit is fueling advances in material science.

The remarkable installation “Curious Implantation” by Nicole Knauer exibited in October 2005 in the KunstRaum Goethestrasse in Linz, Austria is an example of how to reinvent. In her latest installation “Curious Implantation” she has designed an artistic landscape made of synthetic cable ties that she has combined in a quite personal way to create manually a 50 qm sculpture.
The material used in the installation can be regarded as a metaphor for the sphere between reality and absurdity. Her aim was to use synthetic waste products in a different way than its original intend.

Curious Implantation

Architectural Domain has its share of turbulence. Some very eco friendly and smart materials have also entered the profession. While definitions as to smartness abound, the most generalized one is that smart materials are transformative. The transformation may be within the material itself, as in one of its properties or its physical state, or the material could be the vehicle to transform other things, such as energy forms or the surrounding environment.

The most exemplary eco friendly material which is fast catching up is the miracle polymer or Ethylene tetra flouro ethylene.

(http://www2.dupont.com/Products/en_RU/Tefzel_ETFE_fluoropolymer_resin_en.html)This wonder polymer, a transparent plastic related to Teflon, is replacing glass and plastic in some of the most innovative buildings being designed and constructed today. Its selling points? Compared to glass, it’s 1% the weight, transmits more light, is a better insulator, and costs 24% to 70% less to install. It’s also resilient (able to bear 400 times its own weight, with an estimated 50-year life-span), self-cleaning (dirt slides off its nonstick surface), and recyclable.

Earthpark, 2010

Earthpark : The Earthpark project in Pella, Iowa, is an American-style Eden Project from the original Eden designers, Grimshaw Architects. ETFE will be used for the roof of this massive indoor rainforest biodome, which will house three Amazonian climates on 70 acres. ETFE’s natural insulating properties considerably enhance the project’s green factor, too.

Eden Project, 2001

Eden project : These enormous geodesic-domed greenhouses, part of an environmental complex in Cornwall, England, were originally supposed to be made of glass. But ETFE gave designers Grimshaw Architects a flexible, lightweight, and durable alternative. The result? An environment capable of housing plant species from around the world in tropical rainforest- and Mediterranean-style climates. At 323,000 square feet Eden was, at the time, the world’s largest ETFE project and remains a defining image of ETFE architecture.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/eden3.htm

Nanotechnology may Speed up internet.

As we move into the future materialism is going to effect the way we perceive architecture and the world. Scientists want to make programmable material the next big evolution. How would it feel to change a material by giving it parameters as per your liking. Nanotechnology although not new to the world also has its fair chance of making it big. The high speed internet transmission are one of the most promising projects which could benefit from nanotechnology (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/08/0819_040819_nanointernet.html ). Researchers have devised a new material which is a polmer of carbon. It could create optical switches to replace electronic network switches leading to an internet completely based on light.

All in all it’s a never ending process of evolution and change, but how we manage it without hampering our already degraded environment should be our primary concern.

skin deep materiality

With emergent digital technologies becoming more prevalent in contemporary architecture, few parts of a building remain untouched in some way. Often, the facade and skin treatment of a building are the most obvious expression of new processes and technologies. The majority of advanced facade systems rely heavily upon complex computing and modeling systems that are now utilised by architects and engineers.

LAB’s Federation Square, Melbourne 2002, clearly demonstrates its use of highly advanced systems of design and documentation. One of LAB’s directors, Donald Bates, is a graduate of the AA and spent many years working for Daniel Libeskind, whose influence is clearly evident in the internal spaces of the building.
It’s exterior is clad in a unique system of triangular zinc, glass and sandstone tiles, arranged in a highly complex manner based around a pin-wheel fractal. This system allows the facade to move and adjust freely around obstructions and service areas. As additional tile panels are added, the new sections blend seamlessly into the facade, maintaining an intrinsic coherence through its fractal expression.

The Seattle Public Library, OMA 2004, uses it’s angular facade to express the internal program of the building creating a stunning visual icon for the aging library. The Glass facade is pushed, cut and re-located as it wraps around the floating floors within. The detailed expression of the facade is quite simple, a repeating glass diamond framed in metal, but it’s transparency reveals its true genius.
In order to create such a demanding shape, highly technical computer modeling and testing systems were utilised in order maximise the efficiency of the structure. ARUP, the buildings engineers, ensured that structural elements were only placed exactly where needed using advanced computer analysis packages. The evolution of OMA’s work is quite obvious in their CCTV building in Beijing, currently under construction.

When it comes to advancing the materiality of a building, few do it consistently as well as Herzog & de Meuron. Many of their projects demonstrate a new form of expression in its materiality; the translucent plastic façade of the Laban Dance Centre (London, 2003), the inflated ETFE bubbles of the Allianz Arena (Munich, 2005), and the double glazed bulging diamonds of Prada Tokyo (2003). Their most advanced expression of materiality is, however, in the currently under-construction Beijing Olympic Stadium (2008, we hope). In collaboration with Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, HdeM have created a birds nest of steel that wraps over itself providing the structural system and external skin of the stadium. The final result would never have been possible without the close collaboration between architect, artist and engineer, in additional to the utilisation of high level computer modelling software.

As more architects embrace digital technologies new possibilities in material expression are created. The adaptation of existing technologies, invention of new materials and the creation of complex system have created an environment for architectural materiality to be re-born.

(re)inventing materiality - immaterial materiality

The meaning of a term material, according to its etymological origins, was inextricably related to its physicality, same as it is with materiality. Recent studies on cyberspace, “electronic nirvana over data lines of global networks” and technological progress lead to redefinition of “materiality”, changing the understanding of materials as physical substances into “immaterial materials”, in a virtual realm. Nowadays materials can be perceived as virtual.

There appears a dichotomy between the virtual and the material world. Despite the increasing to conversion of atoms into bits, as Nicholas Negroponte points out in Being Digital, we still need atoms interact with the bits. If Being Digital is a state of being hooked to the network with one's point of view flying through empty space, then it is Being Material that makes that connection a reality.

What follows is a question how different is embodiment in the virtual realm from the embodiment in the material realm. Merleau Ponty in his exploration in Phenomenology of Perception comes to the conclusion that the mind and body are intricately intertwined in the project of being in the world. Our vision is perspectival, our body parts determining what perspective we will obtain of the object that is the focus of our attention. . Body without consciousness is dead matter and consciousness without the body has no way to materialize itself. Thus, subjectivity is always embodied in the lived world.

However we can go in our considerations one step futher.

What determines the physicality of materials is its sensual measurment possibility, like for emample visual appearance or touch.

Nowadays technology gradually tend to invent materials, where one of it’s sensual physical characteristics is reduced, like transparentness ( transparent concrete), shapelessness, interactivity a.s.o. Integrating some of those characteristics would create materials, which are still in some way physical, but on a level of perception became immaterial. Their physical structure is fine enough to make them be perceived as invisible. Nanotechnologies enable working on the smallest possible structures, what created a wide spectrum of new possibilities. Understanding material as a structure consisting of milliards cooperating atoms and opportunities of designing them can let us omit thresholds of human perception in the sphere of feeling materiality. For instance there are enormous undiscovered possibilities while working with substances others than solids, like liquids or gases. Particularly among gases, their existance understood in a physical way, is rarely noticed- human senses does not register their physical features. Therefore repartitioning them main functions like dividing, creating barriers, isolating a.s.o. creates a huge potential for developement and evaluation of science or architecture. Ever since, there was a desire to invent materials that could be visible and invisible in the same time, or such that you can go through them. In consequence the boundaries between material and virtual realm slowly start to blur. Somewhere between reality in virtuality atoms and bites could overlap each other, physical substances could be perceived as virtual and virtual – materialized.

references

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Material_(disambiguation)

http://www.scholars.nus.edu.sg/post/poldiscourse/odin/odin1.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Negroponte

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Merleau-Ponty

http://www.panalytical.com/index.cfm?pid=533

http://optics.org/cws/article/research/19184

http://archives.obs-us.com/obs/english/books/nn/bdcont.htm

http://books.google.pl/books?id=tOCZPO6EFQAC&dq=phenomenology+of+perception&pg=PP1&ots=GdgkpJIi4v&sig=izmjo0n_1W1bGyEr8fI7-Z1DIEU&prev=http://www.google.pl/search%3Fhl%3Dpl%26q%3DPhenomenology%2Bof%2BPerception%26btnG%3DSzukaj%26lr%3D&sa=X&oi=print&ct=title&cad=one-book-with-thumbnail

Reinventing Materiality in Augmented Modular Modeling System

Image shows the internal hardware and a full assembled Glume Module

Glume explores a unique area of augmented building materials by combining a discrete internal structure with a soft and organic material quality to relax the rigidity of structure and form in previous tangible building block approaches.

Glume is envisioned as a tool for constructing and manipulating models, visualizations and simulations of organically based three dimensional data sets.
The Glume system consists of soft and translucent augmented modules, which communicate capacitively to their neighbors to determine a network topology and are responsive to human touch.
An individual Glume module consists of six silicone bulbs connected to a central ‘nucleus’ containing a custom PCB and a 3.8v 1.5mAh lithium polymer battery. The silicone skin of each bulb has been cast in Smooth-On® Sorta-Clear 40, a translucent silicone rubber. The hollow castings were made from molds modeled in Autocad and then ‘printed’ using a 3D starch printer. The bulbs are embedded with Softee® Protein Styling Hairgel chosen for its optical clarity and conductive characteristics. The combination of the thin silicone shell and the embedded gel provides the tactile effect that each bulb will retain the shape as sculpted in place by the user.
Glume occupies a unique space among digitally augmented building materials.Its a tangible 3D modeling and visualization medium, based on translucent soft silicone modules, which provides display and data manipulation capabilities by combining an internal digitally discrete structure with soft material affordances.

Monika Szawioła, Akriti Sood, Michał Piasecki

Rejecting Materiality [compounding Virtuality with Artificiality: VACH proposal]

The definition of what senses are, due to the differing understandings of what a sense is, can not be well defined. Nevertheless, can be said that a sense is a faculty to by which out-side stimuli are perceived. This is the nervous system codifying all the information perceived by the so-called senses in electrical-chemical impulses and sends this electrical-chemical information to the brain, which decodifies this information through a process called transduction. In this moment our consciousness —and the whole body — just believes in what the brain is decoding, if there is mixed or missing information (Mental disorder, drugs, etc) our consciousness just understands it as correct and keeps going on. Only in extreme situations the brain decides to shutdown the system and then becomes a faint. Taking advantage of this consciousness-confidence on brain’s decodings is possible to hack the perception bringing up on-will real illusions.

For instance, Let’s take the so-called sense of the sight for this proposal. In order to have information about the depth and of course the location of objects in the surrounding space, sight is a compound of two images which are overlapped by the brain, which in turn gives to our perception just a constructed image with depth information. So what is there and what is not, is more about what the brain decodes as reality than the reality in it-self.

Now, let’s take three interesting matters into this idea of hacking the perception to develop the proposal which in fact is a compound of ideas. First let’s take the example of the immaterial museum developed by AMID, please go to the link or check the Verb Natures Boogazine of ACTAR, second the Materialization of Virtual reality and at last but not a least the Physical materialization of artificial environments.

...:::Virtual Materialization:::...

Virtual Reality is getting more real than ever. It’s not a thing of the future, or only available at a few laboratories. In the digital architecture world, virtual reality is pushing the boundaries of what is space and how we perceive it. Through simulation and immersion, we can feel a sense of actually being within a virtually constructed space.

Videogames are a good example in which we can actually feel for a moment that we are in a specific space, be it a sports stadium or through the streets of the archifamous San Andreas (Grand Theft Auto). In a way, we feel immersed.

One of the most powerful advantages of this is the possibility of not having to construct physically a building, for as long as it is available in a virtual environment, and as long as people can interact with it, the experience is achieved, at least partially. Architecture is moving towards this kind of practice made possible by digital technologies. Nowadays we can explore space and our relation to it without any physical or economic constraints, as long as we have the means to do it.

Virtual reality is changing the ways with which we approach the design and building processes. For example, Arup Acoustics, a company that offers acoustic consulting services since 1980, has deviced the SoundLab. It’s a small room where one can experience the acoustic characteristics of any space, built or unbuilt. With the SoundLab we can have a 3D auralitazion of a space, the equivalent of a 3D visual rendering. The impact of this is seen clearly in the way in which clients and designers now can incorporate these acoustical considerations in the early stages of the process. It reinforces the need for particular shape or material, providing the designer more freedom to experiment with complex geometries and materials. It takes the virtual reality to the next level, it’s the making real of the virtual.

...:::Artificial Materialization (also media interaction):::...

Virtual environments redefine the traditional conception of space references, working with a self referential and elusive presence defined by media interaction.

The interface of complex systems in digital architecture can be explained at three levels: ambiance, story and metaphor.

Ambiance is achieved in an artificial black volume, a non existing space, an artificial organism with a controlled climatic stage. It provides the user with sophisticated communication tools to have a fluid experience and includes the design of navigation systems to facilitate orientation, visual, tactile and auditory sensors, gps, radio antennas, microphones, etc.

The story is usually based on models of perceptions, cognition and behavior of human experience. This structured experience provides the user with the capacity to shape their experiences and spaces in a multi modal interactive environment (touch, movement, sound, light, etc).

Metaphor is the structure of the experiential journey. The metaphoric and conceptual foundation for the creation of virtual environments is usually based on the relationship man-physical object environment. The methodology of design interface using virtual symbolic images usually represents recognizable functional, representative and symbolic environments.

The virtual systems of creating artificial ambiances require a deep understanding of the invisible architectural experiences available to be constructed in the realm of fantasy. The creation of unpredictable impermanent architecture using digital technology reformulates the complex systems of perception to be explored in human experience.

..:::Proposal:::...

Imagine that when the user goes into the building —which can no longer be called building, let’s call it the Virtual-Artificial-Computer Hybrid. VACH from now on— The user gets a pair of glasses and a patch connected to the VACH,—the immaterial building project only proposes the patch connection— so the VACH and the user are connected interchanging information of location, temperature, heartbeats, what is the user watching, the height of the user, who is near the user, mini-GPS, etc. ,—much more further will be the implant of a micro-chip directly to the brain and connect this brain with the city not just with a single VACH—

Now, coordinated by the VACH the user receives on one eye the actual artificial environment while the other eye receives the virtual reality; this will become in a compound image of a real-virtual, artificial-hypernatural, reality. So the VACH will be allowed to give extra information of the reality, and also the artificial environment will be allowed to be incomplete—in a way— because the VACH will found the way to complete the perception-reality of the user using a combination of the real and the un-real. The boundaries between the real and the virtual will be so blured that the (re)materialization of the architecture will be a reject of the materializacion to acomplish a compound between the Virtuality with the Reality. Finally the VACH will ask the user..."(to) show you the world in my eyes"

[GO TO:Maite Bravo blog]
[GO TO:Javier Raya blog]
[GO TO:Luis Odiaga blog]

New materials/New technologies

Collage of mergent materials

On the verge of an environmental catastrophe, we are struggling to find ways to alter what we have caused by our habits. The impact caused by an uncountable number of acts made by the working habits of our profession, tend to directly deteriorate the environment, this occurring either due to the direct application of conventional materials or to indirect use in the production or transportation of these materials. In direct response to this issues, a great range of professionals have turned their eyes towards construction and architecture, in order to apply numerous inventions and the latest technologies right in the design phase, so their appliance can be directly reflected in the final product without having to be more expensive or more complicated than traditional materials.

Reciprocally, architects and designers find themselves with the eager need to look for new materials and appliances to solve the complexity of their designs which become the result of the use of new tools, and new needs, that conventional materials, can not, or will not solve in a satisfactory way, in hand with the appliance of new technologies to bring them alive. In the other hand, economic, environmental and social costs make this search more urgent and pressing to us.

Materials tend to evolve in all sorts of ways, basically, they deal with almost any imaginable way with designs, and they can be classified if this is possible in the next way:

-Materials which come from recycled materials
-Materials which come from natural renewable materials
-Materials which replace conventional materials
-Materials applied from other uses to construction
-Materials which interact with the user/environment/external influences
-Energy saving/Energy producing/Energy efficient materials
-Intelligent Materials

In the past century, architects have been witnesses to the changes that are happening in the world, mainly in matters of culture, globalization and technology. Sustainability is a big word nowadays and people from different professions are joining together on a common modus operandi to find a system of living that guarantees that the present society does not use more resources than it needs in order to not jeopardize the resources of the future generation.

If Auguste Perret was considered a pioneer in using concrete for architectural structures in the late 1800’s, maybe an architect using nanotechnology for building skins today will be considered a genius in the future.
The technological developments of recent decades are having a fundamental effect on the conditions for the production of architecture. They influence the way in which architecture is conceived and implemented.

Already known materials can be used in many different ways too if the digital era is incorporated to them.

New ways of using materials have opened a whole new world of possibilities. There is an example with the brick used by Gramazio & Kohler, in their projects, they combine an old and very well known material with a new designed method called "The Programmed Wall", where bricks are laid out in a predefined grid and are merely rotated around their centre points. There is a gap of two centimeters between each brick. The rotation of the stones allows them to control the width of these gaps, as well as applying a pattern over the whole of the façade, which constantly changes in appearance under the influence of the sunlight.

From the web page by Gramazio &Kohler

Additive fabrication in its simplest way could be described as three-dimensional printing. This particular fabrication technique produces no waste, since all materials are deposited where they are needed, making way to new technologies which can work along traditional building materials, making them more efficient in various ways.

From the web page by Gramazio &Kohler

In the end, the point is, there is a vast space for investigation and we don’t know for certain what new materials might be found and to what use they can be applied, so we find ourselves in the need of constant research, and interdisciplinary communication, in order to be able to apply, consider or even suggest new materials and new technological applications which can be directly used in our designs.

POWER GLASS-light and electricity

The ideas of sustainability, self-sufficiency and energy saving are nowadays in the basic vocabulary of current architectural production world-wide. However, one of the greatest problems architects face when using photovoltaic panels is the formation of building facades, as the specific form of these extremely useful elements affects radically the design process. The launching of new materials gives way to the better integration of sustainability and energy saving in everyday architecture. One good example is Power Glass, produced by XsunX, which makes it possible to manufacture windows that generate electricity and still allow 70 percent of light to pass through.

Power Glass is made using amorphous silicon, the non-crystalline form of silicon that can be deposited in a very thin film and remains flexible. If we are going to compare the non-crystalline silicon and the crystalline silicon we see that the crystalline silicon used in conventional solar cells is a thousand times thicker, requiring more silicon. And crystalline silicon must be deposited on a rigid substrate that can withstand high manufacturing temperatures. The applications of amorphous silicon thus far have been primarily in liquid-crystal displays and thin-film transistors; its photovoltaic applications have been limited by its relatively low power-producing efficiency compared to crystalline silicon.

XsunX company is using a cassette system that allows high-volume production of thin films with low risk of contamination. Solar cells are applied in a thin layer - about 0.2 microns thick - onto large rolls of supporting material. The process happens at 150 °C, low enough to use plastic or polyester substrate. Multiple cassettes or film are processed simultaneously and the result is rolls of photovoltaic film. The flexible film is then applied, like low-e coating, to the surface of a multi-plane window. The film allows edge-to-edge coverage. This system makes the entire window an active energy conversation area.

Of course there are other materials that are aiming to perform the same function, like Scheuten Solar’s product. This product is consisting of opaque solar cells in glazing, separated by clear spaces, but it is resulted in visible mosaic or stripes, actually changing the way light enters the building. Power Glass- on the other hand- looks more like tinted solar glass, without a pattern. It blocks 30 percent of the incoming light, uniformly across the window opening.

What encourages Power Glass to fly economically is that it doesn’t only look like a tinted glass, but it works like one and at the same time produces electricity. The primary electrical energy cost of a large building is air-conditioning (A/C) and lighting. Using Power Glass to transform 4-5 % of the solar energy into electricity instead of using conventional tinted glass, the lighting and the A/C load decreases. So the annual energy consumption in a building that would normally be huge is much smaller having Power Glass performing both functions.

Links:

http://www.xsunx.com/advanced-celldesign.htm

http://www.hollandtrade.com/vko/zoeken/showbouwsteen.asp?bstnum=1464

http://www.scheutensolarsystems.nl/

Biotech and new materiality

We have been through the Age of Electricity, the Machine Age, the Space Age and the Information Age. We continue to celebrate and salivate over the digital tools and the new materials that other have developed for us, but nothing has prepared us for the fundamental changes that are emerging around us. Our age is an age of molecular manipulation, where entirely new form of life are being designed and created. Old distinction between natural and artificial are not longer certain.
Our is an age where we are able to alter the fundamental properties of matter to create an entirely new class of material and devises that are designed at the molecular, and ever subatomic level. This is where nanotechnology intersect with bioengineering, in a field known nanobiotechnology. Some materials, such us polymer scaffolds, provide a porous infrastructure for growing living tissue. Such material and devise introduce fresh possibilities for thinking about the bodily integration of architecture, and they posit exiting opportunities r thinking about architecture as a new form of life.
However, the most immediate evidence of the impact nanotechnology will have on our architecture and our cities, is furnished by the material product that are currently being developed for application.

The Technicolor Brain

The new biotechnologies are being applied in many fields of research. Researchers in Harvard are using illuminating neurons with nearly 100 different colors so as to manage map the human brain. Such a map could help scientists understand not only the early development of the human brain but also some diseases such as autism and schizophrenia.

Saving Memories

Stem-cell transplants have been used so as to improve the injured memory of mice. This can be helpful at illnesses such as Alzheimer's.

Decoding the Human Eye

Artificial retinas that approximate the normal human vision are now in research. These can later be used so as to help blind patients and eventually this kind of technology can be used to send visual information down the optic nerve. Moreover an artificial cornea could be a more effective treatment for the eye damage.

A Better Artificial Skin

Skin cells genetically engineered so as to be resistant to bacteria can not only reduce the likeliness of inflections, but also improve the survival chances among burnt victims.

Brain Cells Fused with Computer Chip

European researchers have developed "neuro-chips" in which living brain cells and silicon circuits are coupled together. The achievement could one day enable the creation of sophisticated neural prostheses to treat neurological disorders or the development of organic computers that crunch numbers using living neurons.

First complete DNA transplant

After cloning and mutations scientists have transformed a bacteria species into another species. It was done by transplanting a complete set of DNA of a bacteria species and gives a possibility for constructing synthetic life in the coming future.


http://www.yeadon.net/yeadon/support/projects/0511/Year2050.pdf
http://www.technologyreview.com/Biotech/
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/6
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/35

What might these advancements be, and where will they lead us? What are the future material, techniques, and devices that will yield new forms of architecture and new urban environment?

reinventing materiality with augmented skins

Performative architecture understood as responsive systems demands a departure from traditional notion of material towards an augmented composite.
The responsive environments usually consists of a skin able to react to different conditions, both from surroundings and from virtual environment. This type of environment might be called an augmented one, because it is a physical one, upgraded with a system capable of computation, which is a direct connection to virtual. The skin therefore needs to consist of resizable structure and actuators.
One of the examples of augmented skin design might be a HybGrid, a project by Sylvia Felipe and Jordi Truco, done at Emergent Technologies Program at Architectural Association. HybGrid is “a layered grid-shell with uniform grid layout made from elastic members becomes globally defined through local manipulations of actuators that regulate the distance between the members of the layered lattices”.
The Hybgrid uses the logic of “elastic deformation”. This kind of deformation is present in natural structures. It enables the adaptivity potential while the strength of the structure, driven by the continuity of the material remains in place. The logic is obtained by composing elastic fiber-composites with actuators. The fiber-composites are arranged into two-layer, prefabricated strips, which contain a certain amount of inertia. The actuators, placed between the layers, provide connection of the skin to the especially dedicated software. Therefore they augment the skin by providing constant possibility for reshaping it.
The form-finding process of HybGrid is a continuous in 4d one, like other examples that we describe underneath. What make it quite specific is that it is a fully predesigned one and that the interaction with the user can only occur via the interface. There are no sensors that can trigger the actuators to perform a certain action, like in a Muscle NSA for example, where the interaction is possible in two ways: not only via software interface but also via performance in the physical.

The Aegis Hyposurface is an art/architecture tool that connecting information systems with the form to produce dynamically surfaces. Aegis is perhaps the world's first such dynamic screen. The Junction would be the first permanent site for a Hyposurface that is already in development for exhibition at the Centre Pompidou, Paris from December to March 2003.This project has a potential to translate into form different medium- a digital input (keyboard, movement sensor) can give any psyhical output (a wave) In this Aegis has potential beyond that of a screen to being a fully 'architectural' (social, physical) interface, where activity (sound, movement, light etc) translates into form. It’s a curtain of steel mesh mounted on computer-controlled pistons. Through Aegis digital systems are extended into social space creating the potential for an architecture of reciprocity, reacting to and with the activity of people. One finds oneself, and others, within the architecture. The project was designed to show events that are happening inside the theater. The collaborative effort between dECOi, RMIT’s Burry, and leading researchers in solid geometry and electronics.
A user interface will permit the operating system to be used directly by The Junction. This will allow The Junction to use the Hyposurface in a variety of different ways - as an Internet-activated screen linked to a web cam, as a sound-board to the nightclub events, as a drawing-board for aspiring graphicists.
The Aegis Hyposurface is a huge sketchpad ,it is a 3-dimensional absorptive medium that allows all manner of graphic and sketching. The artists of the new medium will be the physical bodies of The Junction mingling with the distant minds of the Internet.

Monika Szawioła, Akriti Sood, Michał Piasecki

BA2: (Re)Inventing Materiality - ETFE (Tefzel): Beijing & beyond

Skin or structure? What is so remarkable about the use of EFTE (Tefzel) in the Beijing Olympics Swimming Stadium (the Watercube) by Arups and Australian Architects Peddle Thorp Walker (PTW), is the ability of the material to act as a primary structural element, lightweight skin, green material, fire resistant and remain faithful to the design intent all at the same time.

Contemporary architectural material expression could be seen as a homogenisation of surface and structure, all folding together. The play of materiality seen in the work of late post modernist architects that separated skin & structure, wall and roof, has generally disappeared. The challenge for EFTE is to act in all of the above and adapt for variations on the building (there are 7 variations of bubble forms), including as a roof without change in material or appearance (and to withstand snow loads).

Using the metaphor of the soap bubble structure (explored originally by Frei Otto and rediscovered by Irish Professors of Physics at Trinity College, Weaire and Phelan) the building consists of an inflated cavity structure of bubbles 3.6m thick into a space frame structure 177m x 1771m x 31m high. The skin is inflated, such that the tensile strength of the bubble enables it to resist the loads on the building. Previously EFTE has been used in nuclear power plants, space technology & underwater, but owing to its translucent appearance and high strength (10x stronger than other fluropolymers) was the appropriate choice for Beijing.

2-4mm thick sheets of EFTE is ‘tailored’ like clothing to the bubble profile (possibly computer controlled laser cut which would give this material great potential for non standard geometry applications), inflated and continually kept under pressure to keep the bubble shape. The material has excellent insulative properties, the ability to resist temperature extremes (considering China has a temperature of -30C in winter) and readily admits daylight, so that it saves on both lighting (55% saving) and heating (30% saving) requirements. Nothing in the company websites comments on the environmental impact of the material manufacture.