This project involves the conception and design of a new column order based on subdivision processes. It explores how subdivision can define and embellish this column order with an elaborate system of ornament.
The first 2.7-meter prototype is constructed as a layered model of 1mm cardboard sheet. Further columns of milled 1mm ABS plastic layers were exhibited at the 2011 Gwangju Design Biennale.
How can a purely operations-based geometric process can generate complex form? This project begins with the most primitive forms, the platonic solids, and repeatedly employs a single operation – the division of a form’s faces into smaller faces – until forms of an astounding complexity are produced.
Initial studies of subdivision processes applied to generate architectural pavilions. Each of the pavilions is based on two interlinked cubic frames and is produced through a single, constant process. Only the process parameters are allowed to vary.
This project continues the exploration of a procedural approach to generating architectural form. Rather than work with surfaces as in the subdivision experiments, this project uses volumetric cells - voxels - as its basic geometry. Two broad algorithms to control the interaction between voxels are explored: cellular automata similar to the game of life, and reaction-diffusion processes.
In the late 1960's, the biologist Aristid Lindenmayer proposed a string-rewriting algorithm that can model the morphology of simplified plants and other organisms with an astounding ease. This theory is now known as L-Systems. This project considers how this algorithm can open up possibilities in the field of architecture.
