Sean Ahlquist | Controlled and uncontrolled
Sean's works make me think about an artist whose works are also mostly made with fabrics, Do Ho Suh. Suh's works make me feel that he tries to control the fabrics and make them approximate to some rigid material. All the fabrics Suh used are all cut precisely and every piece is calculated well. Somehow it makes me feel that the fabric looks like fuzzy glass or semi-transparent metal. However, Sean's works have some uncontrolled factors, especially the performance of fabrics, but the fabrics present their nature and beauty in Sean's works. Although Sean use a lot of digital tools to simulate the results, however, I think the natures complete the works. Those uncontrolled factors play a very important role in Sean's work.
Hyper-Toroidal Deep Surface, Sean Ahlquist, Prof. Achim Menges, Boyan Mihaylov, Viktoriya Nicolova, 2013
Staircase-III, Do Ho Suh, 2010
After Sean's speech, we had some discussion about the gap between digital tools and physical models. It is very difficult to feedback the experiment results to digital environment because the forces offered by fabrics can hardly be measured, especially, the forces from fabrics are multi-dimensional. Sean has established a very complete simulation environment and made lots of simulations before the designs were scaled to 1:1 models. Nevertheless, the forces from fabrics are difficult part to simulate, the performance of the forces is too complicated. How to address the complexity is always a big issue of virtual simulation. I think we could use the bridge plug-ins to connect the software which is not originally for design (especially, architectural design usually does not need to simulate the forces of the fabrics).
In our second project review, we had similar discussion about "controlled factors" and "uncontrolled factors" in design. Typically we try to controll everything while we are designing a building, but somehow those "uncontrolled factors" may bring you to a beautiful result. Therefore, we may start to reconsider our design strategies and decide what factors we will control and what we will not. For example, in the project002 of MSMS (Master of Science, Material System concentration), students are required to use wax to make their models. While making, they melt the wax and used some gadget to dip into the melt wax and put the gadget into cold water to cool it down again, and finally, they can get unexpected forms. In this project, solidification of the wax is totally uncontrollable, thus the final models are all out of the designer's imaginations. However, the unexpected results sometimes are beautiful, the uncontrolled wax play an important role in this design.
Kathy Velikov | Systems
It is interesting that interactive systems become an important part in architecture. Kathy's North House has several systems and they are all connected together, which means that those systems can communicate to one another. Furthermore, those systems have a mesh structure and start to form an internal internet. From this point of view, these connected systems can be viewed as a primitive model of IoT (Internet of Things). Those "things" including air conditioner, refrigerator, microwave, fans, windows, television and smart phones have a mechanism (for example, voting system) to deal with some problem, and this also might be a primitive form of AI. All the things in the house share their information and each object take a part in the decision making. However, the system structure in North House is a central controlled system, this is not really intelligent system because the communication is only one-way (if each system operates independently, that's like a telephone, but if all systems are bundled together without a central unit, that's like internet). Moreover, all the object should be online and search information by itself and offer all the information it has to all the others, just like Kevin Kelly said, in the future, each objects has its small electrical brain (chip), and those brains will connect together as a big brain and then all the object are going to turn into a big intelligent creature.
Bird Flock, non-central control system
Catie Newell | Material
Salvaged landscape gave me an inspiration about material. Operation is simple, the burned wood are cut and aligned very well in one side. Moreover, they are stacked very tightly and create a very clean wall (with a door which has a irregular shape). The variation of each wood shows up the process of burning and the material characteristics, meanwhile those woods create a random shape in the back. Furthermore, the gaps between those wood filter the light because the the burned woods are not rectangles but like double heads spindles. Hence, the burned parts create some spaces for the light, and also those burned woods created a perfect black interior wall, a perfect background for the lights.
The work Specimen also shows the articulation of the light. The reflections of the normal fluorescent lights are skewed and distorted on the surface of the glasses. in other words, those lights are re-shaped along with the material and thus change the specimen room. Furthermore, the glass is a transparent material, but the reflections expose the virtually invisible ripples, just like the contour lines of the glass. I think that the articulation of material is a good example for us because we sometimes focus too much on finished object but the materials. As Tim Ingold described in his book, Making, in his 4As class, students are required to gather many objects (or garbage), those objects look dead and they are without any future and energy. However, Tim asked his students to call those object with their material: a coke can is aluminum, a bag is plastic, a wine bottle is glass, etc. From the moment, those object keep their journeies and start their lives again, they begin a dialogue with nature, environment and time. There is no ending and the result is opened rather than closed, the just like Henry Moore's sculpture and the one full of oysters.
To sum up, the material's life is endless, thus it is opened and not finished, but an object is dead and trapped in a cage, there is an end unless we view it as a material again.
Infestation Piece (Musselled Moore), Simon Starling, 2007
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