“Sheer Pressure” is one of three projects completed during USC School of Architecture’s annual “Top Fuel” workshop, an intensive one-week fabrication charette. This year the workshop focused on pneumatic systems, under the advisement of Achim Menges and Thomas Auer. Our group – composed of eight upper-division students from USC and SCI-Arc – studied the relationship between pneus and constraining tensile forces. Our initial study models looked at the many ways air-inflated structures could puncture through fabric, and generate different lighting effects. Read the rest of this entry »
Sheer Pressure: A Study on Pneumatic Systems Used in Architecture
Floating Hotel for Ocean Exploration
“Three Spirits” is the master’s thesis of Filip Kurzewski, from the Warsaw University of Technology. The project proposes a floating tourist base and hotel in the form of three ships. Each of the three ships functions as an independent unit. The initial vision of the project was propelled by the author’s numerous personal drawings and painting studies. A great inspiration for the direction of the form, colors, and spatial arrangement came from personal diving experiences. Hand drawing and personal reflections and experiences became a driving force for the author, and are visible throughout the project. They intentionally connect the design with the context of underwater world which hotel guests explore. The thesis topic was carefully selected to reflect the design process, leaving traces of hand sketches and gestures on the final unit. Hand drawings and sketching played an important role in keeping the conceptual idea through all the stages of the design process. The theme was very demanding when it came to the program, justifying the design. The project was also consulted with naval architects. The ships making up a complex ,to a certain degree, differ as for the applied program. If the appropriate localization is chosen, they may form the common assumption – an island “Lang”. Guests can then benefit from the broader scale of supplementary attractions. On the first ship they have a ballroom at their disposal, on the second one – a casino and on the third one – the hall of multifunctional purposes where, inter alia, film shows and theatrical performances are possible. When the ships “meet” they generate a common water area for guests to swim. Read the rest of this entry »
San Diego Farm Tower / Brandon Martella
Food as a resource is depleting. Supply is soon to not meet demand. With population growth, food production in the United States is reaching maximum capacity. Our cities need to address this critical issue with an architecture that responds. A new type of residential tower needs to come forth. Utilizing vertical farming, a new model of living can be tested and resolved in a dense vertical community. From farm to market from community to education lets live, leran, and grow within our city. Farm tower is located in a vertical community of tourist resources and developer condos divided by a public promenade. The new tower aims at activating a dead corridor that is underutilized and keying in to an international audience with a daily influx of travelers utilizing the strand of tourist attractions located along the waterfront. The adjacent Children Museum and its motto of Think, Play, Create will be embraced with a second motto of Live, Grow, Share to foster a new level of social interface. Read the rest of this entry »
Polar Ants – Arctic Research Facility
Architecture defines, articulates and mediates the relationship between a physical environment and inhabitation. The primary investigation of this project is to balance this relationship through a dynamic study of material behavior. This project therefore proposes a living architecture, and challenges the classical modernist notions of permanence and stability. The theme of this proposal necessitates an equally responsive environment. As such, the project is located on the ice cap of the Arctic Ocean; an environment which exhibits harsh climatic conditions for human survival as well as constantly fluctuating physical surroundings.
This project proposes an adaptable, mutable and contextual scientific research facility on the Arctic ice cap. The model for this research centre is based on the nature of exploratory and cinematographic expeditions, the kind exemplified by a BBC series Human Planet. The duality of needs (investigation and documentation) necessitates an architecture which can accommodate two distinct working environments: one exterior and dynamic; and one interior and stable and controlled. The intervention challenges the basic assumptions of what an architectural demand for an Arctic expedition normally implies: a static and formally simplistic structure. In contrast, the resulting architecture is self-regulating, self-contained and autonomous. Read the rest of this entry »
MQ10 Mapping Façade Projection / Urbanscreen
The 10th anniversary of the Museumsquartier Vienna was celebrated with a commission of a mapping façade projection by Urbanscreen. The 8 minute piece MQ10 | Architectural Staging, projected on two full sides of the Leopold Museum’s austere walls, is based on the architectural elements of the building itself. The non-narrative video mapping immediately ‘folds’ the walls into parametric forms and rebuilds the building in continually abstract ways. Read the rest of this entry »
New Church for Valer / OOIIO Architecture
Following the fire which destroyed the town church of Valer, a Norwegian town near Oslo, a competition for the design of a new temple was organized. OOIIO Architecture designed a building that would not only have a religious purpose, but will serve as a public square, a meeting point for the inhabitants. The project combines two distinct functions, square and temple. The large accessible roof creates multiple viewpoints to the various historical parts of Valer, revealing vistas never before experienced. Usually, churches and temples show a main façade open to a public space more or less representative in front of them. ooiio architecture with this building offers a new possibility for this old relation. The main façade is now the roof, and it can be used for all Valer inhabitants as the representative space that they are missing. Read the rest of this entry »
Motril Footbridge / Gijon Arquitectura
Built in 2011 in the Spanish town of Motril, between the gardens of the Explanadas and the Park Pueblos de las Américas, the structure bridges the difference in height between these two areas and frees the passage of the Avenue Virgen de la Cabeza. The structures used are organic hexagons which allow easy adaptation to the surrounding environment, from host in its structure existing trees and adapt on the slopes to facilitate pedestrian traffic, allowing the movement of persons with motor disabilities. Read the rest of this entry »
Watching You Chair- Honeycomb Lightweight Seating Structure
The Watching You Chair was presented this year at the International Furniture Fair in Singapore, within the young talent zone ‘platform’. Designed by Tokyo-based Koji Sekita Design the project is a prototype of a honeycomb-like seating structure that can vary in length. Each structure can become a mechanism that can be freely adjusted by the number of combinations of the size of the chair. Experimentations in the fields of accumulation and replication, Sekita’s signature preoccupations, are found in the manufacturing process of the Watching You Chair. Read the rest of this entry »
Light Wave for Bombay Sapphire / Studio Aisslinger
Designed by Studio Aisslinger, a prolific firm with offices in Berlin and Singapore, the structure uses alternating convex and concave shapes in order to create an image of fluent movement of light. Ideal for places of frequency: meeting rooms and clubs, the structure produces an intense light that shapes the space below.
Individual segments are made from blue vacuum molded acrylic plastic with metal and plastic parts for connection and lighting technology. The lighting assemblage is made of 50 x 50 cm modules which can be combined in various pixel-type configurations into larger compositions. The waving modules are designed in such a way that the curved outlines create a 3D shape that allows endless addition. Read the rest of this entry »
Amsterdam Bridge V Inspired by the F117 Fighter Jet
Amsterdam bridge V conceived by Yaohua Wang Architecture is aware of the simple functionality and sculpture of a bridge. Therefore, every part of this design contributes to the unique aesthetic as seen in the spiral steel structure. The design includes two independent pathways, specifically for pedestrians and bicyclists, that run parallel to each other through the bridge. These pathways meet at the center of bridge, which behaves as the functional hub. This central location provides a sheltered space in which a slower pace can be obtained contrary to the fast movement surrounding the bridge. Inside this hub, the elegant form of this bridge can be appreciated.
F117 jet fighter plane is an very interesting example about the relationship between performance and aesthetics. The unique form of F117 jet fighter plane came directly from the need of hiding from radar wave, rather than from air dynamic aesthetics. The Amsterdam bridge also tries to achieve this relationship. In this case, the idea is the relationship between structural performance and aesthetic. The spiral structure provides an unique structural ability, allows the bridge to span across the river, also allowing the tectonics of several layers of spiral surfaces to interlock with each other. Meanwhile, these interlocked surfaces and structures wrap around the function hub, provide shelter with openings. Read the rest of this entry »