Mexico’s National Council for Culture and the Arts (CONACULTA) has announced that the “Cineteca Nacional del Siglo XXI” (National Film Archive) project has been awarded to Rojkind Arquitectos.

“To intervene and expand the National Film Archive involves understanding a substantial change in film, as suggested in the term “moving pictures”.Today, images move not only on a screen, the screens move with us; they go where we go, and the movies, have gone from being a gathering space for the masses, to also reaching us wherever we might be.

The new National Film Archive and Film Institute must understand this condition, both to ensure and protect the wealth of our country’s moving pictures as well as those of the rest of the world and to make them accessible, in all their various forms, to the general public. A place which will have movies, but which will also offer other recreational spaces, taking advantage of the latest technologies. Common spaces and spaces to promote communication. The idea is in part to remove film from its classic exhibition site: movies in the park, in the café, in the square, to transform those spaces to become more than just services related to the experience of the movies, but rather to become part of the experience itself: the park itself as a movie, or the café, or the square.

In this way, the National Film Archive becomes a space of physical and virtual connections between media and people. An interface with two key elements: the continuous ground that connects the different elements that make up the National Film Archive and the roof, that connects them in its own way.” – Alejandro Hernández Read the rest of this entry »

0RN8 is interested in pursuing the creation of novel interiorities through the articulated elaboration of experimental and existing structural systems. The development and differentiation of each tectonic system experiment that is under analysis occurs within the defining parameters of the system’s own inherent logic. The team’s design research work commenced with a variety of parametric design studies, where the issues of frame and fabric were investigated, along with the notion of generating multilayered, tectonic systems, where each of the layers was generated in an autopoietic manner.

After experimenting with generic parametric systems, the filigree interiors of the Gothic tectonic systems were chosen, as historical precedents that are the most efficient, in terms of aesthetic richness, qualitative differentiation, piecemeal construction and part-to-whole relationship intensities. Using the Gothic vault bay tectonic system as a starting point, an analysis of arch, rib and profile curvatures, as well as variable thicknesses and depths takes place, in an attempt to parameterize the entire vault bay structural system. This parameterization will eventually lead to the creation of a novel, autopoietic and parametric, proto-design system, which will give birth to a variety of inherently multi-systematic and adaptive interiorities. Read the rest of this entry »

With the completion of the 2010 Apomechanes studio, which led to the exhibition and publication “apomechanes / non-linear computational design strategies,” the summer studio of 2011 will open a new cycle of research further devoted to the construction of immersive architectural environments. At present, computational techniques are predominantly employed in the optimization, rationalization or surface decoration of more traditionally created wholes. This studio instead focuses on the inherent potential of computation to generate space and of algorithmic procedures to engage self-organization in the design process. Apomechanes 2011 introduces 3 parallel areas of research: immersive spatiotemporal media, feedback material systems and embodied computational ecologies. The studio operates as a design laboratory, investigating these areas at the scale of a temporary pavilion. Participants engage closely with computational processes in order to develop an aesthetic and intuition of complexity that resides in a balance between design intent and emergent character. During the summer studio, participants will create their own custom algorithms appropriate to the research trajectories of choice. Apomechanes will follow up with a second phase of design development (and another workshop) towards the construction of the pavilion in the academic year of 2011/2012. Read the rest of this entry »

This parametric project designed by Dimitrie Stefanescu, Patrick Bedarf, and Bogdan Hambasan started out as an ambitious student-powered endeavor to design and fabricate at a 1:1 scale the flagship pavilion for the ZA11 Speaking Architecture event in Cluj, Romania; while at the same time integrating it into its historically-charged context. The design boasts a strong representational power which was much needed in order to fulfill its main goal: attracting passers-by to the event. At the same time, the object, through its tectonic characteristics, tries to make legible the new ontology which is slowly defined by computational architecture and thus becomes a showcase for the design processes empowered by digital tools. Read the rest of this entry »

The short series of films in the project Resonance are works by teams of audio artist and studios paired with visual artist and studios. Based on the idea of matching geometry (SEE) with sound (HEAR) each movie vignette is an abstract experiment of 4D design immersion. Organized by SR Partners, over 30 groups participated.

Pieces are 20 seconds long or less and represent a diverse set of design modeling formulations both in content and aesthetic, with only occasionally representational or natural backgrounds incorporated. Narrative is downplayed in the short pieces, with both organic and geometric kinetic forms often shape shifting, changing scale or context matched with corresponding soundscapes. Sounds are musical and descriptive of the movement, using ambiance techniques to underscore the tone of the visual environment. Read the rest of this entry »

The Platonic Solids project by computational architect Michael Hansmeyer explores how a purely operations-based geometric process can generate complex form. Rather than studying the possibilities in combining numerous primitives, this project examines the potential inherent in a single primitive given an appropriate process. It takes the most primitive forms, the platonic solids, and repeatedly employs one single operation – the division of a form’s faces into smaller faces – until a new form is produced. Read the rest of this entry »

ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum in Denmark’s second largest city’s is newly crowned with a glass rainbow ring that transforms the cities vista into ever changing hues. Olafur Eliasson’s “Your rainbow panorama” is the final level of the museums symbolic ascension through Dante’s 9 circles of hell in the Divine Comedy. The circle, set above the rooftop, is the crescendo of that journey into light. Measuring 52 meter in diameter and 150 meters long the skywalk is entered from a roof deck. The full spectrum of colors is achieved by sandwiching up to 6 colored sheets in-between two plates of glass. The effect of the circular walk and slowly transitioning changing in color acts as a visual meter of the city view. Read the rest of this entry »

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This project by computational architect Michael Hansmeyer 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. An abstracted doric column is used as an input form to the subdivision processes. Unlike the minimal input of the Platonic Solids project, the abstracted column conveys a significant topographical and topological information about the form to be generated. The input form contains data about the proportions of the the column’s shaft, capital, and supplemental base. It also contains information about its fluting and entasis.

The input form is tagged to allow the subdivision process to distinguish between individual components. This allows a heterogeneous application of the process, with distinct local parameters settings. In addition to distinguishing among tagged components, the process parameters can be set to vary according to the input form’s topography as well as its topology. Finally, an environmental specification of parameters is possible to allow regional phenomena to occur. Read the rest of this entry »

The London-based art and design practice United Visual Artist presented a series of light installation titled “Speed of light”. The project was commissioned by Virgin Media to commemorate the tenth anniversary of broadband in the UK. It is not a matter of chance that the UVA team was chosen, as their trajectory is more than impressive since they have made tour visuals for Massive Attack, U2, UNKLE and The Chemical Brothers, installations for the Victoria & Albert Museum and fashion show light visuals for Y-3 and Vivienne Westwood. Read the rest of this entry »