Urban Infrastructure (first experiments)

Analysis of Field Forces and Attenuation Points

Topology of War

"I did an experiment myself last year in which I recorded a short piece of traffic noise on the street. It’s about three and a half minutes long, and I just kept listening to it to see if I could come to hear it as a piece of music. So, after listening to this recording many times, I’d say, Oh yes, there’s that car to the right, and there’s that door slamming to the left, and I would hear that person listening, and there’s that baby coming by on the tram. After several weeks, I found I loved it like a piece of music."-Eno

These sketches in processing use field force scripts and random attractor input to obtain a topological condition as a depiction of the shizophrenia of war.

These instabilites will be superimposed on the existing grid structure of the site (block of pentagon: target of 9/11 attacks: an event that triggers another war) to create the urban condition as a narrative of war.

The attenuation points in the field will be the plug-ins of the dynamic e-formations where the user can experience live telecasts and data maps related to the conflict of war.

Experiments of Possible Landscapes

Morphing

 morphing of data vessel to accomodate human sitting postures

Emotions of War (flow diagram)

Referring back to the Site, in an effort to derive forces of Ether for the architecture to resist n form-
it takes me back to Pentagon - Headquarters  of the dept of Defense - Conspiracy - Policies- Combat - Defense - War - Winning - Power - Money -
also one of the targets of 9/11 attacks - an event that triggers another war -
tht gives me a challenge to explore the different emotions of war as the potential driving forces for the project...

here I present, analysis of the movie; born on the fourth of july

the reason for the selection of this movie is that it potrays a whole cycle of patriotism - war - rehabilitaion - guilt - courage - revolution... it covers almost all the emotions of the war very effectively -

Film starts with the 4^th of celebrations (day of independence) – feelings of patriotism – I love my country, Dad – positive (upward flow of emotion)

Then there is war – Communism has to be stopped – positive - connected with patriotism – leads to war

Some friends simply don’t care - Oh man! You are crazy – negative – but part of the war

During the war – I killed some people – villagers/friends – negative – guilt (downward flow of emotion)

Lose body – paralyzed from chest down

Rehabilitation– this place is a fucking slum– negative – connected to downward slope

I will walk again – hope – you are alive, you made it – connected to patriotism from the start – positive – gives some stability

Love it or leave it – a little rise – own war – you are a hero – positive – passions of war

Soon there is personal misery – feelings that you are used – they told us to go –desire to have the body back – people here don’t give a shit about war – also connected to the guilt of killings – negative –adds  to distress

But that finally there is a found courage – new directions – revolution against war – NOT ONE MORE DEAD – positive – rise –another expression of the love of country

Emerging Pattern/Conclusion:

Strong fluctuations between positive and negative emotions with a continuous feedback loop.

Design Manifesto

E- formations inherit the differciation of ideas activated by a set of intrinsic/extrinsic field of forces over time and thus produce a range of possibilities that can actualize itself as real at any given frame of time.

Technically, these are inhabitable mediascapes that I call 'Data Vessels'.

Refering back to the earlier ruleset diagram where I conceived my project as comprised of three discrete elements; Infrastructure and Quantum Constructions are now one seamless entity as an expression of virtuality which is defined above and Control being the forces informing the range of possible formations.

Next:
1. Mapping Field Forces.
2. Elaborating Program.

Deleuze's Difference and Repetition

While invesigating theory of architecture in the digital era, I came across an interesting reference of Gilles Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition (1968, translated 1994) which introduces the importance of a philosophy of difference by describing how difference may be internal to the nature of every Idea and how every Idea may have multiple elements which may be differentiated.

Differentiation: development from the one to the many, the simple to the complex, or the homogeneous to the heterogeneous;the sum of the processes whereby apparently indifferent or unspecialized cells, tissues, and structures attain their adult form and function. (Merriam Webster)

Complex repetition may disguise its difference and variability. A bare (simple) repetition is a mechanical, stereotyped repetition of the same element, while a clothed (complex) repetition is a repetition which has difference hidden within itself.
Difference may be internal to an idea, or may be external to a conceptual mode of representation. Difference may be extrinsic or intrinsic, generic or specific, essential or accidental, actual or virtual.
Difference as divergence, disparateness, or dissimilarity cannot be affirmed by representation. Difference and repetition may be objects of representation, but representation can only portray difference and repetition negatively in relation to a concept of sameness. Representation can only consider repetition as bare, mechanical repetition, and not as complex repetition including difference, dissemblance, disguising, displacement, and variability.

to be continued... struggling to understand in detail but surely the philosophy of difference largely influence our understanding of reality.
I am also looking into the process diagrams of Eisenman and the contemporary practice of Ali Rahim where the form is generated as a result of interaction of vector forces from the site thus developing datascapes materialized from the many possible virtualities to the built reality of architectural space.

Morphology

conceptual sketch: data vessel after testing fied condition

Though, I still need to define the intrinsic and extrinsic forces and the rule set of their possible interaction to morph and sculpt the architecture of these Data Vessels. Its just my conception at the moment which may turn out to be completely different in the next couple of days... :)



New Directions

After testing field conditions, I am convinced that I am not developing Interactive architecture (with active structure) rather I intend to explore transformational morphology to make an arguement that virtuality is the range of possibility over time where at certain moments it actualize itself to become the real itself.

Testing Field Conditions

The essential process of this era consists in the dissolution of objects: they lose their materiality and are transformed into information that, have been processed, is translated inot a new form of materiality, new objects. (Eis)

Physical Model

I started this model with the sectional rib at the center and then covering it with the envelop of wires. The interesting thing is the entaglement of the wire at the edges that creates a condition of ambiguity and therefore, I left it incomplete intentionally. I hope to achieve the abstraction (logical/analytical) in the final model and dont want it to be precise clean and predictive as shown in the computer model.

Landscape of Data Vessels

Data is no more an Interface but Inhabitable space - Information flows through us.  

Data Vessels are working modules embedded with LED and LCD panels. The separate panels work together to form a large overall image or text. The users can build a text-enviroment or an image cave according to their needs. This could be an environment in which a group of people could work on a three dimensional model, or where they could analyse data, facts and figures being projected through LCD panels. 

Data Vessel acts like a muscle to contract/relax to provide sitting/leaning/laying positions 

- Active Structure, that adjust itself to the needs of the user.

- Suspension in Ether – it defies gravity

NEXT:

1.       Elaborate the morphology of Data Vessels with an element of Abstraction/Vagueness.

2.       Test a field condition – Dynamic forces in Ether

3.       Design of Infrastructure – Integrated and continuous  



Pentagon Intervention

Conceptual Sketches

sketch: control panel  - data vessels - electromagnetic signels

sketch: detail of data strands - entanglements/interactions

sketch: part of control panel - stacked tablets for the plug ins

Cross Reference

Rule Set (Initial Sketches)

Architecture as Infrastructure

Quantum Theory

Introduction

In the twenty-first century, a network society is emerging. Fragmented, visually saturated, characterized by rapid technological change and driven by cyber culture, it is dizzying, excessive, and sometimes surreal. The computer has accelerated the digital electronic communication in the demassified niches of the internet. The internet operates not only on this micro scale but also on a macro scale and transforming our cities into global entities in which local cultures remain only as traces. Situated precisely between the real and the virtual, architecture is challenged, yet resists.


The purpose of this research is to examine the matrix of themes to do with the integration of human life and technology and its subsequent translation into architecture. The most crucial task is not the engineering of buildings to accommodate networks and computers nor is it the exploration of the formal and cultural possibilities of immersive virtual reality. Rather it is to think of solutions to create spaces that satisfy important human needs in effective new ways that surprise through digital enabled combinations of the unexpected. In a sense, extended architecture can be seen as a version of mixed reality that incorporates flexible creative environments as a duplication of physical space.

What does exist as the next level is an architecture that acts as a “Plug-in” to the existing structure. It is an invisible architecture that makes numerous parallel virtual worlds visible. Architecture as an enabling platform for all where the medium is the architecture and myself means many selves – at least two: 1 and 0.

Conceiving architecture as a quantum object that can be in two states at once (real and virtual)

It is against the traditional perception of architecture which knows only either-or; either 1 or 0, either inside or outside, either enclosing or excluding. It is an invisible architecture that makes numerous parallel virtual worlds visible. It is an upside down architecture as a pure infrastructure. At its heart, It is an architecture of genuine interface between the real and the virtual – a dynamic open space, an enabling platform – place of “permanent frenzy in nothingness,” or a place of “ceaseless innovation and change.”

“As humans”, argues Kas Oosterhuis, “we must learn to relate to the dynamics of super-fast real-time computation processes. We must build the computational tools for collaborative design and engineering in order to meet the rich expectations created by looking at the world from one or two levels up… it leads in the same manner to a major paradigm shift in the way we connect to buildings as running processes… this new kind of building is not only designed through computation, it is a computation.”

Let’s think of the following ON/OFF scenario: you enter a space and switch on, instead of light, a data flow, which fills the space in a sec with a “world” – and you are suddenly in the Louvre, at a bazaar in Cairo, on board a spaceship travelling to Mars, in a research lab or simply at home. All you need is data – plus super fast data transfer, super-fast computation power, plus the right architecture.

An architecture which integrates the interconnected IT infrastructure in a way that creates powerful distributed knowledge spaces which will be largely self-managing, self-diagnostic and transparent to the user enabling higher-order acting by the individual as well as virtual organizations.

Virtual Guggenheim Museum commissioned to the New York firm Asymptote Architects is at the first phase of a three-year initiative to construct an entirely new museum facility. The project will consist of navigable three-dimensional spatial entities accessible on the Internet as well as real-time interactive components installed at the various Guggenheim locations. NYSE Virtual Trading Floor is the first business application of an interactive virtual architecture. Displayed on the trading floor on an array of nine large flat screen high resolution displays it allows for day to day monitoring as well as crisis management of all aspects of NYSE trading floor activity. The array of large flat screen monitors mentioned above is a center piece of the design. This along with imbedded ribbons of text in various surfaces captures the essence of the different ‘flows’ that encompass the Stock Exchange trading floor.

The E – formations research project asserts that architecture takes place on the edge of real and virtual. Virtual is projected onto the real to create alternate spaces and multiply the experience of the user. In this way architecture exists in layers and user has the control to switch in between the different layers of experience. It erases the concept of location and orientation for the person within the space and is very much the same phenomena as on the World Wide Web where we exist as text and image – phantoms of our own selves.

It brings us the concept of augmented reality and infused environments as an integration of physical and simulated spaces. Azuma's definition says that Augmented Reality combines real and virtual, it is interactive in real time and is registered in 3D. Additionally Paul Milgram and Fumio Kishino defined Milgram's Reality-Virtuality Continuum in 1994. They describe a continuum that spans from the real environment to a pure virtual environment. In between there are Augmented Reality (closer to the real environment) and Augmented Virtuality (is closer to the virtual environment).

The aim of the project is to find an application of this research in the defense sector and to explore the augmented reality technology in terms of hardware and software requirements. Then to provide the necessary support infrastructure.