The Emergent Technologies and Design programme focuses on the concepts and convergent interdisciplinary effects of emergence on design and production technologies, as well as developing these as creative inputs to new architectural and urban design processes. The programme continues to evolve through the development of our research in studio, seminar coursework and dissertations. We aim to produce new research each year, building from our interests and expertise in material organisation and the design and development of systems in a variety of scales. This continuation of work is focused on the interdisciplinary effects of emergence, biomimetics and evolutionary computation of design and production technologies. The instruments of analysis and design in Emergent Technologies and Design are computational processes. The seminar courses and core studio are designed to familiarise students with these instruments, their associated conceptual fields and with their application to architectural design research. The courses are extensively cross-linked, thematically and instrumentally, with each other and the core studio.
In Core Studio 1 the focus is on the exploration of material systems and their development into differentiated surfaces and assemblies. These assemblies demonstrate the potential for integrated structural and environmental performance, producing local ëmicroclimaticí variations that define spatial arrangement.
In Core Studio 2 we investigate a larger and more complex piece of the city ñ examining urban systems and generating new material, social and ecological organisations.
Directors
Michael Weinstock
George Jeronimidis
Studio Master
Evan Greenberg
Studio Tutors
Wolf Mangelsdorf
Mehran Gharleghi
Visiting Tutors
Achim Menges
Acknowledgements
Francis Aish, Foster + Partners
Guy Austern, SOM
Janet Barlow, Professor of Environmental Physics, University of Reading
Charlie Corry-Wright
Georgie Corry-Wright
Cristina Díaz Moreno, AMID/Cero 9
Efrén García Grinda, AMID/Cero 9
Shawn Gupta, Guptovic Consulting
Martin Self
Jordi Truco, HYBRIDa / ELISAVA
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Arboreal Formations
MSc Dissertation. Bartek Arendt, Chris Hill and Eleni Meladaki.
Arboreal Formations is a research project that investigates how specific properties of wood may be a driver for curving pieces of timer. The thesis documents an approach for generating design solutions that capitalise on the investigation and understanding of wood’s inherent properties. The work aims to create a generative process for a holistic building system implementing a methodology that prioritises materiality to enhance the relationship between material, structure and geometry. The process investigates the calibration of physical experiments and digital simulations to define a component which may aggregate to form a system that is structurally coherent, fabrication efficient and expresses spatially dynamic morphologies. The characteristics of the component are integral to the material system and using an associative geometry is revealed in the design of a twenty storey timber residential block in New York City. A novel fabrication technique and understanding of materiality are combined through the research to conceive a timber component that can be programmed to create a range of curvatures and be structural depending upon its thickness. The innovation presents an opportunity for new architectural spaces and forms to be created in wood.