8 BK IN FOCUS
B NIEUWS 09 14 MAART 2011
COMPUTER SUPPORTED
DESIGN
FOR SEVERAL YEARS NOW, THE STUDIO COMPUTATIONAL ARCHITECTURE HOSTS A LAB IN COOPERATION WITH MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY (METU) IN ANKARA, TURKEY. THE LAB FEATURES A TWO-YEAR MASTER PROGRAM, THE ‘COMPUTATIONAL DESIGN AND FABRICATION TECHNOLOGIES IN ARCHITECTURE’, FOR WHICH STUDENTS SWITCH BACK AND FORTH BETWEEN DELFT AND ANKARA. BY MARCELLO SOELEMAN As of the next academic year however, it’s also possible to follow a Computational Architecture graduation lab, attended fully in Delft. The graduation lab, positioned within the Architecture Master’s program, is next to Hyperbody the second graduation lab that puts computational design at the heart of its curriculum. “Our studio represents a middle ground between Hyperbody and Architectural Engineering,” says lab coordinator Rudi Stouffs. “Hyperbody focuses on designing certain types of building that are unconceivable without the computer. Architectural Engineering might use the computer, but there it’s used much more in a performance analytical way. In our studio, we do incorporate the computer into the design process, but mainly as an important tool to generate design alternatives, to find a systematic way to weigh up these alternatives, supporting the design process.” The studio now also hosts a graduation lab in Delft. Stouffs: “This was due to the METU-program not getting enough students to make it financially viable. The METU – TU Delft exchange is an ongoing pilot so that won’t be discontinued yet, but now students who don’t want to go to Turkey (or who don’t have the time or money, ed.) can as of next academic year graduate in Delft without going to Ankara.” Students attending the graduation track are expected to write a paper, systematically researching their design process and how the
computer was applied during the process. Canan Albayrak’s graduation project, presented on this page, is an example of how this could be done. The specific tools however are up to the student. Stouffs: “It really depends on your project. In Canan’s case, performative and parametric analysis and design were key topics, but this is just one possibility. The key concern is that the computer supports the design methodology, from which arguments for the design product and process can be derived.”
Graduation project: Canan Albayrak Architectural transformation of the Defense Line of Amsterdam Tutors: Huib Plomp, Sander Mulders and Bige Tunçer This project deals with performative architecture to address a model of design to generate transformation alternatives for an actual design problem of Dutch Landscapes: the transformation of the Defense Line of Amsterdam, which involves the conservation of 41 forts, assigning new functions to them and designing additions. The Defense Line of Amsterdam is a ring of fortifications around Amsterdam, constructed between 1880 and 1920, conceived as a logistical system in combination with the low lands, which can be flooded in wartime. The invention of the airplane and tank made the forts obsolete almost as soon as their construction was finished. The Defense Line was inscribed to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1996 because of its historic value for all mankind. Moreover, the forts are important elements of the Dutch landscape for enriching the topography while demonstrating a unique historic example of defense and water management technology. A century after the forts were constructed, many new relationships were created between forts, water, infrastructure and urban areas. The first step for transforming the Defense Line is to analyze these relationships. Concentration of infrastructure and urbanization affect the number of potential users for each fort; the scale of the transformation and the size of needed additions differ. The definition of the guideline for the transformation is initiated by a parametric model that computes urbanization levels for the fort sites using these inputs: waterlines, land transportation connections (rail lines and highways), urban areas, Schiphol airport noise level contours, green zones (forests, nature reserves and recreation areas) and greenhouses. Parametric design is used as a medium for this exploration as a result of an inquiry into the state-of-the-art of computational tools for performative architecture. Computation of urbanization levels shows that the sites of the 41 forts have great disparities. Because the location characteristics are different for each fort, they necessitate different transformations. Therefore, redesigning the Defense Line requires defining a general guideline rather than focusing on its parts separately. A design model is defined for the transformation, consisting of a series of parametric models through the design stages. This model is named ‘performative design model’, and it uses the performative architecture taxonomy as a guideline. After the definition of design stages, the effort is moved directly to two other levels of the design: one is the parameterization process, preliminary to the computational generation of alternative solutions; the other is the selection process among the large set of generated instances. Parameterization is the fundamental step of modeling in order to exploit the potential and advantages offered by parametric modeling. It is the determination of attributes (two kinds: dependent and independent) and the rules they are subject to follow. Parameterization describes the dependency chain used in the model as a hierarchical structure. The selection and definition of the interrelations during the earlier structuring of the model are set according to the performance criteria, which were established after the regional and urban analysis done for the Defense Line. Conclusions It is possible to computationally generate an infinite number of alternative design solutions, but this potential becomes useless if it is not associated with meaningful control, categorization and selection processes. A performative model is convenient within this scope since the designer is the decision maker in every stage of the design, where stages are defined as modules corresponding to different performances related to design. Pictures: the four stages of the design process For more information about the project: visit repository.tudelft.nl and search for “defence line amsterdam”