Instructor: Prof. Pongratz

Project Introduction:

Deep surface

Air at an unexpected location

With the addition of air, liquids and solids diminish their density. Something

homogenous and solid transforms into a loose and perforated structure. The foam

model indicates that under circumstances yet to be clarified, the dense, the continuous

and massive yields an invasion of the void. Air, the element most misunderstood,

harvests means and ways to protrude into places, where no one expected its

presence. Even more so, it brings into being strange places, which did not exist

before. The process of becoming, is an occasion to watch the subversion of substance.

By tradition, we are concerned with the potential to excavate substances and respond

with suspicion or even guess transgression. 

The aggregation of air filled voids, springs from a questionable victory over the solid,

and as a foam like structure, appears to turn upside down the natural order within

nature. In Sloterdyk’s words, it seems to be emerging from an illegitimate marriage of

elements. (Sloterdyk P., Sphären, Schäume, Eine Trilogie)

As opposed to this common disrespect of the seemingly vague, the latent, the close to

arbitrary, and the irregular, the Studio will take the foam model as example and work

on a rehabilitation of its inherent processes and expressions. 

In order to complement the widely used methodologies of becoming, such as drift,

repetition with difference, processes of catastrophy or creative recombination, we will

explore the term explication, in the sense of a discrete move from one condition to the

next, like a continuous escape from the status quo.

Program-context

The Studio project will explore the design of a showroom. A particular interest will be

directed towards the concept of recent brandspaces, which are an outcome of

strategies for market differentiation and the search for identity (as opposed to

vernacular fashion Outlets) of major international firms, such as fashion-houses

(Gucci, Prada..), or furniture companies (B&B Italia, Cappellini..)etc. The initial

research will in this respect also look at the ongoing global competition, which forces

the Italian design industry across different sectors, to unify its forces under the known

brand label, Made in Italy. A central theme will play especially the industry for luxury

goods, which engages in company-fusions and co-brandings, to be always in search

for new ways of creative promotion. Brandspaces are mostly an ingenious mixture of

innovative programmatic components and spatial interventions, both geared towards

the creation of a singular atmosphere, which immerses the consumer into an

experience with all senses, and represents the product(s) and its definitive lifestyle.

Site-context & space

An increasing market share in the above mentioned luxury product segment is

dominated by the East Asian and Arabian countries. The site of the studio project will

be in the city of Dubai, which seems to play a role model in terms of contemporary

extravagance and excess. Dubai is since several years already an emergent tourism

destination, and because of its politically guided attraction for investment capital offers

for planning experiments a pioneering test ground. It is the most vital part of the

United Emirates, and boasts more than 30% of the world’s cranes at work at any one

time, evolving entire new city quarters at an astonishing rate. Yet its enormous

development opportunity is also paralleled by the misleading potential for kitsch and

misguided vernacular in its architecture, which will be discussed critically in the

Studio. The tallest skyscraper Burj Dubai in construction in the city, the seven star

hotel Burj al Arab and man made islands like Palm Island, and The World, in planning

offshore, are just some examples of ambitious realizations of dreams and

unprecedented urban developments, driven by brilliant market economics and

geopolitical investment.  The ongoing construction strategy to build an image of desire

and fantasy, will lead the students critical approach towards new planning tactics and

challenge the Studio proposals in terms of technological performance and economical

feasibility. The Studio objective is to invent a Brandspace environment, featuring a

unique combination of program and spatial tectonics to satisfy the requirements of

several industry leaders of the Made in Italy “league”. As an example, the Studio will

critically inquire the recent phenomena of Villa Moda, a brandscape development and

fashion mall concept, spreading across different cities like Dubai, Kuwait etc..

Pattern-material

The Studio will emphasize techniques of digital craft reaching from design to

fabrication and construction, and will explore an architecture of emergence and

experience, based on deep surfaces, or topologies of skins & bones related to

particular work with materials and textures. 

The Studio will look at patterns and geometries at different scales, in order to foster

the creation of original architectural building components, while simultaneously

considering the interplay of pattern design to the larger geometric structure of the

building.

Primary interest is the process, which will undertake design exploration by analyzing

form and structure such as in nature, optimizing our often iterative form finding

techniques, and to look for strategy translation between techniques and the linked

objects. Students will get interested into material behavior and combined structural

effects and how they link to design techniques. Students will pursue technological

innovation with different materials with the need to inquire the related design and

manufacturing constraints.

Key words:

Deep surface

Pattern-material

Performance-material

New materials - smart materials

Emergent structural organizations in nature

Self organized systems

The informal in engineering

Studio phases

The Studio work will be organized in several phases, beginning with an initial project

design research phase on selected geometry and patterns, and representation

methods in form of digitally scaled 3D prints. A successive development phase will

study geometric rules for new design variations, which will be translated into the

studio project in different scales. Software and program techniques will be crucial for

the studio progress. The project design phase will give particular attention to the

building envelope in terms of cladding and structure principles.

In the prototyping phase, students will experiment with materials in order to permit

the evaluation of design variations and, or to test an assembly with 3D solid free form

fabrication methodologies. Material experiments may cover wood, metals, concrete

and in particular stone.

Each phase will be accompanied with selected texts.

Students should be skilled and knowledgeable of three dimensional computer design

methodologies.

Literature:

Schmidt P.,Tietenberg A., Wollheim R., Patterns in Design, Art and Architecture

David Leatherbarrow, Mohsen Mostafavi, Surface Architecture  

Josef Albers, Interaction of Color

Mori Toshiko, Immaterial-Ultramaterial, Architecture, Design, and Materials 

Hersey George L., Architecture and Geometry in the Age of the Baroque 

D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, On Growth and Form 

Jeffrey Inaba, Koolhaas Rem, The Harvard Design School Guide to Shopping

Koolhaas Rem, Projects for Prada Part 1