Archinect - News

andblack design studio creates a modular, prefabricated black box theater with multifunctional use

2023-06-22T17:37:00-04:00

Kanika and Jwalant Mahadevwala, architects and founding partners of andblack design studio, have created a multifunctional black box theater design that uses parametric models to "allow customization of several variables to achieve the specified volume." Their design prototype, Darwin Bucky, is a prefabricated kit of parts made of wood, aluminum, steel, and glass.

Designed for Abhay Mangaldas, founder of India-based startup Darwin, the lightweight modular panel design is a flat-pack system that emphasizes versatile on-site assembly.

Darwin Bucky assembly. Image © Vinay Panjwani.

According to the architects, Darwin Bucky is a "black box that can be used as an exhibition gallery, a town hall, an expo center, a performance arena, or even serve as a bar or a nightclub. It is designed to be placed in public gardens, exhibition grounds, or even in a city center."

Aerial view of Darwin Bucky site. Image © Vinay Panjwani.

Without the need for a ...

How algorithms designed the sound of the new Hamburg concert hall

2017-08-30T18:30:00-04:00

Detached from the rest of the building for soundproofing reasons, the 10,000 panels that line the central auditorium are the result of parametric design, a process of creating multiple individual designs using algorithms. A million individual cells ranging from four to 16cm long are cut out from the panels [...] The ivory coloured gypsum fiber acoustic panels contain a seashell motif and were designed by Swiss architect Herzog & De Meuron with help from German studio One to One.

Interior view of the central concert hall. Photo: Iwan Baan.

"It would be insane to do this by hand," GCR quotes Benjamin Koren, founder of One to One, the studio that created the design algorithm for the concert hall's acoustic panels. "That’s the power of parametric design. I hit play, and it creates a million cells, all different and all based on these parameters. I have 100% control over setting up the algorithm, and then I have no more control.”

Photo: Johannes Arlt

"But always with Zaha’s DNA"

2016-10-29T13:33:00-04:00

"The importance to Zaha was the layering, setting a new structure over the old one” that would both read at a distance and liberate ground for public space. And Patrik wanted the new structure to overshoot the fire station and land on a single point."

On the occasion of the opening of Zaha Hadid Architects, Port House in Antwerp, Joseph Giovannini reflects on the afterlife of Dame Zaha Mohammad Hadid, DBE.

Further images of the “floating” Port House in Antwerp were published previously, here.

Additionally, earlier this year Archinect shared the official announcement from Zaha Hadid Architects about plans to continue under Patrik Schumacher's leadership. More recently, Patrik Schumacher has further explained the parametric future he plans for ZHA.

Patrik Schumacher lays out his dreams for 'Parametricism 2.0,' post-Zaha

2016-10-27T13:45:00-04:00

He calls critics “dismissive” and “disdainful.” He accuses architects of “misguided political correctness,” and says they are guilty of “confusing architecture and art.” Schumacher has turned his criticism on his own practice, rolling out plans for what he calls “Parametricism 2.0,” to better address the human factors like productivity, social interaction, culture, and well-being that detractors used to say Hadid ignored. “I have to step up,” Schumacher says. “I will build my own star power.”

Patrik Schumacher on the parametric future he plans for ZHA

2016-09-12T13:25:00-04:00

[Schumacher] sees parametricism as the architectural style of capitalism, to which he is a relatively recent convert. “My early heroes were Marx, Lenin and Trotsky, people who wanted to make an impact”, but he now believes that free enterprise is the best means of the “human development of prosperity and freedom”. The innate logic of parametricism means that, in a truly free market, with “freer utilisation of land”, it would eventually triumph.

Patrik Schumacher sits down with Rowan Moore, and share his plans to assert a parametricist future as Zaha Hadid's successor at ZHA. Moore isn't exactly convinced.

What architects (and not just parametricists) can learn from 'No Man's Sky' – an astronomical, procedurally generating video game

2016-08-19T16:45:00-04:00

Hello Games has created its own periodic table of elements for the universe of No Man’s Sky ... This allows them to generate 1.8 quintillion planets that are all different from one another and built governing the inherent logic set forth. [...] “It is no longer about designing a final object or a product, but about designing or configuring the system or the process of their formation—the underlying code, algorithm, or procedure that can generate not just one but multiple outcomes.”

Latest University of Westminster Burning Man studio project needs a Kickstart

2016-05-11T14:32:00-04:00

For the past several years, tutors Arthur Mamou-Mani and Toby Burgess' University of Westminster design studio DS10 has helped students develop installation designs for Burning Man, many of which have gone on to be realized on the festival's grounds. This year, the parametrically-inspired, purposefully all-caps-titled design "PURSUIT" by fifth-year student Joshua Potter is hoping to be among those projects that make it to Black Rock City, thanks in part to his Kickstarter.

Potter used an arrowhead as his conceptual starting point, gradually deriving the six principal tower-like timber members of the structure's geometry through a mathematical process known as Pursuit Curvature.

Described by Potter as "an interactive art installation that celebrates humanity's ongoing quest for Peace, Freedom and Joy - in Life, Love and Art" the project has about another $22K to raise by May 16th.

In which the merits and disappointments of Burning Man are discussed with some fervor:

Gentrification of Bu...

Editor's Picks #437

2015-12-16T11:51:00-05:00

Nicholas Korody penned a double review; of 'The Geological Imagination' and 'The Underdome Guide to Energy Reform'. He finds "The two books also help illuminate some of the difficulties in perceiving climate change, while offering some potentials for movement" and goes on to reference "enmeshment", systems thinking and dark ecology.

Plus, Robert Urquhart took stock of how The Bartlett and the Architectural Association are "bringing emerging technologies into the UK's architecture education".

News
Denise Scott Brown, along with her husband Robert Venturi, have won the 2016 AIA Gold Medal. Snubbed of the 1991 Pritzker Prize when Venturi was named as the only laureate, Scott Brown is the second female recipient of the Gold Medal.

In honor of the happy and historic occasion, Denise Scott Brown appeared on Archinect Sessions #45.

To DWLindeman it "is splendid good news, and a long overdue award...Robert Venturi was right to say to the AIA ‘not without Denise.’ This is also a very significan...

Refik Anadol's new "data sculpture" unveiled at the SOM-designed 350 Mission in San Francisco

2015-12-07T20:12:00-05:00

The first permanent publicly-viewable artwork by Refik Anadol, a media artist known for his immersive, site-specific light installations, was recently unveiled in San Francisco. Virtual Depictions: San Francisco, a series of "data sculptures" based on a publicly-available dataset, occupies a 40 ft. screen in the lobby of 350 Mission and involved collaborations with the building's architects, Skidmore, Owings and Merill, and developer, Kilroy Realty.

"The ambient qualities of urban ecologies, as we as civilizations create them in specific geographic locations, are coming to the forefront of cultural production," Anadol told Archinect. "With the advent of digital media and environmental consciousness we now are able, more so than any at other point in human history, to access the formal qualities of the ambient environment in terms of the built, social and natural environments."

"Through sensors, databases, and visualization we can collect information on the real-time dynamics of citie...

A glimpse of eVolo's latest book, "Digital & Parametric Architecture"

2014-07-22T18:09:00-04:00

From the creators of the popular Skyscraper Competition, you can now get your hands on a copy of eVolo's latest book, "Digital & Parametric Architecture".

This 312-page book dives into the "architecture of the future" — from the development of the latest digital tools to how they are utilized in a variety of digitally designed and fabricated projects.

"Digital & Parametric Architecture explores the development of the latest digital tools including advance-modeling software and computer aided design in the production of architecture. It is a journey through the most fascinating projects, digitally designed and fabricated, during the second decade of the 21st century. "

"The book highlights the use of these technologies to explore tectonic operations such as sectioning, folding, contouring, and tessellating. A wide variety of projects that range in scale and location offer an insight into the architecture of the future."

You can purchase the book here.

Editor's Picks #292

2012-12-04T11:42:00-05:00

b3tadine[sutures] concurred "i love it. that work of this complexity and beauty is being built in Dallas, let alone the US, is testament to Mayne and Morphosis being one of the premiere firms in the world”. However, some like accesskb argued "beautiful forms and spaces... ugly and cold choice of materials and colours".

News
The post announcing the opening of the Perot Museum of Nature and Science, designed by Morphosis Architects and which opened this past Saturday in Dallas, featured some great photos by the photographer Iwan Baan. Cosmos commented "Everything about this building is great. Function, construct-ability, massing, circulation, materials, contextual awareness, technology, aesthetics/ design sensibility, etc...” and b3tadine[sutures] concurred "i love it. that work of this complexity and beauty is being built in Dallas, let alone the US, is testament to Mayne and Morphosis being one of the premiere firms in the world”.

However, some like accesskb argued "beautiful forms and spaces... ugly and cold choice of materials and colours". Thayer-D also believed “This type of ‘throw it on the wall and see if it sticks’ type of builidng is so common that it makes me wonder why this one should elicit so much commentary...Some of their earlier work was truly sensuous and warm, but this bu...

Neo-baroque or 'sci-fi' gothic: Michael Hansmeyer's computational columns debut

2011-04-11T16:44:51-04:00

This project 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.

"A full-scale, 2.7-meter high variant of the columns is fabricated as a layered model using 1mm sheet. Each sheet is individually cut using a mill or laser. Sheets are stacked and held together by poles that run through a common core.

The calculation of the cutting path for each sheet takes place in several steps. First, the six million faces of the 3D model are intersected with a plane representing the sheet. This step generates a series of individual line segments that are tested for self-intersection and subsequently combined to form polygons. Next, a polygon-in-polygon test deletes interior polygons. A series of filters then ensures that convex polygons with peninsulas maintain a mininimum isthmus width. In a final step, an interior offset is calculated with the aim of hollowing out the slice to reduce weight."

Via Michael Hansmeyer & CNN