Real aerodynamics or the appearance of aerodynamics? (I wouldn't expect lowering the drag coefficiency of your project will reduce its fuel costs or increase its speed.) For appearance look at Raymond Loewy and read his thoughts on streamlining. Maybe look at Eero Saarinen projects for some ideas and see what he said about his projects.

I suppose wind loads could be affected by the 'aerodynamic' design of the building. If that's how you want to attack it, I'd look at the tower in Toronto (CNN?), Saarinen's St. Louis Arch, Hadid's ski ramp, New England saltbox houses...

It might be an even more compelling response, however, to act as if this was a new issue for architecture and figure out how to frame a direct 'technology transfer' from planes/aeronautics to an architectural application.

LIFT.
I think it happens as air moves faster over the top of an air foil because of a greater distance of travel opposed to the shorter distance of travel on the bottom of the air foil (wing and propellar). That's basically what the Wright Brothers were all about (gas engine also helped).

One other thing you might think about, not exactly about aerodynamics but related to your themes: look at wind turbines. You could use them in the project somehow, for both their associative value and to free the project from the power grid.

i heard a lecture last year by Sauerbruch & Hutton Architects and they spent a bit of time discussing the issue of wind shear they faced in designing the GSW headquarters in Berlin.

http://www.sauerbruchhutton.de/portfolio/portfolio_e.html

I'd think you could find a bit more in depth information then their site offers, the building got a lot of write-ups, but essentially they designed a wing on the roof of the building mass and also designed a canopy at the entry that 'diffused' the dramatic wind shear and uplift that they anticipated at the base. interesting stuff.

Also, my boss has always talked about the system involved in dealing with the wind forces at Boston's John Hancock tower. Evidently, there is a huge concrete mass (hundreds of tons in actual weight) that moves on a set of train tracks in a mechanical floor near the top of the buiding. the system is computer controlled and is connected to the national weather service to tell it when to move and how much....the additional mass at certain points along the lenght of the building counteracts the natural torsion effects. i've never seen it but you might check it out.

I think Steven Ward has some interesting ideas on the topic of 'technology transfer'. good term, too.;-) What happens when the building doesn't move 'around' the air, but the air 'around' the building. what building types take advantage of these natural phenomena, what were the vernacular responses before builders understood the technologies? pressure differential, the chimney effect, etc....there are a lot of possibilities here, d.w.

what buildings inspire or have been inspired by moving objects...Corbu and his oceanliners, Erich Mendelsohn's Einstein Tower, or even the 'blur building by Diller/Scofidio....etc. they all move, or their landscape moves around them. what is this sensation called? is it like vertigo? how did the Wright Bros first flight feel? was it flight or controlled fall? all interesting concepts. also, look into the sculpture in downtown Dayton, Ohio:

http://www.interweave.net/davidblack/flyover.html

it traces the basic flight path over the 120 feet the wright brothers first flew.

Sauerbruch + Hutton has used aerodynamics by incorporating a kind of wing on the roof of their GSW headquarters to help the natural ventilation of the building. Don't know how efficient this was in reality, but it should be easy to find more information about the project.

Sorry, didn't see the comment by instrumentOFaction...

Real aerodynamics! What a hoot...That would be too cool for school. The tracery Instrumentofaction talks about is pregnant with imagery (as a Tweed at my University used to say) also.

I say make the fu@k#r fly baby! And then of course come crashing back down.

Wow good ideas!
Especially, our studio is trying to work on the issue of relationship between material and immaterial which can be a relationship between building and air.
I guess if I could find a way to incorperate that the movement of air through the building is creating some effect of form of the building it might be interesting.
Thanks for the good advice ppl.

The cultural centre in New Caledonia by Renzo Piano uses aerodymics for ventilation.

The nicest aerodynamic 'look' I have seen are the woodem beams in in the gardermoen airport in Oslo, Norway. I've been told its the largest wooden span in the world, but hey columbus was born in at least 20 towns. The wood is shaped like the wings of a plain. The architect is Niels torp.

a bit more on the Hancock tower thing...i wanted to finish the thought while it was still on my mind:

"....revealed by Bruno Thurlimann, a Swiss engineer who determined that the building's natural sway period was dangerously close to the period of its torsion. The result was that instead of swaying back-and-forth like a in the wind like a metronome, it bent in the middle, like a cobra. The solution was putting a pair of 300-ton tuned mass dampeners on the 58-th floor. The same engineer also determined that while the $3,000,000.00 mass dampeners would keep the building from twisting itself apart, the force of the wind could still knock it over. So 1,500 tons of steel braces were used to stiffen the tower and the Hancock building's final architectural indignity was surmounted." WOW...somebody should write this down...600 tons of concrete necessitates 1500 tons of additional steel...sweet. what a deal!

also, is this memorial going to be at Kitty Hawk, NC? what a site! I worked on a competition back in 1998(?) there and dealing with the site conditions alone is a challenge. storm surge, winds, rains, poor soils, etc...lots of 'pregnant imagery' as Alpha put it...hey, if you can make the thing fly...Git'r done! how about a catapult at the memorial that will throw visitors 120 feet across the sand? no, probably not a good idea. ;-)

Hi

If the building shuld reflect flying the first choice is difficult < shuld it reflect the first planes with a minimum of materials enginous solutions making a huge wing with no weight a vowen structure of strings and panels or must it reflect the design trends in the dreamliner of Boeing.
Maby both beside point into the future.
Anyway the first crafts was very much formed from the technikes that could bring such structures, boatsbuilding and technikes to produce the lifting planes ,wires and woodwork ,where you shuld not underestimate the ability of wood as even today it is difficult to find a material that in so many applications offer the same varaity of strength and formability , ----- I would be keen not to make such structure just point to the pioneers as if you look into the fast evolution in plane design and construction ,then you will se how much impac design trends there do.
My suggestion is not to forget the neat wire and canvas but also try visit places like Boeing ;
http://www.boeing.com/flash.html

(btw F.A.A. said that 3D-H is an exiting new method for small planes
;))

you could take a look at Formula 1 technology if your looking for more info on aerodynamics. they do amazing forms with carbon fiber systems. though not really about flying, it's more about keep the car on the ground [upside down wind].

Poor Corell, the FAA has other things to worry about, like funding the damn airport I'm working on. Please leave them alone, I hear they are short on bandwidth...

Please don't make some sculptural bs like Dull ass or that californian that uses aircraft drafting software to design faceted roofs for museums. Please.

Hi

Well that\s what you think but it\s true that it is not easy to find the right addresses esp. for the big companies, but you proberly be surprised what that agency cover.
Anyway from the start and looking at aeroplanes from a structural piont of view one thing you will notis is how much the fuselage look like a boats hull. Now Im\e talking about the early planes where you se ribs and skin ,now try put youirself in the fragile panelings place ; the ribs are there mainly to hold the shape ,mostly to make a framework for the thin panels, the panels that is often asked to carry most of the forces and the ribs to do the best producing a honeycomb structure, where this is possible but rather as a side effect when other parts are fixed. How much stronger wouldn't a fuselage be, if thinking wasn't focused on how things alway's was done, Anyway don't this just reflect in architecture where we acturly still make houses in clay and timbers ,where an architect deal with what persenteage he can earn and where architecture is most often knowing the crafts and having a huge experience about tradisional crafts and making the money on the materials bought.

Anyway you somhow say that I don't tell truth do you realy think Im'e the person who would brag why shuld I and realy when I have what I say documented, then plase look at what you are saying and in what manner, ------ when I say there are other way's to perform a fuselage you can already se attemts to do that in a specific WW2 plane, but why shuld I attemt to continue a serious discussion when I feel I am talking to the bar in the local yarts club.

Hi

Gustav, you are quite right when performing a building you shuld not attemt to make it look as somthing you don't even realised, don't have a fundamental perception about can't feel or reconise, --- that building will be just that and it don't help if the story is about somthing you must ask the engineer to translate, then you don't know the language.

Realy I think that putting somthing like on display ask the architect to be a bit humble, you can be that without shouting it, you can acturly project somthing that serve a porpus and this is realy playing a lot safer, than just thinking in icons.

"Realy I think that putting somthing like on display ask the architect to be a bit humble, you can be that without shouting it, you can acturly project somthing that serve a porpus and this is realy playing a lot safer, than just thinking in icons."

Wow, take some of your own advice Poor Corell.

Hi

Eh --- it\s a bit difficult to se your point as what are you raely talking about, your perception or what you think ,what I say or the essence of my pictures , what you pt up in words or what I point to in graphics ?

You se I don't "say" very much I open a channel so you can flog your thoughts, --- don't let me ansver for your thoughts they are yours not mine, as you se my messeage and the things I put forth is not what you refere all you seem to refere is how you can twist your own thoughts now all you need to be perfect is to throw some dirt and say the one you hit stink, ---- isn't that and not architecture your buisness already, anyway that's how I read your words .
Now why don't you yourself come up with somthing better is that to difficult, is throwing dirt much more easy.

The art of dirt throwing ;

Throw some dirt, then say he stink.

Progressing architecture right ?

Hi

What about not hiding behind a usenet name, what about showing some guts, or is you that much chicken that all you perform is dirt throwing and then hiding behind a false name, ---- don't this just tell everything whan reading what you have on your mind, you can't even use your own name what's that guts ? no.

Can you show better, do your visions carry you further than throwing dirt and this way show what your mind carry.

Well alphanumericcha, We is awaiting, plop, plop, fiz, fiz.

A little humility IS a good idea Mr. Corell. Your hypocrisy is what I am reacting to.

My comments hear are intended to help d.w. with his project, not show him, and all looking, what I am doing and how it is better.

Then you say, "Realy I think that putting somthing like on display ask the architect to be a bit humble, you can be that without shouting it, you can acturly project somthing that serve a porpus and this is realy playing a lot safer, than just thinking in icons."

What percentages of your comments are regarding your honeycomb idea? What percentages of your posts are regarding your honeycomb idea? How are you not shouting?

Engage with us about something else for one week, and then you'll be just fine.

Generally concern yourself with a broader range of subjects and ideas. I am not critiquing your "work" (because frankly I am not smart enough to read into it) just your means of promoting it. Or maybe I am just criticizing your choice of venues.

In a place concerned with communicating ideas and offering help to a large group of varied people like this, in order for you to be taken seriously; you have some work to be done. I am sure you can switch gears and prove me wrong.

Thanks for your effort in advance...

is anyone at the least bit intrigued by the idea of a memorial to flight that is rooted to the ground? you want to think? think like a bird, get your head in the clouds, perruse the Education of an Architect, then come back and tell us if the memorial pavillion needs to be a physical structure, an event, a ritual, all three or whatever, but please don't tell me the answer is a "structure"...

Hi
How will you se a structure perform as words ?
How can you expect to picture an object that belong to the air, to be reflected in a building on ground , make a hangar for heaven sake show those nice planes but do it in a building that turn invisible.

You don't think such one can be made. tja.

Beta do your words transorm into somthing not to be seen but known and reconised, will you extract form and function from paper or will it ever go strait into manufactoring the actural pieces, mu´st you form each brick in clay so it is not a structure must we force those who havn't got the feel or experience to perform our childrens houses, or don't you want structure for them or yourself aswell. Don't you think even an hangar can be made sweet. --- well why not when a memorial can be words and a plane hangar invisible.

If you don't have ground, how can you have lift?

ok, can we all just clear something up? d.w., is this project the same as listed in Alex's School Blog? Does the program include housing 3 of the Wright Bros aircrafts and a small exhibit space? If so, we can wax poetic for days about the translation of act/sensation/point in time into built form, but i think that the idea of this project as a 'building' makes it quite different from a 'memorial' which may or may not include conditioned space. If we really want to help you, d.w., we'd best get our ducks in a row, eh? what are we talking about here?

Although i can't/won't speak for anyone on this forum, i can see that we are all moving towards this idea of tranlation. translating an act in history, telling a story, showcasing a REPLICA of the mechanical device used to dedicate that act into history, memorializing a place, people, a moment in time......not to mention the ideas involving the mechanization of society, 'the end of our grounded innocence' or any other metaphysical topic involving technology translating into more metaphorical building technologies.

The botoom line is that we need your take on this d.w. or at least the take your profs had in writing the program in order to help streamline this discussion. and btw...i'm with beta...this thing doesn't instantly have to be a structure at all. Make a choice about what you are 'memorializing' if that is the task...or is it 'recognizing' or is it 'documenting' or all of the above...why is it a single structure if it is one at all?...what about a pavilion for each object/use...what about the site or the act motivates you? what type of interaction do you want a visitor to have with the jewels in your jewelry box? Decide on your intention then dictate the program accordingly.

along those lines, gustav...is the site perhaps the most important thing here? As an Ohioan, we always got a bit miffed that North Carolina took the 'first in flight' slogan...i mean, shouldn't it have read, "North Carolina, a place with good wind"? maybe i'm just bitter. either way...why did the Wright Bros move their operation out there one summer? they weren't doing well financially IIRC and it wasn't for convenience...it was because of the wind.

so...we find our way back to aerodynamics...or do we? do we find our way back, instead, to harnessing/celebrating the site conditions? what is it about that small rise with the downward slope?...didn't they also place a wooden track into the ground to help guide the intitial lift? isn't that the first memorial to the act?

".....Despite bad weather and a broken propeller shaft they managed to get the new machine put together. With the engine the craft tipped the scales at over 600 pounds without a pilot. This meant that it could not be launched by having crewmen pull it along by its wingtips as was the case with earlier gliders, so the brothers built a wooden track. The flyer would roll along the track on a wheeled dolly that would be left behind when the plane took off. The craft would then land on a pair of skids.

On December 17, 1903, the brothers were ready to try a powered flight from level ground. An earlier test a few days before had led to a crashed flying machine and forced several days worth of repairs. With help from the nearby Lifesaving Station the brothers laid the takeoff track and positioned the aircraft. A coin was tossed to see who would be the pilot and Orville won. At 10:35 AM the engine was revved up and the restraining wire was released. The flyer, under its own power, picked up speed and was going about seven or eight miles an hour when it lifted off the track. It climbed to about ten feet, then settled gently to the ground. The flight was short, only a little over a hundred feet, but it was the first time a manned, heavier-than-air vehicle had gotten off the ground under its own power in controlled flight and landed at a spot as high as it had started from."

Hi
Right and don't forget they also said that nothing heavier than air would ever fly and ships out of iron would ofcaurse sink, don't forget the context.
It did fly and it did land it could be measured and documented but the vision transformed as soon as it did. Now seperat buildings is no bad idear but if the weather is so bad what's wrong with a shelter, you know you don't need a roof to make the ground dry if only you cover just the right arear it will be dry.

obviously you've never been to the outer banks, Per...try horizontal winds and rains at typhoon/hurricane speeds...if this thing has to house the replicas and exhibit space (and i'm not sure of that...i'm just taking a guess that this is the same project as Alex') then this MUST be a substantial structure...but that doesn't mean that a separate 'memorial' has to be treated the same way.

also, if you are going to do a structure or a memorial...wouldn't you also want the whole 'preservation' aspect of the planes carry over into the view and vista...i would think preserving the site of the flight itself would be very important.

Hi

I did pee on salt water but you don\t fight nature by breaking the winds. As long as we don\t need to ecape the problems of architecture by building under ground and a memorial have to stay in words I guess you reconise that there are many way\s to change the winds and structure can do that, but not without an attitude, back then canvas and wires could perform that , heavy stones would even beat the winds but when you know how few gram a building realy force the ground pr. sq.cm. you could wonder if the whole thing couldn\t be made in one piece and still stay on ground even it would look as it alway\s was there.
Now you speak about somthing to last, how many years do any of these architectural icons acturly survive in those lame materials in that square fasion.

Instrument:
You are treating this project like somekind of science project in the lab.
Boring. Where is the life you are leaving out of this smelly dissected frog?

perhaps that is where the poetics of this project is, in the lab, as science...science can be poetic if you know what you are doing....

next.

...and who said anything about site specific or site, at all?

In this case it may be more important not knowing what you are doing.
Final.

If you want science, break loose of the classic outlook, it is old and tired.

Maybe you can make a Frankenstein in your lab, some life!

Pioneer of aerodynamics
they thought he was real smart alec
he thought big they called it a phallic
they didn't know he was panoramic
little eiffel stands in the archway
keeping low doesn't make no sense
sometimes people can be oh so dense
they didn't want it but he built it anyway
little eiffel stands in the archway
keeping low don't make sense
keeping low doesn't make no-sense
little eiffel stands in the archway
oh alexander i see you beneath
the archway of aerodynamics.

eiffel tower

may not be what you had in mind as an inhabitable or enclosed structure, but logistically and scientifically something you should look at. due to drag coefficients/lift, if placed in an air cylinder, the structure weight would be negligible.

gustav...trying to get your post count up?

If archinect is supposed to be about supporting and helping members of this community, we need to start with an understanding of the problem posed by the initial poster. i asked about the challenge posed to d.w. by his studio project. I asked the question 12-13 posts ago and agreed with Beta that maybe this didn't have to be a structure at all. Is the project about building a permanent enclosure or is it just about lofty ephemeral ideals? i don't know, that's why i asked. Do you know?

NO? well, then keep your mouth shut about the questions asked until you can verify it. Maybe this project doesn't have a site as you suggest and is just meant to be an exercise of place-making or memorialization...d.w. hasn't told us yet. I asked questions that amounted to site investigtion, context (both historical and enviromental) and programming....That is as much Architecture as the theory to back it all up and take it to the next level of interpretation. FINAL.

what's the meaning of flying
why they(we) want to fly against the will of nature(gravity)
what takes in physically and philosophically to fly (it takes guys like Newton or Einstein)
how deviant experience is flying (think about taking plane for 12 hours)
i want to scratch these issues here in my design
may be it is broad and arbitrary to put into a single concept since it is really a early stage of the project, i want to learn about things as much as i can to use them later.
anyway i think the most interesting aspect of flying is that it is against gravity which is hard and which takes certain conditions to be able to fly.
i am not really sure if i stick to the phenomena of being in the air (lifted by force) or to the conditions to make it possible to be in that condition of being in the air, in other words should it be more of experience(immaterial) or more of technology(material).

why not both? i am hooked. this doesn't have to be a static structure. what if by a confluence of events wind speed, jet stream, barometric pressure etc...were to occur and something physically changes, lifts, happens...? i think you are on the right track, i don't think it has to be an either or, don't feel like you have to "complete" something especially if you are working on something particularly extraordinary. good luck.

There you go d.w.! Exactly right. Beta and I have talking about just that. One of us more obtusely probably... Reach for the sky and crash. Right on buddy, how natural is it for us to fly? Sure science is the only way we can. And this is a memorial of men trying to fly after all isn't it. Get the place engaged with the idea now. Good work!

That was the easy part. Now show us how you do it please. You have me hooked too. Cool project.

Hi

Alfa ;

"Reach for the sky and crash. Right on buddy, how natural is it for us to fly?"

Now that is realy the right aproach for cave digging,

But why is it that first "we" shuld all join in and then somone else have to "show".
alfanumericca and betadinesutures, I wonder if you two are the same one guy posting -- that rtealy would reflect Usenet.

Hi
DW ;

"anyway i think the most interesting aspect of flying is that it is against gravity which is hard and which takes certain conditions to be able to fly.
i am not really sure if i stick to the phenomena of being in the air (lifted by force) or to the conditions to make it possible to be in that condition of being in the air, in other words should it be more of experience(immaterial) or more of technology(material)."

Sorry I can not agrea ,this is not about showing how bound we are but about somthing quite else. Erecting that claim in a structure show not the reach for the sky but the fear of leaving earth this manifest is not the right aproach concerning where this vision point.

DW keep on keeping on...ignore the two posts above it will only confuse the shit out of you...


by the by what is usenet, i confess my pigeon carrying internet provider only lets me get every 30th post....