digital aptitudes - Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture

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SATURDAY, MARCH 3, 2012 - 12:30PM - 2:00PM Architecture Continued Thick-It is the result of research conducted in partnership with a local hardwood mill to consider novel ways to utilize the byproducts of their manufacturing process. Thick-It focuses on the use of linear wood cut-offs generated by the standard lengthwise cutting (ripping) of non-standard boards. This wood is high-grade hardwood but it lacks dimensional consistency that renders it useless in standard wood construction. Thick-It develops its potential as a viable architectural material. The project activates an alternative life for this material as a thick, woody, interior. The first act in the design process is one of optimism—the flipping of a perceived limitation into an opportunity. Despite having little to offer as a standardized building element the wood edges do offer up a unique quality: mass… and lots of it. The mill produces these pieces faster than it can grind them up and burn the chips. This affords an opportunity to rethink the models of economy that are associated with most building systems, including wood, which tend toward optimization as minimum thickness and maximum performance. Thick-It flips this model upside down, conceiving of an extreme thickness from which space is carved. Instead of lining the shell, the wood is oriented perpendicular to it—hanging from the ceiling and projecting up from the ground. Scripted patterns govern the orientation and length of each piece, aligning them with virtual ordering systems that create gradual swells of volume that envelop the body. The natural textures of the wood and various marks of its manufacturing history beckon the touch of those who pass through. Ultimately, this kind of work has the potential to shape the world from the inside-out. Innovation and integration are defined by the strategic insertion of foreign (i.e., digital) codes into existing streams of production. This approach forgoes the ambition to restructure entire manufacturing processes in favor of a more targeted strategy of cleaving space for design within established protocols. In the end, Thick-It’s story offers up a new narrative of architectural production—one where architectural agents configure guerilla scripts to reshape the detritus of global mass-production. Such an agent may be more akin to a DJ than a scientist, constantly composing new aesthetic mixtures from the matter at her fingertips. Tingle Room Adam Fure, University of Michigan Ellie Abrons Predominately governed by efficiency, maximization, and building standards, the architectural liner (i.e., floor, ceiling, and wall) is most often built as a thin, taught surface. Its standardization produces a blankness that is then adorned with window dressings, colored paint, and personal artifacts. Tingle Room challenges this thin surface by transforming it into a deep volume, unlocking a space within the thickness of the wall, and ultimately moving architecture from blank backdrop to active participant. The project employs a tension between multiple material states: those that resonate with the existing structure—a repurposed, single-family home in Detroit—and those that are foreign; materials that are highly worked and finished and those that are rough or raw; materials that play more than one role in the structure, de- 40 - ACSA 100th Annual Meeting tailing, and finishing of the space and those that are extraneous or ornamental. To do this, the standard functions of materials are redefined, distorted, or multiplied in order to exploit latent qualities that contribute to the rich experience of the space. Avoiding a fundamentalist attitude towards the use of particular materials, they are burnt, painted, smothered or otherwise manipulated in order to extend their possible qualitative effects. There are no material essences to be found, only evocative textures, colors, and forms that offer up new associations and sensations. Formally, the project creates a space within a space—a room within a room—coating the existing floor, ceiling, and walls with a new architectural surface comprised of plywood panels, insulation foam, and steel cable. The thickening of the architectural liner allows formal ruptures to cleave space between multiple interior surfaces. As the plywood breaks apart it reveals foam insulation that is thickened, carved, and poked into a coarse surface that is painted in rich, vibrant colors. The suspension cables, typically positioned sparsely on a taught grid, are multiplied and extended beyond their requisite length to create a cloud of thin tendrils. The layering of formal variation, material texture, and vivid color obscures an instantaneous or complete “reading” of the space; instead propelling the participant to perceive and sense multiple dimensions that unfold over time as they move through it. In other words, each material creates its own pattern, but none is visible as a whole at any one point. More akin to a manifold than a veneer, each pattern fades in and out of focus, yielding an experience that vacillates between the realms of the haptic, the visual, and the conceptual.
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digital aptitudes - Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture

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