Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Refections
THE GOOD
Talking to other students after our presentation they said that what they liked about our project was it gave a purpose to the assembly of the flat pack systems. One comment was that while other peoples designs were limited to making squares, rectangles and L shapes our design was flexible enough to evolve depending on the opportunities of the site and the needs of the community.
I'm glad that our peers were able to pick up on this idea because it was after all the basis of our project. Since flat pack architecture is by its own nature segmented and compartmentalised, comparisons to natural systems can quite easily be drawn on to guide the project and this idea of evolution was the best way for Linka and I to express our design. As the project develops we as designers would slowly relinquish control and change from suppliers of a product to providers of a service, which we felt would be the most effective way to utilize the flexible and customisable nature of flat pack systems.
THE BAD
The majority of comments from the tutors related to resolution of the fine details of our design, such as how do the joints in every instance within the design. Unlike other groups linka and I chose to focus on the possibilities of a flat pack system rather than a single iteration, because of this our joining systems were not completely resolved. This is an understandable request as the joints and the fixings of a flat pack system are very important as they must work without the designers intervention. Given more time I have no doubt Linka and I would have been able to resolve these technical issues, however, we felt that it was more beneficial to explore the concept of flat pack architecture rather than just a single resolution.
The other comment made was to be careful of the kinds of imagery and forms created by the structure. It was noted that our 4th stage of evolution looked very similar to the Portuguese ecclesiastical buildings in area and this should definitely be taken into consideration as in the Timor Leste culture the building may have completely different connotations which might be at odds with what its intended use is. The building in question was for ceremonial purposes as well as gatherings so in this respect the ecclesiastic nature of the form may well suit the intended use, however, more research and greater communication with the local people would need to be undertaken before any assumptions are made.
Cells
A cell is;
"An autonomous self-replicating unit that may exist as functional independent unit of life (as in the case of unicellular organism), or as sub-unit in a multicellular organism (such as in plants and animals) that is specialized into carrying out particular functions towards the cause of the organism as a whole" (http://www.biology-online.org/dictionary/Cell)
UNICELLULAR ORGANISMS
A unicellular organism is simply an organism that consists of one cell and generally refers to micro-organism such as bacteria and some algae such as diatoms. Unicellular organisms are the simplest of life forms and epitomise the two fundamental principles of life; reproduction and survival. Flat pack architecture in essence is like a unicellular life form, a flat pack system is a kit of parts (like the DNA in a cell) which combine to form a space or an object in order to address a singular problem, whether that be shelter from the elements, storage or an expression of ownership. Embedded in this unicellular nature is the idea of autonomy which when translated into unicellular flat pack systems means that the space would have limited interaction with its environment and focus purely on the task it was designed for.
diatoms
bacteria
algae
MULTICELLULAR ORGANISMS
By comparison a multicellular organism is comprised of many cells in order to accomplish vital functions such as reproduction and survival. Multicellular organisms are orders of magnitude more complicated than unicellular ones and the interaction between cells becomes more important as a result. Multicellular organisms rely on the interaction between various sets of specialised cells to accomplish task. In the case of a person, we rely on input from the specialised cells that make up our 5 senses as well as nervous, muscular and skeletal systems to perceive and interact with our environment and each other. In a similar way a flat pack system should be able to evolve from a simple one use, unicellular, structure to a complex conglomeration of different members, joints and claddings to better address the changing needs of its users and the natural and social environments which these structures occupy.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Expressing Evolution
A look into various types of video's on the topic of evolution provided interesting ways in which evolution can be expressed. It was interesting to note that very few of the video's had a smooth evolution, there were always gaps in the evolution story.
The Guinness Ad was entertaining. It looked at devolution instead of evolution but it was very effective in getting the point across about waiting.
The evolution of technology ad was an abstraction of the evolution of machinery to computers using animal forms. It would seem that most evolution sequences that involve animals always start in the ocean and eventually end up with humans.
This idea of small oceanic life form to human evolution is also explored in Fatboy Slims music video "right here right now"
A variation on this uncontrolled evolution is the deliberate transformation in the dove ad. Instead of having evolution without an end goal the dove ad serves to show that evolution can have an objective, but then again that would imply that when the evolution has stopped they have reached perfection.
Allotropic Material
Allotropic material can be defined as a material that has take on a variety of different forms despite being made up of the same element. The best example of this is carbon which has 8 Allotropic states, which are;
a) Diamond
b) Graphite
c) Lonsdaleite
d) C60 (Buckminsterfullerene / buckyball)
e) C540
f) C70
g) Amorphous Carbon
h) singe walled carbon nanotube or buckytube
This ability for a material such as carbon to be both, in one form can be the hardest material know to man and in another be soft enough to be used as a writing implement is something that greatly interested me and was a idea that I based the basic forms of our flat pack system around. A flat pack system is similar to carbon atoms in that they are all very similar to take advantage of economies of scale, however, depending on the needs of the occupants the geometries and structure of the system should be able to change to suit. One of the draw backs of taking this property of carbon and directly applying it to a flat pack system is that while it its structure is flexible it is limited to very basic physical problems such as resisting gravity and spatial considerations. There isn't much in the allotripic theory that dictates how the materials respond to unique situations such as site and culture, which is understandable because of its minute scale. Because of this a flat pack system cannot be purely allotropic, it also needs to be evolutionary and become more complex as the needs of the users become more elaborate.
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