Voluminous Interconnections

period: august ‘13 – december ’13
studio: Vertical studio at Rensselaer Architecture School
teacher: prof. arch. Fleet Hower, prof. arch. Matias Del campo
team work: Michael Miwa
location: —
project program: digital generation

The goal of this work is analyze the spaces generated to the geologic process of honeycombs weathering. The result of geological processes is the generation of geometrical shapes. The search for new geometries starts from physical analysis of the process and then with the production of physical and digital models. The definition of new geometries is the foundation for study of many unexplored spatiality.
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GEOLOGIC RESEARCH

Honeycomb weathering can be caused by a variety of factors, including wind erosion, exfoliation, frost shattering and salt weathering. In this case, the project is focused on salt weathering. This first involves salt water being applied to a porous rock typically by wind or crashing waves. The rock needs to be porous enough to allow salt water to enter through the rock minerals.
Consequently, the rocks that are most often affected by honeycomb weathering include semi-arid granites, sandstone and limestone. The salt within the liquid begins to crystallize and, due to heat, the salt expands and exerts pressure on the confining rock to a point where rock is wedged out, resulting in rock depressions.

...↑ . honeycomb weathered rock section

↑. Honeycomb weathering in . Yeliu Promontory _ Taiwan . Wairarapa coastline _ New Zealand

INITIAL EXPERIMENTATION

To mimic this process, first was applied acetone to foam. The acetone consumes the air within and between each foam ball, making it seem like the foam is being eaten up, resulting in interesting depressions. However, it was not helpful in our objective of finding architectural conditions in our project. Later was used foam glue, sand, rock and gravel. It was hoped the foam glue would generate interesting volumes.
However, because of the rock, sand and gravel sticking to the foam glue, it did not produce any geometries that were similar to that of our geological observation; there were no depressions produced as a result of the sand, rock or gravel.
Therefore was added ice to the mixture. This did produce depressions similar to honeycomb weathering, but there was not point in keeping the sand and rock with the mixture.
Eventually, just was used foam glue and ice, resulting in qualities similar to honeycomb weathering.

↑ . foam glue and ice model section

2013-10-11 at 16-17-00 2013-10-11 at 16-19-49 2013-10-11 at 16-19-43

↑ . final physical model: foam glue and ice

↑ . initial models: .foam and acetone .foam glue and sand .foam glue, sand and stone .foam glue and ice

GENERATIVE SIMULATION

In attempting to express structure and volume through computational medium, we began with code involving two agent groups interacting with one another: the “glue” agents and “ice” agents, represented as dots. The ice agents were given a barrier of a certain radius around themselves; the barrier forced the glue agent to not go through it, but around it, as if it were glue acting around real ice.

Before the code could be processed, the ice agent positions and sizes needed to be created. We created a system of smaller ice agents surrounding a line of larger ice agents grouped together. We wanted to show a series of volumes engulfed by a multitude of structural components. We then used color to emphasize the project’s volume. The voluminous and structural aspects can be identified by the blue volume and the white structural chaotic strands.

In our initial code iterations, the ice agents did not move. In order to further mimic our physical model, we created a code that allowed the ice agents to be attracted to each other depending on the distance one ice agent was from the other. In the end, as seen from the final project, multiple individual large volumes that were once all connected to each other now became grouped larger volumes.

Initially, the range we set established a cylinder shaped barrier for the glue to travel within. Later, we manipulated this range in order to create a larger base. We believed that creating a base would more structure to the project and would allow a more interesting connection between the project’s tower and ground. Through variation in ice agent position and size, the use of color, allowing the ice agents to move, and the change in range that limited how far the ice could travel, we created a system of interconnected elements that express structure and volume.