areodynamic matrix

My idea behind this matrix was areodynamics. The race car as a whole is areodynamic, but the fender itself is not. After I did a few readings and looking at the car as a whole I tried to apply those priniples when I put together the matrix. The two moves I applied were a widening of the body and an attempt at what would be a spoilier on the rear.

Roller Coaster Studio

Roller Coaster construction is determined by the site, and from the process that Alejandro Zaera-Polo describes, the design process was a roller coaster ride in itself. The geometries and structure of his project were changed several times throughout its duration, with the final product differing greatly from the proposal. He says that he would not have been able to adapt to the new versions of his design if he had not broken free of the standard architectural design conventions.

As I read this article I could not help but relate much of it to our studio. The most literal interpretation being the constant ups and downs, good days and bad days that fill our week are similar to that of a roller coaster. The other, related to a comment that some seasoned architects refuse to learn anymore because the have developed their own style and that's what they choose to work with. Sometimes our studio critics try and make us work similar to themselves, giving out certain requirements that they seem to find necessary. The need for everything to be hand drawn for instance, some critics are stuck in the "static past" of architecture and feel that is all that is necessary. Not to say hand drawings should be thrown out, but a generous blending of hand and computer modeling is the direction that our generation of architects is heading in.

Doctors are always reading and always learning, till the very end of their careers. Architects should be doing the same, there is no reason for them to stop learning. For all intents and purposes, architects are the surgeons of the built environment, designing the skin that covers the earth.

car parts

skin and folds?

I feel that Deleuze has given the perfect example of an architecture that we (subconsciencely or otherwise) strive for. The majority of us try to incorporate some form of curve, fold, or skin into our designs for studio because we know that we are capable of building forms like these now. But why do we? I think that we are trying to make a more appealing architecture, and in order for architecture to be more appealing it must be accepted by our senses as something pleasing. I am unsure why but the form of the curve, that occurs naturally in our environment, has something beautiful about it that I think we want to bring that beauty to our buildings. Although Deleuze's idea gives the five senses to the building I feel as though the principle is the same. He is representing the senses we are trying to appeal to withing the folded, organic, baroque building.

He also says that folds are matter, rather than what a piece of cloth makes. This was interesting because it then gives the ability for anything and everything to become a fold. This idea lets folds exist not only in the physical world but in space and time as well, and can connect all these levels at the same time. This confuses me, but I find the idea facinating. If anyone can elaborate on this I would appreciate it.

car choice

Greg Lynn Articles

The Probable Geometries article was a difficult read that I am still not quite so sure that I fully understand. There were however several points that I did find very interesting within the article. The segment where he relates architecture to writing was something that I had never thought of before, not relating the two but the meaning behind it. All the architecture I have ever been involved with has always been an eidetic form, that is to say always has a definite mathematical and repeatable outcome. I had never thought of architecture before as something that could be "incomplete and amorphous."

The article on Blob Tectonics was another interesting article that seemed to build upon the idea of writing architecture. The amorphous characteristic of writing architecture seems to relate to the idea in the blob article about architecture being influenced by outsides sources, such as spaces, surface tensions, and gravities. Although the article on probable geometries was difficult, the Blob article was somewhat able to reinforce this one particular point and help me better understand a new way of approaching architecture.