After speaking to Ian about my idea, I can now make a start. I am going to start with a square room or building and develop it into a building that responds by changing it's form according to a persons commands. Those commands will have reference to the four things needed to sustain a plant (sunlight, water, soil, and temperature), and the way in which the building responds, will sustain the person inside it.
For example: Sunlight - DARK/LIGHT.When someone walks into the room, and it's too dark, they can say "light" and the building will change to allow sunlight entry. Likewise when someone says "dark" - the building will resume it's original shape and block out sunlight.
Water - Respond to rain???
Soil - Temperature - HOT/COLD.If the person is cold, they can say "cold" and the building will morph into a blanket (I'll have to think about that one again actually) And when the person says "hot" the building could open up in some way to allow breeze entry.
HOW LIGHT WILL ENTER THE BUILDING: To workout how my building should allow sunlight entry into the building, I started looking at how plants absorb sunlight for photosynthesis.
I'm thinking that maybe I could represent the circle patches with coloured glass so that the room will look colourful on the inside. I had a look at the colours of the visible spectrum to give me an idea of what colours I can use for each glass circle.
When sunlight enters each glass, a different colour of light will shine through the room depending on what colour the glass is. I'm just wondering whether all the lights will combine on the inside of the room to produce white light (???)
My imagination of what the inside will sort of look like when different coloured lights enter and mix inside the room.
I was only able to build 3 prims when I tried to build my wall with glass circles. The region was full so I'm waiting on someone to help me find out how I can build more prims.
HOW THE BUILDING WILL OPEN UP TO ALLOW WIND?BREEZE ENTRY (to change temperature)
HOW THE BUILDING WILL RESPOND TO RAIN (???)
Building morphs. Shows how a plant deforms as they slowly start to die due to lack of water.
I wanted to focus my idea around the relationship between people and plants. Humans can provide plants with the sustenance they need for growth - such as sunlight access for photosynthesis, sufficient amounts of water, rich soil, and adequate air and temperature. Once the plants have matured, they sustain people physically (by becoming food and providing people with the nutrients their body needs) and mentally (by creating an environment where people can relax their mind) In a sense, plants sustain the 'soul'.
As a starting point, I then started to look at garden houses and thinking about what means of sustenance do they provide plants - just as Ian suggested.
After some research, I found that plants needed four things in order to grow:
1) Plenty of sunlight.
2) Sufficient amounts of water.
3) Rich soil.
4) Adequate air and temperatures.
A garden could provide these things. The difference however, between the garden and the greenhouse was that the green house had more control over how much sunlight was accessing the plants, and it acted as a solid protection from bugs or birds that could harm plants.
Life cycle of a plant:
After watching this animation, I realised that human growth and plant growth are very similar. People develop from an egg inside a mother's womb. Plants develop from a seed, planted in soil. The egg develops until eventually it becomes a baby. The seed of a plant germinates until eventually a plant grows out of the soil. After birth, the baby grows into a toddler, then into a teenager, an adult, until eventually they grow old and die. Plants are very similar. Flowers bloom from the plant, and it continues to grow until it dies.
Before dying however, wind, water and bees to name a few carry out a process called "pollunation." This process ensures that the name species of that plant will continue to breed else where, yet under the same conditions. Likewise with humans. Before dying, or as a child grows older, they have babies. These children ensure that the family name is carried out. Humans populate so that humans don't extinct, just like plants pollunate to ensure that their species doesn't go extinct.
While growing up, children physically grow by eating, drinking water, sleeping, exercising, and so forth. Plants need sufficient amounts of water, sunlight for photosynthesis, rich soil, and an adequate air temeprature in order for them to grow.
The only difference with humans is that they don't only need physical sustenance. They also need emotional and mental sustenance. Plants don't have feelings, so they only require physical sustenance for growth.
In my opinion, humans can be providers of the sustenance plants need in order to grow, because they have the ability to control them. For example, humans can build greenhouses to not only shelter plants from pests, but can also control the amount of sunlight which access the plants.
Once plants have matured, they provide physical sustenance (by providing nutrients and oxygen) as well as mental and spiritual sustenance (by creating a space where one can relax the mind after a stressful day at work.)
Question: Which one can live without the other? Can humans survive without plants? Can plants survive without humans?
Plants need four things in order to grow:
1) Plenty of sunlight.
If plants don't get sunlight, they can't produce cholorophyll and they will lose their green colour and will eventually die.
Palm fronds exposed to plenty of sunlight has alot of "green"
Some of the palm fronds are beginning to turn yellow because sunlight access is restricted from the fronds above it.
2) Sufficient amounts of water.
Without water, the growth of a plant stops.
3) Rich soil.
Soil provides the plants with the nutrients and minerals that it needs for growth. It also supports the plant while it's growing, protects the plants roots from exposure to the sun's heatm and filters pollution that comes from rain and water runoff.
4) Adequate air and temperature.
Vegetables and plants grown at the wrong temperature produce poor-tasting and malformed crops.
A capsicum grown within the adequate temperature.
Capsicum grown in the wrong temperature.
So without sunlight, plants will lose it's green COLOUR. Without sufficient amounts of water, the GROWTH of plants will stop. Without rich soil, plants will have no SUPPORT. And if plants are grown in the wrong temperature they will deform - so their FORM is slightly changed. I'm thinking that maybe I could create a piece of architecture that responds to:
1) Abundant and lack of sunlight - by changing it's COLOUR.
2) Sufficient and lack of water - by stopping GROWTH (???)
3) Rich and poor soil - by acting as a SUPPORT for another building (???)
4) Adequate and inadequate temperature conditions - by changing its original FORM.
I started to play around a little with a simple squre box and morphing the shape so that it looks deformed.
I started with a square box because I first started looking at greenhouses - and most greenhouses generally have square shape.
I'm trying to show how the original form (in this case a square box) will change to a shape that is deformed, lacking support, and colour. I'm still not sure how I will incorporate the idea of stopped growth into the architecture.
I'm thinking also that the structure will react in a "cyclic" way - to emphasize on the fact that the life of a plant is a cycle - just as the animation showed.
This just reminded me Dubai's Dynamic Twisted Building:
I noticed that the pattern in which the building twists is predictable because it has a starting point. From that starting point, the building twists until eventually it resumes its original position. Almost like a twisting "cycle" - and "cycle" is the idea I want to incorporate into my architecture.
4:52pm - After much research, I can't get onto Second Life to try out the sculptie I just formed on 3D max :(
Looking at different forms that the box shape could morph in too:
I thought about whether I should research on how plants will react if they get too much of what they need to be sustained. I thought NO, because I wanna focus on needing only "enough" of something in order to be sustained, and the effects of not having enough. Not sure if that makes sense!!!
11:42pm - Just got back from a looooooooooong wait at the hospital. Just scribbling up some different shapes in which a square box could morph into.
Thursday 11/08/11.
PROBLEM:
I've realised that I've only been thinking about how the building would respond to the things that sustain a plant (sunlight, water, rich soil, and temperature). So I'm trying to think of ways in which the building/room can respond to the person walking through it. What the building responds to however, will be something related to these means of sustenance.
For example:
-The person's body temperature - for Temperature.
-A person's body structure when they're weak - for Lack of water.
-When someone flies - to show that they don't have ground support.
-At night - the building changes colour.
Scripting a prim to respond to a person's body temperature might be impossible. Nate suggested that maybe I could script the prims to CHANGE when my avatar says something. For example, when they walk into the building/room, they say "cold" and the walls morph into a blanket or something. Or when the avatar says "hot", the building blooms open like a flower to allow air into the room.
Here I tried to script one of my walls to change colour every 3 seconds. I couldn't get it to work. As soon as the wall turned green, it didn't go back to it's original colour :(
The other problem is, I'm loosing track of how the building changes in a CYCLE - which was my original idea :(.
1) ALIVE. Architecture has character and it changes.
2) PERSONAL. We all interpret it in different ways.
3) ABOUT CHANGE. People investigate change through "evolution."
4) An element of visual manipulation.
5) REFLECTIVE of culture, the society, and others.
6) has SENSORY information.
7) HUMAN INTERVENTION. Architects need to be aware of their own intentionality.
8) RELATIONAL. Has a whole bunch of connections.
Today was different. Probably because I had a guest. Normally I'd get out of bed at 7am, have a shower, then slowly get changed and pack my things until about 8:15am. At that time, I would've been ready, and on my way to class. Today I was a little later than usual. Just by half an hour. As usual also, I skipped breakfast. Bad move. This would probably explain why my brain is so unproductive in the mornings.
I started my walk to the first class of the day - DESIGN. Today we were switching workshops. I was soooooo excited to be moving to the laser cutting department. Only because I saw how interesting a lot of the work was last week. But I was wrong. We weren't following the sheets which showed which groups we would be rotating too today. We instead moving to the groups we critted on Thursday - which were those in the Virtual World.
After a 1 hour lecture we all met in our groups to sort out our models. By 11am we were up in the labs on level 5, ready to be introduced to our new workshop. Judy started off by explaining what we would be doing over the next 2 weeks - which was to design reactive architecture. We then went onto to playing around with 3D max. This program was going to be our best friend for the next few weeks because it was 3D max that we would be building our prims for second life. The one thing I enjoyed about this program was being able to create a series of blob like shapes - similar to those associated with Greig Lynn and his 'blob' architecture. Along the way we had to take screen shots to upload to our blog. NOTE TO SELF: Upload those screen shots as soon as I find my flashdrive.
At 12pm I was out of the lab. The last thing I heard of Judy was that we had to read the two articles she handed out, and to have an idea to go over on Wednesday.
After using the ladies room my partner and I walked over to the Biology Building. I had an assignment due at 4pm and needed to drop it off. From there WALKED along Queen Street. We opted for the bus, but we both needed the exercise. As soon as we reached Queen Street, we made our way to the warehouse opposite Britomart. Along the way we stopped in a few shops, looked for the sale sign, when there was none, we continued on to warehouse. As soon as we got to the warehouse, we did what we had to do. Swap the pair of jeans we had bought the day before. We were both hungry. The food court gave us so many options. I craved Burger King, but later opted for a butter chicken combo. The meal came with a nan break and a cup of drink of our choice. Not exactly a healthy meal, but as my mum always said, "Good food makes you happy - no matter how unhealthy they are. And happiness is important."
After lunch, we rested up a little bit - allowed the food to digest a little, then made our way home through Queen Street. Again, we walked! It was 2pm and we needed to be home before 4pm. My mum was going to be home before 5pm to pick us up and take us to the airport. Along the way we stopped over at "Forte" - a dairy along Symonds Street. My partner was flying home in the evening and so we decided to buy some lollies for the family. After doing that we FINALLY made our way home.
As soon as we got home, we unpacked, and we both got ready (that meant shower and change) Then the fun part of the evening started. As we waited for my mum, we played DJ HERO on the x-box. At 5:45pm my mum finally arrived. She got stuck in traffic. We made our way for the airport. Unfortunately, she didn't know the city very well. I didn't either, so we had no choice but to go to the airport the way she came - which was the looooooooong way. The time was ticking. The longer I sat in the back seat, the more frustrated I got because we just getting too late, and my mum didn't seem to be worried about how slow she was driving. We reached Sylvia park at 6:15pm. We had to stop and fill up the car. The last thing I wanted to do was look at my time because I knew that we were already so late. To make matters worse, our car conked out at a roundabout. We were lucky to get it started before the queue behind us got any longer, and we continued our drive. Then just as we got onto the last road that would lead us to the airport, the car conked out again. It had overheated. At that moment, I knew we were screwed. I was lucky to have had an uncle living on that road. I ran over to ask for his help. He kindly drove us to the airport but we were just too late. It was all just bad luck. My partner had to rebook his flight, and as we waited - find a reasonable explanation to give his boss in Rarotonga.
My uncle kindly dropped my mum off to her car while we waited at the airport for a friend to pick us up. By that time my mums car was okay to drive herself home. I decided to call a friend and offer to fill up their car and shout them dinner if they came to pick us up. They kindly accepted, but wouldn't let us buy them dinner. As we waited, we felt that it wasn't any use crying over what just happened. It was just unfortunate. So! We called Raro, told the family that he wasn't getting on a flight until the next morning, and decided that this would be one of many adventurous stories to tell the family!
About half an hour late, our ride arrived. We headed to Burger King for dinner, had a loooooooooong chat about the ups and downs of our day, and finally made our way home for the night. As soon as we got home, I called and booked a cab for 6am the following morning. His flight wasn't leaving until 9:30am, but I wasn't prepared to take any risks. It had been a long day. We were both tired. We said our prayer, switched on the heater, set the alarm for 5am, and slept :)
At 5am the alarm went off. My partner got ready and we both said our goodbyes before the taxi arrived at 5:45am. As soon as he left, I hopped into bed, and tried hard to go to sleep. COMPLETE FAIL. I finally fell asleep at 6:45am which was pointless because my alarm went off 15minutes later. I switched it off and reset the alarm for 8:30am. We didn't have class until 3pm, but I had a meeting at 10am so I couldn't sleep in even if I wanted to too. By 9am I had showered, got changed, and packed my stuff. I even had time to vacuum my floor! And then, I was off!
Definition: "The maintaining of something or someone in life or existence."
A lot of the examples I found on sustenance was based around "food" - something the video in our Monday lecture talked about. "Sitopia" was the coined term given to a "food place." After the Industrial Revolution, mass production occurred. On top of that, transport connections improved, which allowed for foods from all over the world to be exchanged or transported to other countries. Since then, cities became a series of "unproductive blobs," our relationship with nature was disrupted, and the world we now live transformed on the basis of food. It was then suggested that there should be a re conceptualization of the way food shapes our lives.
Task: Design reactive architecture.
There are so many things that sustain humans. Other than food, there are the simple things in life like water, energy, rest, sleep, entertainment, jobs, education, family, hygiene, and so on. Each sustain us in different ways.
3D MAX - Creating a blob liked object and generating a sculpt map.
Kyun Je Yoo (Matt) (http://brucekid.tumblr.com/)
I was impressed with Matt's idea of waking because he wasn't focused on the actual physical way of waking up. His design was based on the idea of waking up to realise that there was no sense of community - despite the amount of buildings surrounding the area.
The only sign of life within his site was a train track. So he decided to build a bridge above the train track which connected two buildings together. I liked how he used a clip from the movie "August Rush" to demonstrate this sense of waking. In the clip, August was walking along the street. It looked as though he was thinking about where he was going, until he heard the sound of a train passing beneath his feet. He seemed frightened by the sound. At that moment, he was "awakened" to explore the different sounds around him. Matt applied this idea to his design. The sound from the train as it passes the track is intended to awaken people to the realisation of a sense of community.
I really liked how he took a very simple idea and turned it into something meaningful. TIP: Build as many prims as you can. You'll soon realise that you can't build because the region is full.
Mirashini Chandra Mohan (http://miramo91.wordpress.com/)
Like Matt, Mirashini didn't have an actual building for her final design - which I liked. I thought that it looked sculptural, and the form of it was really interesting. I was critical about something. She said the form derived from the shape of a shell. I wasn't sure if I understood the relationship between the shell, and her idea of waking.
Her sculpture was based one the idea of 'confusion' when you wake up. When you wake up, you have two choices. Either to go through the day, or to go back to the bed. Her sculpture reperesented these choices. When you walk into the sculpture, to your left is a reactive spiral coloured to represent the idea of "going through the day", while the right is coloured to represent the idea of "going back to bed."I liked how she used the spiral to represent the idea of "confusion."
I liked how Lisa decided to make the building awaken like a lily in a pond. The only thing I was a bit skeptical about was the site in which the building was placed, and the size of the space of waking. I thought it was interesting that she wanted to bring an organic form to a dead and quiet city - I didn't like however, how it was in the middle of high rised buildings which blocked out sun entry, and made me feel claustrophobic. But in saying that, I thought that this tight space could awaken one to take notice of what is actually happening outside that structure.
She talked about how the bed you would wake up in would be comfortable. I liked how it was shaped sort of like a bean bag (and I think bean bags are very comfortable) BUT I wasn't comfortable about being enclosed in such a small space.
I noticed that the roof of the structure had patterns on it which would allow damples of light to cast interesting shadows onto the floor. I just thought that with all the high rise buildings standing outside the space, light entry was going to be a problem.
A week before being put into workshops, we got put into pairs. Each pair had to walk through the CBD (following a map) and take notes of our experiences at different times of the day. Such experiences included certain sounds that we heard, sunlight entry, wind, etc. We then had to decide on a 500m stretch of land which we wanted to model out. Later, we had to take a small section of that 1:500 model and produce a 1:100 model of that area.
For our 1:500 model, Shirin and I decided to convey the idea of colour, and the different sorts of emotions associated with it. In our horizontal section, we decided to include a model of the Arena Hotel, and the hotels surrounding it. We thought that it was really interesting that in the modern buildings, the most dominant colours were white and grey. The most dominant materials were concrete, steel and glass. This contrasted with the Arena hotel which was made of red bricks. This building also had more value in terms of history, compared to the surrounding residential buildings.
With the Arena hotel, the colours within its small perimeter were 'earthly'. Red bricks, greenery, and black and grey stone walls emitted the feeling of warmth. Nature complimented the building nicely. With the modern buildings, nature looks 'forced' to compliment them. And the feelings emitted from those buildings are cold and dull. There is also no significant connection to history.
