ABOUT

ANACHRONOUS FORMALISMS & ARCHITECTURAL FICTIONS 
SUMMER 2014 DESIGN BUILD PROJECT

Instructors : William O’ Brien Jr., Bea Vithayathawornwong 
Schedule : June 16 -> July 18, 2014 
Site : Multiple locations in Bangkok (TBD)
Participants : 14 INDA YR2 Students
Partner : Department of Industrial Design 
Faculty of Architecture, Chulalongkorn University 
TA : Jariyaporn Prachasartta

Project Context

This design build project entitled Anachronous Formalisms is primarily an investigation into architectural form-making and digital methodologies, which aims to culminate in a public installation of a large-scale, digitally-fabricated architectural object in Bangkok CBD. The project is a part of a larger design research initiative consisting of a series of contemporary architectural installations, called Architectural Fictions, that retell stories about anachronous form.

Architectural Fictions was launched in an effort to expand and diversify the formal vocabulary of contemporary architecture allied with digital processes. The study has involved the analysis of historical architectures that abide by formal mechanisms that have been deemed anachronous—mechanisms such as symmetries, axes, ratios, harmonic proportions. The research has been geared toward the discovery of new modes of architectural form-making through a wide-ranging series of strategic transformations of architectural precedents—some of which are iconic, while others are commonplace or vernacular. The attributes of architectures employing such anachronistic methods that are the focus of the workshop are attributes such as : hierarchical, figural, permanent, and thick. Such attributes are ripe for reconsideration in the recent context of architectural forms stemming from digital processes that are predominantly non-hierarchical, surfacial, fleeting, and thin.

The project is intended to encourage students to rethink potentialities for digital methodologies by pursuing formal characteristics rarely associated with such methodologies; thereby overturning contemporary fabrication norms and proposing alternative formal languages. The aim is to theorize and postulate new possibilities for the future of architectural form through the making of a proto-architectural installation, specifically focusing on disciplinary questions concerning the relationship between the anachronous and the contemporaneous in architectural form.

Philipp Schaerer, Bildbauten, 2007-2009; Sol Lewitt, Forms Derived from a Cube, 1982.

Methodologically, students will pursue the production of culturally significant forms of architecture through a synthesis of : (A) analysis of historical and cultural precedents, (B) discovery and invention of novel characteristics of architectural form, and (C) design and building through the leveraging of emerging digital technologies, building technologies, and fabrication techniques. Students will be involved in the conceptualization and design of an architectural installation that leverages contemporary digital fabrication techniques to reconsider anachronistic methods of form-making. Previous installations have included Labyrinth, Totems, Chamber, and Vault.

WOJR, Chamber, 2012-2013.

Project Description

Students will be designing and fabricating prototypes of structural types or systems with the ambition of constructing a large-scale architectural object—a geometric primitive or a morphological variant of a geometric primitive; Possible forms include a cube, a cylinder, a sphere, a cone, a pyramid, and a torus.

The exercise will prompt students to intensely consider multiple scales: (1) the local, as in the scale of the connection, (2) the regional, as in the scale(s) of the reading of an accumulation of elements, and (3) the global, as in the scale of the overall figure or form. In lieu of specified function, system dexterity—a descriptor that is indicative of a systems’ degree of flexibility, adaptability, and performance—will guide design ambitions. The exercise is aimed at helping students to develop a deep understanding of the physics of building through both empirical observation and informed speculation. It is an exercise concerned with the reciprocal relationship between the intelligence of the part and the objective(s) of the whole.

Transforming materials into spatial and structural organizations will be the means by which students address the requirement of constructing a geometric primitive. Students are asked to consider the design of the material system and structural organization as a serial problem, one that solves requirements through modulation, systemic-variation, permutations, and the possibility of customization. The problem is a negotiation between material units, geometry, structural factors, in addition to the means and methods of assembly. Important themes and concerns are:

Studio Gang Architects, Marble Curtain, 2003.

(A) Part and Whole : What is being defined as a single component? What is the relationship between an individual component and the overall system?

(B) Repetition and Scale : How do structural components aggregate by tiling, nesting, packing, morphing, or other means? Are there intermediate scales of definition between the part and the whole?

(C) Continuity and Differentiation: Does the system involve variation within units, or across wholes? At what scales does the system produce continuities or discontinuities?

Project Sites

It is the instructors’ intent to reach out to a wide public audience in order to provoke thoughts and discussions about architecture in various urban settings. During the week of July 14 to July 18, the installation will take place—‘pop-up’—at multiple public locations in Bangkok, including a public school, and a public park or a local community. From July 21 onward, the architectural object will be exhibited in situ for public view.

Emerging Objects, Saltygloo, 2013.