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ItemExpansion and contraction: Goethean polarity and architecture(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2017-05-10) Gokmen, SabriAs a historic figure, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) has been drawing interest in contemporary research in humanities due to his involvement in multiple fields such as literature, philosophy, natural sciences and aesthetics while having direct influence on the shaping of the Enlightenment era. Although his body of work has been mostly evaluated under the rubric of phenomenology, this dissertation will aim to develop a comprehensive understanding of his works using his ideas on polarity as the core principle. Polarity stems from Goethe’s early involvement in botany where he describes the development of annual plants through cycles of expansion and contraction as opposite sexual forces of natural productivity. This principle forms the foundation of morphology; a unifying science where Goethe applies polarity to formulate ideas on osteology, geology and color. The thesis will be developed in three main chapters that primarily establish the theoretical aspects of polarity in Goethe’s works and then extends it towards developing a novel morphological understanding of architecture as well as formulating polarity tools for design. The first chapter presents an extensive analysis of Goethe’s most controversial novel—Elective Affinities—as a prototypical literary work applying the concept of polarity for the structuring and development of its story. Using the novel as a theoretical-philosophical framework, the role of polarity is analyzed through character typology, affinity relations among characters, landscape formation and production of architectural projects. The allegorical aspects of the story show that Goethe’s scientific writings and engagement with contemporaneous philosophy informed his novel, producing a literary expression of the transition from Idealism to Romanticism. In the second chapter, polarity in Goethean morphology is analyzed focusing particularly on leaf morphogenesis to demonstrate formal principles of growth. Metamorphosis of Plants acts as the theoretical foundation of polarity, explaining the cyclic behavior of expansion and contraction in plants through Goethean principles. The terms “polarity” and “intensification” are further explored in Goethe’s works applied to other natural sciences such as botany and osteology, as well as color; extending both terms as core principles of an ontological system of nature. This system is explored through leaf morphogenesis studies developed in a computational framework to introduce a parametric understanding of topological polarity rules that explain leaf forms using alternating growth cycles. In the third chapter, Goethe’s statement “All is Leaf” is extended to architecture by applying the concept of polarity through planar and vertical development of architectural massing organized through body-limb duality. Polarity is compared to the classical notion of symmetry and proportion to establish a new look at architectural morphology operating through axiality, primitive huts and parametric application of abstract polarity rules devoid of style. These rules are extracted from a historical analysis of various architectural case studies using samples of Palladian villas, Baroque palaces, Gothic cathedrals, and English manor houses. After developing an understanding of polarized architectural body-limb relations, a procedural polarity machine is developed to apply principles of metamorphosis towards generative studies of architectural massing focusing on Gothic cathedrals as a case study. In the last part of the thesis, polarized morphology is considered as an ecological strategy to approach architectural design under variable conditions of climate and altitude.
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ItemDeployable architecture(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008-06-03) James, AndreFolding empowers the user to change the form and function of a sheet of paper through a sequence of manipulations. Unfolding the once folded artefact produces a diagram that describes its own making that can be replicated at different scales using a new material. Architecturally, folding can be employed a morphogenetic solution to design a system that can be fabricated from a sheet material, that like paper, can be folded into a inhabitable structure. The ease and cost efficiency of fabrication based on folding can be used to design a system that executed using low cost materials can be used as a shelter that accommodates programmatic and aesthetic evolution. Thus, the system lends itself to being a transitional shelter for communities that have been displaced due to a natural disaster or other form of crisis. Technological advances in design and structural analysis can give the designer the power to define the complex process folding parametrically allowing the input a real-time feedback based design based on an a folding inspired algorithm.
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ItemThe machines of perception(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008-06-03) Magner, JeremyThe following work is an attempt to feed a dynamic concept of the body into contemporary morphogenetic design procedures in order to confront critiques that topological design processes produce architectural form that is too abstract. This begins with an understanding of the body schema; the open and continuously variable relationships between the various modes of sensation and perception that can only be described in topological terms. Similar to how active matter is instrumentalized in avant-garde practice and cutting edge research towards self-organization and morphogenesis, an active body schema has the potential to be instrumentalized towards design that aims to exploit the potential performance and openness of the body when confronted with architecture, moving away from mechanistic, representational notions of function. The work follows a procedure wherein conceptual research engages physical phenomena that are abstracted into diagrams then organized into material systems or abstract machines. These machines are intended to be mobilized and consolidated to engage specific issues of program and type and further refined to be deployed upon a specific site. This morphological process of machining architecture aims to move toward a seamless exchange between research and design that effectively instrumentalizes the dynamic body schema into a design process engaging architecture of performance. Perhaps, in terms of the body, morphogenetic design produces architecture that is not abstract enough.
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ItemSelf-Organizing Architecture: Design Through Form Finding Methods(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2008-04-01) Isaacs, Allison JeanForm-finding in Architecture looks at processes in nature to discover a more correct way in which to organize building. It is a study into the capability of discovering optimum form, dynamic adaptability, and exposes a set of unique relationships not relevant to Architecture previously. The beauty of these objects does not have to be designed. It is an emergent property of natural form. However, the wonder lies not in aesthetics, but in the manner in which natural forms come into being seemingly without a plan, at a multitude of scales, and in a vast array of materials. Alone, pattern in nature opens a vast array of potentialities for the study into new methods of architectural design. It is important to note that this inquiry will not be into the aesthetics of self-organized pattern, but the mathematical and procedural processes of formation itself. This study forms a set of principles, methodologies and tools for structuring a full-scale form-finding inquiry through the self-organization of pattern in nature. Following this inquiry one should be able to apply the organizational principles of patterning in nature, specifically breakdown patterns, to inform the programmatic design and layout of shopping malls. The rules set forth outline the formation of breakdown patterns, and the ordering of shopping malls. Through the use of parametric modeling software and computer programming language, sets of digital models efficiently explore of the vast number of potential pattern organizations by mimicking their formation in digital space. Through computational scripting, digital models also reveal formation changes due to the adaptation to site, circulatory loads, and spatial distribution, while still maintaining the laws of pattern formation.
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ItemCannoli Framing: The Turnstijl Houses and Configure-to-Order(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2007-11-15) Aeck, Richard HullBeginning with the study of type, house typologies, manufactured houses, and structure classification, this thesis proposes the design and fabrication of a hybrid structural insulated panel (SIP) and laminated-stud (Lam) framing system developed using contemporary three-dimensional modeling techniques and digital production methodology. Included within are prototypes, assembly diagrams, and structural tests of the proposed Cannoli Framing System (CFS) as well as three speculative Turnstijl houses whose systematic variation demonstrates the flexibility and scalability of the proposed system. In essence, this is the design of a framing typology capable of structural and formal variability to a degree that has previously been neither feasible nor affordable.
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ItemMu-Tonics: in search of mutable tectonics(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2007-04-09) Ong, Lorraine Grace G.In search of mutable tectonics is a research investigation linking principles found in natural systems, investigated by various fields in biology, physics, and mathematics, in the creation of a design methodology in Architecture. Specifically the report looks into natural system with packing and stacking strategies like bone formation, foam or soap bubbles, and sphere packing. Rules and physical observations of the natural are carried forward in the development of a topological language, through digital investigations, which define relationships between variations in spatial configurations and structural members. What we hope to achieve here is that by studying natural systems already realized in the natural world a more adaptive system of design between form, structure and space is immediately established; resulting in the discovery of emergent spaces which intrinsically conveys an emergent structural system and vise versa. The outcome is the creation of an adaptive networked process in the design formulation in Architecture.