continued

The Curriculum

The ESARQ curriculum begins with digital design, discussing technological, industrial, and material history: how developing technologies and science continue to change the forces that affect architecture and thus require new responses.

We introduce concepts of digital visualization and surface modeling using Rhinoceros, 3D NURBS (nonuniform rational B-spline) software, as our primary tool for warped-surface visualization. Rhino exports data to AutoCAD and 3ds max, our other core software.

We also introduce students to the digital creation and production of a lexicon of forms and systems based on the ideas of architect Louis Sullivan. In his book, A System of Architectural Ornament, Sullivan lays out ideas of integration, mapping, and overlaying of geometries and botanic growth. His historic work therefore constitutes not only the theoretical base but, more importantly, a working architectural model for the students' explorations.

In their first biomimetic act, students study some aspect of a natural system and appropriate what is interesting to them to create a working set of ideas that they can represent as drawings using Rhino.

This linking of natural elements with digital production leads the students to create their own digital-architectural vocabulary based on, for example, cells, plants, shells, flowers, or rocks. From these natural components, they deepen their investigation of space enclosed by nonlinear forms. At the same time they study the related structure, branching, surface curvature, translucency, and so on.

After students have developed their initial ideas and a digital lexicon of forms, we intensify their introduction to the environment, materials, and production techniques with a series of lectures and exercises. We also introduce experts from other industries in which digitally integrated production is more fully established, such as nautical, automotive, and aircraft design and production.

Building Forms from Ideas

We guide students through an investigation of material properties and experiments to develop ways for physically manifesting the students' digital designs (the lexicon) as analog models and potential architecture.

These experiments involve rapid prototyping and stereolithography. Using a 3D Systems ThermoJet printer installed at the school of architecture, students build physical models directly from their Rhino files.

Through the direct fabrication of three-dimensional solids from their digital work, students can experience how future developments in rapid prototyping may result in the direct manufacture of architectural elements such as wall sections, exterior panels, and structural connectors.

Student use of the ThermoJet printer also allows them to physically visualize aspects of their digital forms. The three-dimensional pieces serve to further their understanding of both positive and negative physical space as well as spatial relationships between architectural elements. Students are encouraged to imagine how rapid prototyping might make production of architectural elements a process controlled more by the architect than by the builder.

Toward a Biomimetic Architecture

While Sullivan's System of Architectural Ornament provides a template for the application of botanic form with architectural form, we are also interested in how biomimetics may apply to architecture at the level of basic materials.

We hope that examining natural structures will support the development of materials for the construction industry. Nacre, the pearl-like surface in an abalone shell, as one example, is being studied intensively to determine how shellfish create this material, which provides one of the hardest surfaces in nature.

In other investigations, scientists are looking at the chemical synthesis and spinning methods of dragline silk from a spider (Nephila clavipes). For a given diameter, this silk is five times stronger than steel.

For the Genetic Architecture master's program and in the E-Lab, we are trying to incorporate basic biomimetic material and spatial research as a specialized branch of architecture. We anticipate that scientists will soon consider designers as collaborators in seeking new products, materials, and methods of construction.

We are also trying to prepare emerging architects with knowledge and tools for working with new technologies. Directly related to this work but in an independent class taught by Marta Malé, students are instructed in parametric software that allows them to express their ideas as digital drawings and then input those drawings directly into computer numerical control (CNC) machining.

This class prepares students to work directly with the school's three-axis CNC machine that can handle 4- by 8-foot (1.2- by 2.4-meter) sheets of wood, plastic, metal, glass, and other materials.

The output from the milling machine gives students not only an understanding of digital software and visualization but also a specific, hands-on knowledge of CNC milling production, helping to prepare them to work with builders and advanced manufacturing techniques.

Student Experiments with Biomimicry

The student projects illustrated with this article exhibit forms inspired by natural elements. In the course of student design processes, structures evolve into spaces and are then further refined through a series of digital and analog procedures.

The sequence by Jose Pedro Sousa shows this progression in the development of a series of components based on the seahorse-like seadragon. First he created a linear wire model that directly relates to the natural forms of the seadragon. He then used Rhino to develop that basic armature into a structural frame.

From that point, Sousa's evolutionary lexicon progressed in a series of icon-like development stages. Eventually, a structural concept emerged in a segment of the design that developed into a bridge-like rib structure.

Alejandro Park was inspired by the fragility of a cocoon that he used as his biological connection to develop a vocabulary (left side of panel) which he transferred into glass "cocoon" architecture.

Park's project demonstrates the evolution of a biomimetic aesthetic, starting from a product of a natural, ecological system, developing through a series of digital exercises into a set of ideas for a system of architecture.

Dennis Dollens codirects Genetic Architecture at the Universitat Internacional de Catalunya. His latest book, D2A: Digital to Analog, considers the vision and use of technologies in work by Frank Gehry, Toyo Ito, Duncan Brown, Santiago Calatrava, Greg Lynn, and Marcos Novak. Form Zero gallery in Los Angeles will present an exhibition of his TumbleTruss Project in the fall of 2002.

Ignasi Pérez Arnal is a practicing architect in Barcelona. He is director of the Environmental department at ESARQ and co-director of the UIC masters program in Genetic Architecture. He is the editorial director of the Association of Catalan Architects technology publications, regular contributor to En.Red.Ando, Arquitectura, Pasajes, and Quaderns d'Arquitectura, and winner of the Construmat Prize.

From the ESARQ studio, a ThermoJet model inspired by the behavior of water in a tornado. The tornado-like columns support a rippling surface. Photo: Dennis Dollens ESARQ student Jose Pedro Sousa's biomimetic study of the oceanic seadragon. To the right, a wire study model and a Rhino drawing of the developing structure. Image: Jose Pedro Sousa Phases of Sousa's development of structure and skin drawn in Rhino, a clear illustration of a design lexicon formulated at mid-project. Image: Jose Pedro Sousa Sousa's metallic architectural frame structure, with a glass and metal skin, based on the lexicon originally inspired by a seadragon. Image: Jose Pedro Sousa Tatiana Ramírez transformed the veins of a dried leaf into a preliminary structural/ skin study for a glass house. Image: Tatiana Ram’rez Santiago Garcia investigated a pine's seed cone for its inner support system and then developed a prototype armature for his glass pavilion. Image: Santiago Garcia Hugo Lima's extrapolations from a microscopic algae's siliceous and overlapping properties for the development of a bone-like glass structure for a biomimetic pavilion. Image: Hugo Lima Alejandro Park experimented with the metamorphosis of an insect cocoon into the thin walls of a glass house. Image: Alejandro Park   Click on thumbnail images to view full-size pictures.