For your Micro study, we want you to zoom into part of your building and imagine what the DNA is like. Read from the place what geological structures, what natural materials are most characteristic.
- Can you read any clues about how the original ecosystem has been disrupted and what it says about human intervention?
- Consider how biological systems or organisms have adapted to the micro-climate. Can you discover passive thermal or ventilation strategies, ways that skin breathes or captures/ deflects moisture (i.e. termite tunnels, stomata, liquid cooling or respiration) ?
- Can you read patterns (i.e. layering), colors, textures or connections that tell you what material qualities and assemblies would evoke a sense of place?
In the next week, your job is to create a detail or component in which you explore the properties of one material (see syllabus for graduate students report for ideas). The piece must include a real material that you are interested in investigating or demonstrate a way of working that will develop your idea. (i.e. plaster casting instead of concrete, Grasshopper assembly)
Center for Architectural Structures and Technology, Manitoba
Bullseye Glass
Between the Folds (paper)
Andy Goldsworthy (natural materials)
Institute for Lightweight Structures (Frei Otto & Werner Sobek)
John Zerning Gridshell (and other structures)
Gramazio & Kohler Digital Materiality in Architecture, 2008
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