IaaC blog

Observation of existing activites reveal that the infrastructure and design elements in the park have to accomodate the expanding and contracting tendencies of programs. This ability to ’stack’ objects when not in use and distribute facilities when required is an essential trait of the park’s structure.

Already studied, Magnolia Grandiflora’s ‘optimised stack’ of branches and leaves is translated into a dimensional and parametric constraint to generate configurations of a single element - a 450 mm pipe. The idea is abstratced to apply to a single bench structure which accomodates multiple events and generates a focal point in the natural expanse of the park.

presentation here hemant-rohan-final-presentation.pdf

The procedure that started through the measurment and observation of the tree…

 passed through the understanding of it’s function…

is now concluded with the design of the final project

The final presentation can be viewed here and the explanatory booklet there

To finish our last presnentation was quiet hard, because of time, energy and some mistaces. But now we are finished and happy to present you our idear.

Here the PDF with the hole presentation.

/final studio project by Diego Camargo, Verena Vogler

-text will be added soon!-

You can download the booklet of the project here bookletl.pdf

you can download our final PDF presentation here

Duality of the cypress tree became an inspiration for the project. On the one hand seemingly homogenous structure from outside, on the other hand there appears a mixture of branches fighting for space to grow inside. Within the vertical genome special limitations appears a cruel fight of branches for space, in which those that couldn’t find a way to grow- die. The tree is not only interacting with the environment, but also with itself – acting and then reacting on its previous action.

The aim was to create an intelligent structure responding to the environment and in the same time interacting with itself, where the inner-parts are fighting with itself; creating complex experiences by processing simple repetitive behaviors. The form would be a spatial “print” of all the influences.
The structure consists of 5 sculptural elements based on identical triangular geometry, while each of them reacts differently depending on the weather conditions, what allows a range of different configurations. The whole installation is being generated during the day until it reaches its form, and folds down in the night. The process of form generation is simply unfolding gradually all the pneumatic elements, depending on the sun conditions, while all the elements tend to grow in the direction of light. They also react on themselves, producing shadow one on each other, fighting for light. The structure gently curves in space away from its upright equilibrium position.
The geometry of each element is designed in the identical way (compared to the genome limitation in the process of growth of every natural organism), therefore the variety is limited to the angles of each folding depending on the amount of energy produced at that time by sun. There are infinite possibilities for geometry of the whole structure, while the generation of the form is based on simple geometry and one simple rotation rule. The more light the sensors detects, the bigger the rotation angle is. Therefore, in the sun exposure the structure would grow higher, while in a cloudy day it would look more condense, sometimes perhaps even wouldn’t grow at all.
Just as in the theory regarding all the living organisms (“endless forms most beautiful” by Sean. B. Carroll), all the cells contain the very same genetic information, and each cell type has become different by making some proteins not others. The selective production of proteins in some places not others, is fundamental in making complex organisms.
In the project the genetic information could be interpreted as a predesigned geometry and selective protein production as selective angle of each folding depending on light conditions. The interactivity would be understood as interaction with the structure itself and with the environment, being independent from human influence, just as nature doesn’t adjust any of its parameters to the human scale. The installation operates as both a complex light pattern embedding responsive lighting technologies and as an environment-sensing device.

the process of generating a single element:

angles depending on the amount of light and position of the elements:

the form being a result of certain light conditions:

simulation of growth / fight for light of 2 elements:

1) Construction
Each of the 5 elements based on identical triangular geometry filled by lightweight fiberglass composite, has got a pneumatic frame out of stainless steel. The frame is being controlled by automated digital devices, activating the bending-movement of the structure. It is an articulated jointed spine controlled by a series of pneumatic muscles. If no muscles are active, the core keeps the structure upright.
2) Digital sensorial system
According the technical issues, each element is equipped with led lighting system, sensors and actuators system, analyzing the environmental conditions. While the structure is being generated, sensors of each element detect certain amount of light and translate it into an electronic amount of light kept in the LEDs, which gives that amount back while lighting in the night, creating in the same time various light installations. The information about light is also directly translated into the automated microcontroler responsible for the movement, activating the pneumatic structure, being the skeleton of the construction. The sensors, besides detecting light detect only distance, pretending from a crush of two different elements while moving.

view during the day:

view during the night:

cycle of structure’s behaviours:

localization:

Initially my focus was the branching logic that can be modeled using L-systems. Further research brought me to the point where I conceived the tree not as a form, but as a actualization. The form of the tree (the physical representation that we are able to observe) is constantly informed by the framework and the input. Both, they create the actualization. The framework is pre-set (pre-designed) and It’s individual for every single tree. It’s the genome, with “ideal form” inscribed in it. There are two kinds of inputs: the generic ones and the ones that are specific for the specie. The generic ones are the atmospheric conditions (the climate) and the nearest surroundings (other trees or buildings nearby). For the Ficus, another kind of input is a man with a branch cutter. By cutting the branches from time to time, the man can shape the tree so that is easier to collect the fruits.

Maria Eftychi and Monika Szawioła also tudied the Ficus Carica. Their research howed that ficus roots can act as parasites. finally the branching and parasite logic both nformed the physical part of the pre-designed ramework of the feedback_loop.

The ficus carica actualization does not inform the input.

branching logic

Paths’ usage intensity in Park Ciutadella and 4 localizations analysis.

Collective Intelligence:

“Technology is only for those who where orn before it”. For those who were born hen it already existed, it’s like air. Not only it’s existence, but also its features re obvious. They are part of the real. Don Tapscott claims that the net-generation, which is growing within the realm of the mail and chatrooms, has the ethics of rosumerism instead of the ethics of consumerism only. This is the ethics of consumption and production at the same time. The content creation becomes equally important as receiving the content from others. Emerging free flow of content is enabled by the burst of “many-to-many” or “narrow casting” media. The organizational structures as well as intellectual property are about to face a major shift as this generation is gradually entering the workplaces all over the world.

The collective intelligence has enormous ossibilities of content creation in the virtual. Wikipedia is just one example of that and Second Life, although not free from controversies, might be the other one. Can those abilities of the rising generation be applied to redefinition of process in which spatial interventions are created? Does the web-enabled human swarm bare the possibility for giving away the idea of the program in favor of reprogramming? Would the swarm be able to peer produce the tangible space, controlling itself from the bottom, pretty much like it produces the content on Wikipedia?

Framework + input:

There are two types of visitors to the installation. The r-visitors (real visitors) enter the feedback_loop in the realm of the physical. The t-visitors (tele-visitors) enter it in the realm of the virtual.

The r-visitors, when entering, receive two devices, attachments to the body. Those attachments are part of the physical, pre-designed framework. that measures their blood pressure and pulse in order to calculate the actual stress level. Blood pressure is measured using the plethysmography method. The impedance plethysmography device (called rheoscreen),
sending and receiving small amounts of alternating current, is attached to the r-visitor’s forearm. The pulse wave measuring device is placed on two fingers of the same hand as the rheoscreen. The pulse wave device is connected by wire to the rheoscreen. The rheoscreen connetcs to the microserver in the communicator by WIFI.

The aim of the project is to give the collective intelligence the ability to negotiate and set conditions in the physical, tangible space. Whisper, humming or shouting. Apart from that fig’s smell, heat or windy evening, when you don’t really feel like getting out of home. Those are the features that t-visitors can control within the feedback loop. The second part of the pre-designed physical framework is the communicator, which served as a mediation tool between the virtual and the real. Biomimetic approach could be applied in the process of designing it, but the approach that turned out to be more interesting for me was to invert this design process. Why can’t the designer start from what he would like the visitors to feel? What I did is I’ve putted myself in the role of the physical visitor to the installation and ask myself – what should I feel? I wasn’t really sure in the first place. So it means I need to feel uncertainty while at the same time I could feel a bit of a danger. Those (fully prescribed by me) features of the communicator informed the development of the final physical form. In order to create an object, that is slightly moving (but not because of any mechanical or digital devices) the procedure of weaving was applied. Four polymeric pipes are interwoven in order to create every communicator. Three of them communicate the real-time atmospheric (temperature, smell, noise) change from the virtual to the real. The fourth one (containing WIFI devices and micro-servers) communicate the data from body attachments to the virtual (the website).

The actualization informs the input. The difference between the input and actualization is blurred.

each of the communicators has a individual IP address.

T-visitors may observe r-visitors’ bodies’ reactions to changing conditions in real time. A feedback loop takes place when they continue to reset the atmospheric conditions depending on r-visitors changing stress level. T-visitors however observe also others t-visitors preferences regarding the selection of the feedback_loop atmosphere. They are able to chat between each other to verbally negotiate the conditions, as well as they rank each others behavior, meaning if their idea for the atmosphere is similar to yours you would get a high rank from them, but if not, they even might try to exclude you from the feedback_loop web community.

Feedback loop exists between r- and t-visitors thanks to real-time communication happening from and to both virtual and real. It is enabled by communicators. The purpose of the installation is to test web-enabled collective intelligence psychology or reactions when the possibility of re-creating the tangible environment is given to it. On Wikipedia the bottom-up process controls the quality of the content. If a particular user tends to spoil content, he is expelled from the community.

Will the t-visitors form a majority that agrees on certain atmospheric conditions of the feedback_loop? Will the majority take over the feedback_loop and the differences in the atmosphere won’t become that noticeable? Most of all: what kind of atmosphere will the majority agree on? How will the swarm behave when enabled to experiment on unconnected bodies that belong to other real humans? Is it really the content creation and will to add value what drives contemporary net-generation or will this generation turn out to be sadistic?

Attached you can find the pdf file of our final presentation

cocculus-laurifolius.pdf

Here is copy of the final presentation from today. Considering our struggle to get to the final realisation of the structure, we felt the final form represented (abstractly) the notions of containment and release, relating back to the intention of the form of our tree, but as a dynamic system.

It would be good to study more in detail the systems of disturbance on the surface both as a technical (form studies, materiality & mechanisms) and as a mapped system (how does the disturbance work over the Ombu and how is this actuated over our structure).