ABSTRACT

For the digital tools for complex forming seminar we have designed  a pavilion  inspired from  beehives  to create a space  which elevates  working conditions of the workers from  chouara tannery  by providing  with   space that gives them privacy while they work ,protects from from the hash sun light and heat  at the same time  the pavilion intends to  showcase the tannery’s products   and indulge  the tourist  enriching their experience of the old medina. We started with identifying  our area of focus then we populated it with hexagonal paneling which we then anchor and draped  using Kangaroo adding pylons  counter  forces . Using  ladybug we identified   the solar radiation + sunlight hours  which  was used to optimize the location and heights of these pylons using Galapagos . once ideal iteration was   identified we planarized  the panels  to ease with fabrication however  this created lead to panels clashing which was  resolved by deploying Lunchbox ML    to divide the panels in 3 sub groups.  

 

 

DESIGN CONCEPT

A pavilion  that is inspired from  geometric systems of beehives and is a   lightweight  ephemeral structure  that protects the workers from the sun  and offers them privacy . This is  build from cheap and reusable materials  and promotes the artisanry and local wisdom.

NATURAL SYSTEM

Our Investigation began with the study of beehives to  understand its complex structure, which lead to  number of questions :

What are  geometric & physical rules that govern the creation of beehives?

Why did the bees choose hexagons as their space filling form ? 

How do they structurally optimize their hives?

From the study of  beehives  we  were introduced to  bee’s idea of optimization which are driven by a goal to maximize the amount of honey they can store  with the given material. The geometric solution was  to build with  hexagonal prism which  uses the least amount of beeswax to build a unit bee-sized volume . Which is used populate the beehives . however Bees don’t necessarily need to use regular polygons

 Allowing for the possibility of a mixture of shapes. 

Allowing for adaptability based on  available   supports  

Hexagons

Honeycombs have to resist and stabilize the self load as we as the  gravitational  load. 

The shared walls of each cell ensure that the downward physical stresses on the structure are spread evenly throughout. which  makes them very resilient.

 

Honey bees use the geometry of rhombic dodecahedra to form honeycombs from a tessellation of cells each of which is a hexagonal prism 

To maximize  the number of cells  with in  a volume.

The hexagon cell can expand in six direction  giving  flexibility  when filling a surface .  

The symmetrical nature of the shape allows  for  efficient triangulation and sub division .

 

SITE

CHOUARA” TANNERY

In the medina of Fez, Morocco, there is the tanners district whose real name is Blida. It exists since the Middle Ages and the work of leather is one of the major crafts.

In the district the techniques have remained the same. The craftsmen immerse follow a  the tanned skins in vats* and trample them to extract the impurities.

They put them in different baths for several days before coloring them.

 

Hard working conditions

Lack of Privacy

Heat +Sunlight

FORM FINDING

 

 

 

 

GOAL : Reduce Sunlight Hours

How?

Changing the Height of the Pylons    and their location

Fitness : Average Sunlight Hours

Genome : Pylon Location & Height.

 

The iteration that was best meeting the fitness criteria

Step 1

Planarizing the Panels

PROS : Easy fabrication  method                      CONS : Panels clashing  issues

Step 2 

Clustering based on topological criteria: Area

Lunchbox ML: Gaussian Mixture

Sub Clustering into 3 groups a total of 9 panels

     CRITERIA FOR SUBGROUPING

Length of the Hexagonal Sides

Distance from Center

Angle between the segments

Lunchbox ML: Gaussian Mixture

 

 

 

 

 

 

ASSEMBLING

Interwoven Leather strips on hanged panels reinforce the structure

To avoid panels clashing, a Galapagos Optimization was applied to set the best offset value using a threshold.

MATERIALITY

BENCHMARK

 

 

 

 

 

 

Credits

Shade In The Tannery is a project of IaaC, Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia
developed at MASTER IN ADVANCED COMPUTATION FOR ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN in (2021/2022) by:
Students: Muhammad Daniyal Tariq + Mahmoud Ramdane
Faculties: Rodrigo Aguirre + Hesham Shawqy