Eiab : Week 1

For the first week back at the studio, I was assigned to find various examples of performative architecture that interest me. Keeping in mind that it has to be transformative, transformable and work as a network with a precise choreography, I came up with different examples of kinetic architecture that can perform such movement.

I started with the obvious one, the Dynamic Tower designed by David Fisher which moves to create a dynamic experience of the occupants. While the movement looks exciting and rigorous in appearance, I feel it is quite dull.

                               

Moving on, I found many other examples of kinetic architecture for the sole purpose of providing a shade accordingly to the sun path and weather conditions. One of which is the Milwaukee Art Museum in Wisconsin.

One of the researches that seem to interest me is the Airport Baggage Handling System. We've all been to airport and gave our luggage upon entrance but has no idea where the luggage really go until we reached our destination that we see our bags again. It should be enlightening to see the system the rigorous plans of conveyor belts that flow throughout the entire architecture and it is no doubt, very complicated.

With all of the above researches, I find that my next example appeals to me the most. It is playing the building exhibition by David Byrne which is a sound installation in which the infrastructure, the physical plant of the building, is converted into a giant musical instrument. Devices are attached to the building structure — to the metal beams and pillars, the heating pipes, the water pipes — and are used to make these things produce sound. The activations are of three types: wind, vibration, striking. The devices do not produce sound themselves, but they cause the building elements to vibrate, resonate and oscillate so that the building itself becomes a very large musical instrument.

 

However, even though I'm very much interested in his project, I don't think it is practical for this exercise. The machines will produce sound in three ways: through wind, vibration and striking. I believe one of the movements is invisible and the other two, vibration and striking is too minimal. Yes, the devices that are part of the piece also cause the building elements themselves to vibrate, resonate and oscillate, at first I thought it would be interesting to see how each action creates different ripple effects but it turns out the movement is either too brief or it cannot be seen at all. So, as far as my interest in sound samples goes, I'd have to suspend this research for another, more suitable one.

With Aj. Fredrik's guidance, reminding me that the conveyor belt system at the airport is also an interesting subject to pursue, I came back and did more research on the subject. After a long research, I finally found a couple of airport baggage handling plans, the more detailed ones are Christchurch Airport in New Zealand, Beijing Airport and Gatwick Airport in London (shown in the video).

 Gatwick Airport North Terminal

As of the moment, I am finalizing my diagrams on the baggage handling system at the Gatwick Airport and making initial approach to making a 3d model of the place which will soon be updated on the blog.