Final Video...

Images to come...

Draft2 Poster

Draft2 Poster
Originally uploaded by vinh.xnguyen

Draft:2




TrafficRoomSim
"alluring, repelling"

A biofuel station accepts people and their vehicles from the surrounding streets and it is important to explore their interaction to develop an architectural outcome that allows them to interact safely.

This sim aims to create an environment that is abstracted from the geometry of the site but not representative of it. In this way it becomes a neutral room in which people and their vehicles occupy space together.

Do they share space? What effects do boundaries have? And what happens when we suggest a boundary rather than enforce it?

ClothReactionSim
"voluptuous"

There was a particular focus on simulating cloth in order to form a premise for testing a morphing building. One which leans over for morning sun, then bows down to the midday sun, and then rolls onto its side for afternoon sun. An adaptable architecture that forms and reforms itself within the environment.

This sim aims to experiment with the capability of form making with cloth through its interaction with other objects.

Basic volumes are thrown and pushed into, dropped and rolled onto, different properties to see their effect and reaction. The reaction especially had been observed to return a force to the object, in the form of bouncing.

ClothTearSim
"that rips, and under stress, tears"

Following on from the experiment above, this seeks to set up a method to test the limitations, boundaries and extents to which cloth can strecth before it fails. The process here is to actually force a failure in a controlled environment, and by doing so discover its limits.

This sim aims to experiment with the breaking point of cloth material.

This is done by specifying a maximum size factor, such as 150% of original length, beyond which UT3 will simulate its tearing due to stress. Although this material failure is shown as tearing, it is expected that cloth failure in real life will come in the form of excessive stretching such that it cannot return to its initial form.

With this in mind, the next step will be to identify real stretch factors as specified by manufacturers of cloth products and test them in the engine.

Some videos I've found while on my quest to model and simulate soft bodies and cloth...







(you got to love the music in the last one...)

Draft:1

Photosynthesis
The process to convert CO2 to O2 is a naturally occurring process that leaves carbon in the form of biomass. Algae are the fastest growing plant known on Earth and have the potential to double its biomass in a single day. This potential to convert such large amounts of CO2 is important in maximising the usefulness of a relatively small site. This proposal exploits the advantages of this by providing the external shell of a building that is transparent and hollow in order to become like a bioreactor.

Selection of program
The decision to combine the concept of an air treatment plant with a biofuel station comes from the contextual issue of the site being a point of extraction of CO2 gases from the ED tunnel. It opens up the opportunity to be used by more people than simply staff and personnel, which is important to ensure its utilisation.

Integration into current infrastructure
This is important because it ensures that the scheme is both accepted and utilised with ease in our current society. There are a growing number of vehicle manufacturers moving to diesel engines. There is a cyclical process involved here with CO2 being produced from fuel burning in cars and fuel being produced from CO2 being converted through the bioreactor.

Supply and Demand
The production of biofuel depends heavily on hours of sunlight and amount of CO2 supplied. If the number of cars using the tunnel should reduce, so too does the potential to produce fuel for those cars. In turn, there is a direct relationship between the amount of fuel able to be produced and the number of cars on the roads.

Maximising surface area towards sun
Obviously by increasing the area that is exposed to direct sunlight, we increase our potential to convert CO2 to biomass + O2. The extent to which this is prioritised should be weighted closely with the amount of energy invested into achieving such goals.

Module framework
There is a conscious effort to maintain a regular module or grid with construction, since it was stated in previous exploration that such a system would set up the use of the project as an example for multiple scales. This is important as a marketing strategy that can open opportunity for similar systems to be used in residential projects. C.f. Dam and water tank analogy.

Storage of different stages in the CO2->biofuel process
The level drop on site is being utilised to store different items that are part of the CO2 to biofuel process. These include concentrated CO2, water, algae water, harvested oil, cultured oil, and biodiesel.

Size of production
Further research must be done to evaluate the size needed to address the large volumes of CO2 that are extracted from the tunnel. It is expected that the proposed scheme can only convert a small percentage of such volume. Its intention is to convert as much as it can within the limitations of the site. This raises questions about how do we deal with such problems in cities where there is competition for land.

Further research:

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=1MeIgaRfyD4
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=EnOSnJJSP5c

The forms that these farms take open opportunities for use with architectural elements. Transparency, opacity, structure, colour.

high res exp4 on file front

http://files.filefront.com/VNExp4bmov/;10805823;/fileinfo.html

Exp4 Video

Hospital for the City
How does one measure the health of the city? Does it have symptoms? How do we detect them? And how do we treat them?

The notion of a hospital to treat the city presents opportunities to explore the way in which architecture has a capacity to resolve issues which extend wider than its immediate boundary. This not only expands awareness by bringing problems and their solutions into view; but also aims to treat problems before they become problems.

Air treatment plant
The location of our site, being adjacent to the stack that expels gases from the Eastern Distributor, is an ideal place to intercept and detoxify gases before they are injected into the atmosphere above our city. This function has been developed as a parallel to water treatment plants which already exist around our city. It explicitly acknowledges environmental health (air, water, light, temperature) as significant aspects of a city’s health. However it omits aspects such as social, political and economic health. The integration of these ones may be possible, but will not be dealt with in this proposal due to the limited size of the site.

A program in question
The conceptual notion of this hospital seeks to be paired with a program that is connected to the social and urban fabric. This may be an apartment block, a commercial and retail program, a civic space, a farming facility, bio-fuel station etc. But what it seeks to eliminate is the development of a factory that only allows “personnel” the opportunity to interact with and inhabit the space. This is aimed at developing a connection with people to ensure that it is valued and utilised.

Science and Architecture
In the same way an understanding of acoustics is required to design an amphitheatre, it is necessary to understand the treatment processes to design architecture that treats the city. The word “filter” in this case, is actually by principle an undesirable process, since it suggests simply collecting and displacing something unwanted. A better word is “converter”, which suggests transforming something unwanted into something we can use. So the gas that is being treated is post-catalytic-converter, which is largely CO2 mixed with air. It is suspected that processes from one or both of the Sabatier Reaction (converting CO2, hydrogen and a catalyst, into, water and carbon) and Photosynthesis (converting CO2 and sunlight, into, oxygen and carbon) may be employed.

Impact on city and as an example
Consequently, by treating the city, we also treat the people within the city. When considering the notion of centralisation against decentralisation, it is expected that there will be a need to have a large scale centralised treatment process for this particular site that can be reproduced at different smaller scales without losing its effectiveness (Similar to the dam and water tank relationship). This will be aimed at developing an architecture that is perhaps modular and can be used to explore a model for small domestic use.

References:
http://www.greenfuelonline.com/press_av_video1.html
http://www.greenfuelonline.com/press_av_sciam.html
http://technology.newscientist.com/channel/tech/mg19225725.600-biofuel-made-from-power-plant-cosub2sub.html

Starting the Palace

I'll edit and add to this as it progresses, check back soon.

Added 13th June:
http://files.filefront.com/PalaceMasszip/;10617234;/fileinfo.html

Added 14th June:
http://files.filefront.com/PalaceDetail3zip/;10636

Hospital close to home

This concept stems from a common shift in current health care trends to employ "aging in place". The proposal is a domestic apartment block that is collaborated into an aged care facility that serves both the building and the area. People who live in the apartments would maintain their own level of independence whilst having the facilities and services nearby when needed. This blurring between domesticity and institution could open many opportunities for exploration into the relationship between health care and home. All of which are relevant to current architecture and its response to emerging demographics.

Hospital for the City

I have been thinking about a hospital to treat the City and its health. In the same way the liver performs detoxification to filter harmful items from the human body, the health of the city may depend on a filter of its own. We already have water treatment plants but our city can also benefit from air treatment plants. The location of our site, being adjacent to the stack that expels gases from the Eastern Distributor, is an ideal place to intercept and detoxify gases before they are injected into the atmosphere above our city. Consequently, by treating the city, we also treat the people within the city.

Some forms of "Form"

___________form_____________
___________forms____________
___________forming__________
_________inform_____________
_________unform_____________
______transform_____________
___________formal___________
___________formally_________
___________formerly_________
_________deform_____________
_________reform_____________
________preformed___________
_______reinform_____________
________misform_____________
______misinform_____________
_______uninform_____________
_______uninformed___________
______illinformed___________
________uniform_____________
____non-uniform_____________
___________formidable_______
___________formidability____
___________formability______
________perform_____________
________performable_________
________performance_________
___________formless_________
___________formlessness_____
___________formation________
___________formula__________
___________formulate________
___________formulated_______
___________firm _____________

EXP2 - page 3

page3
Originally uploaded by vinh.xnguyen

EXP2 - page 2

page2
Originally uploaded by vinh.xnguyen

EXP2 - page 1

page1
Originally uploaded by vinh.xnguyen

page1-1

page1-1
Originally uploaded by vinh.xnguyen

a starting point, site plan separated into surfaces, the selected part (red) is the dry/white/dirt part of the site.

page1-2

page1-2
Originally uploaded by vinh.xnguyen

tweaking the definition of surfaces...still a work in progress

page2-1

page2-1
Originally uploaded by vinh.xnguyen

this is the first of two pages which fold out the horizontal surfaces into vertical. Colours will probably change before final. Placement relates to the first page to emphasis a lack of displacement.

This is a small peak at the beginning of what i've been working on. The end part speeds up alot and still needs alot of work. I'm not too fond of the title at the moment, it will probably change. The piece is Rachmaninoff Prelude C-sharp and was chosen over others like moonlight sonata, nutcracker - sugar plum fairy, pathetique, pachelbel canon. There's an underlying duality in the piece that bounces between two poles, something that I see as a quarrel between the devices which intensify and soothe.

distinctive theory

Architecture can amplify and soothe pain.