Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Damien 14/10 am Review

Recommends continuing pushing all these streams

  •      Cartoons- communicating ideas.
  •      Grid structural system- modules for mass production.
  •      Future use- in other projects
  •      Political & community- larger scale theories.

Presentations about community which usually grow themselves, risks appearing cold, as this can be time consuming to create.


NOW DO:
·       create, sketch, model, many propositions for the apartment products.
·       use these proposals to test the system.
o  Can they be interchanged?
o  What encumbrances to they create?
o  How flexible are they?
o  How can they be upgraded?
§  extended
§  reduced
§  renewed


o  Replaceable?
o  Human scale components?
o  Built on top of?
·       Why do we need the super structure as a separate entity to the substructure?
§  What does the super structure do?
·       Support the load of the dwellings, vertical and horizontal.
·       Supply services; electrical, plumbing, sewerage, data…
§  Could the sub structure also form the super structure?

Mid Project Crisis!

Unsure of what exactly I am aiming toward yesterday I had to make a decision.


A. Will I present a construction system for users to have free reign over, like a full scale Lego house?
or
B. Can I as the architect use this modular system to create a series of 'designer homes'?

I choose B.
Option A is very exciting and could be followed up later, but I can't do everything for this assignment.

A series of designer homes is nothing new however, so why would I choose to do this?
-Whilst working within the aneX system there are rules which constrain the design into forms similar to the Lego block. forms complying to the system have inbuilt properties most obviously of which, is the ability to connect, expand, reduce and be interchanged.
aneXhomes must be able to do this.
It becomes a Lego process on an urban planning scale. The Environment is shaped by the choices of the consumers.  Users are able to select from the catalogue and position their chosen dwellings or extensions within the aneXgrid wherever  the system allows.
The project is a suggestion for the built environment. 

Only a dead environment is static - aneX is a proposal for a living built environment.



Tuesday, October 13, 2009

"engineered for the most accurate fit possible"



"interlocking modules. This simplifies the assembly of the heater, so that specialized "heater-masons" are unnecessary. In fact, masonry skills are not needed"
"High quality aluminum molds and strict quality control measures produce parts with dimensions within narrow limits."


Thanks to Temp-Cast Masonry Heaters


Tessellation

"a collection of plane figures that fills the plane with no overlaps and no gaps.... In Latin, tessella is a small cubical piece of clay, stone or glass used to make mosaics.[1]"


"For an infinite tiling, let a be the average number of sides of a polygon, and b the average number of sides meeting at a vertex. Then (a − 2)(b − 2) = 4. For example, we have the combinations (3, 6), (3 \tfrac{1}{3},5), (3 \tfrac{3}{4},4 \tfrac{2}{7}), (4, 4), (6, 3)"




"Coxeter groups in the plane with equivalent diagrams. Domain mirrors are labeled as edge m1, m2, etc. Vertices are colored by their reflection order. The prismatic group [I~1xI~2] is shown as a doubling of the C~2, but can also be created as rectangular domains from doubling the H~2 triangles. The A~2 is a doubling of the H~2 triangle."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coxeter%E2%80%93Dynkin_diagram

Thanks to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Example of wallpaper group type p4g. From ''The Grammar of Ornament'' (1856), by Owen Jones. Chinese No 1 (plate 59).



Modular beauty

King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, SketchUp 3D Model "King’s College Chapel, an example of late Gothic architecture, was built from 1446 onwards, over a period of 100 years."





http://www.tufts.edu/alumni/images/travel-learn/King_s_College_Chapel__Cambridge_1.jpg
King’s College Chapel at Cambridge

http://www.londontoolkit.com/Walkimages/big_ben_from_river.jpg
Big Ben in London
What can be seen in these ancient Gothic buildings is repeated modules. The notion of modules doesn't necessarily imply a "modular" construction technique, in fact the building components for these examples is of a fraction of the scale compared to the immediately visible modules.

It must be remembered that any form could be referred to as a module, the stones that form these buildings are indead modules on a small scale. Also interesting is that every Gothic stone probably came out of a workshop (aneX factory) individually labeled for their position in the assembly. many of them would have been identical because of the repetitive language of the structure. this simple arrangement makes the manufacturing of the building components far simpler as they can be done on mass.

Just as the good drawer draws like some bite their nails, the good workshop produces modular components  incessantly, constantly increasing precision and reducing demands on resources.
Design is the feed back loop between: Creation - Utilisatioin - and Demolition

model and inital quote thanks to barnabu
second image thanks to http://www.tufts.edu
Third image thanks to http://www.londontoolkit.com



Monday, October 12, 2009

Sears' catalog offered 447 models, selling over 70,000 houses between 1908 and 1940




"Sears Catalog Homes (sold as Sears Modern Homes) were ready-to-assemble houses sold through mail order by Sears Roebuck and Company, an American retailer. Over 70,000 of these were sold in North America between 1908 and 1940. Shipped via railroad boxcars, these kits included all the materials needed to build a house. Many were assembled by the new homeowner and friends, relatives, and neighbors, in a fashion similar to the traditional barn-raisings of farming families."

Image and text thanks to Wikipedia

Go aneX catalogue 1.0

The consumer is the focus, what can aneX (my presentation) provide?
  • Information
    • construction detail/methods
    • cost information
    • relative time periods
    • how to
    • pros/cons
  • Commands
    •  do this...
  • Products
    • UberOOws2030 summer edition
    • McFroogle bunker
    • shoestring Daminion
    • aneXikea season 2010 carbon weave
  • Demonstrations
    • kid size model -for kids to play in
    • desk top model -build yourself
    • virtual model - for planning and demonstration purposes
    • 2D interpretation, stickers, badges, magnets,..
this can all become too much if it is not restrained.

so step one -- aneX catalogue 1.0