Studio Florián
 
A R C H I T E C T U R E,   A R T   A N D   B U I L D I N G   A R E   A N   E N T I R E T Y F L O | W    2 0 0 5 .  .  .  . • Transformation • The building industry is going on into the next evolutionary stage that is characterized by quantity and a great geometric variety of elements. The gap between the possibilities of production and the demands of designers is continually decreasing. Architects and designers, who were satisfied at first with a mere visualization of complex projects, find themselves in the situation demanding requirements of processing a great amount of dates nowadays. The application of digital dates results in the generation of buildings that are characterized by multicurved surfaces. Designing on this principle requires optimation and automation of gained information by means of programing in the initial stage of planning, which is projected into evaluation, choosing and confirming the variety of components. Continual progress in planning of the contemporary architecture is illustrated by the evolutionary development from modernism to deconstructivism, blobs, freeform, transarchitecture, evolutionary architecture, nanoarchitecture and plectic architecture. At first the application of planar and cylindric surfaces occurred that were vertically intersected and characterized by repeating elements. Then the rectangular structures were abandoned and the surfaces were allowed to get narrower, tilt, to have a seam of the cut under an angle and to be combined with surfaces of various simple curvations. From these solutions various spans of constructions and possibilities of usány many various components followed. The curved surfaces changed into an image, where all the elements have unique contoures and surfaces of curvation that meet at various angles. The movement generated into the structure of the construction is added. Emerged forms have functional advantages in the form of minimizing of the external surface. Stress is laid not only on experimentation with traditional materials, but also with smart ones and with systems by means of parametric optimizing computational tools for the purpose of introducing material objectification into architecture. The result of searching the systems of feedback that are characteristic for complex systems known from the nature, is an optimum planning of the structures of buildings and saving of used materials. • The past and the present of parametric architecture • For a few decades the architects, designers and engineers have been using a computer for increasing the produktivity, for solving the seemingly unsolvable problems, and, last but not least, also for presenting the designs and projects. But only lately the computational technologies have been used not as tools, but as innovative device capable to bring out surprising new ideas in designing and quite unexpected forms for the world of buildings and space. For the first time during the long decades the new generation of authors of buildings, structures, and urban forms express their reaction to the interest in the theory of chaos, in fractal geometry and in an accelerating evolution in other fields, especially in informatics, artificial intelligence, material engineering, genetics and nanoscience. They re-define the comprehension of architecture, urbanism, and this way also of the structures of construction in our reality. By hybridizing the ideas with the form, real as well as virtual, the hybrid spaces appear, which are a challenge for contemporary comprehension of space and time. Dynamics becomes as important for an architect and engineer as statics. The space is move and more defined by the traffic/business flows and events than the fixed positions of the objects. Consequently the traditional conception of architecture and construction as projecting of unchangeable and final structures of objects is changing. The time of typology is leaving and the era of diagrams is coming. In the changing world of today the architectural task comprises especially the data in the form of moving people, transport, goods, flows of energy, and so on. The shape is looked for afterwards, when the claims of traffic are defined and the presumption of flows and events is fixed, which will be performed in the given space. The emphasis on the continuity brings out greater measure of interconnection of the architectural environments. The towns are gradually less formed by isolated constructions and they become to be a complex organism, where the borders between exterior and interior are blurred. The posibilities of using the computers caused that the essence of the building art will be the same as in the past never more. Not only in the frame of the proces sof designing, but especially in the real world. The creation of the environment is going through transformation not only from the formal view, but also in the sphere of information and knowledge. It is necessary to ask the question, how near we are to the projecting of constructions with their own digital life. The generation of available technology will give the building a movement sensibly perceiving the changeability of the environments. The authors that will be informed about the possibilities of the new work tools will begin to play with them and they will project buildings as interactive games. The first processed designs-say the animated forms of Greg Lynn, Marcos Novak or the diagrams of the UN Studio on one hand and the multidisciplinary researches of the group dECOi till the biologic-technical work of the group NOX, and on the other hand-they slowed a substantial matter, namely the existence of a qualitative difference between the animations of architecture of fantastic shapes arising on the monitors of computers and the realisations resulting from these pictures. In 1980s and 1990s the technologies were not immediately available that would be able to fulfil the notions of architects, designers and engineers about the above mentioned ideas from the construction and material views in a satisfactory manner. This discrepancy between the level of the new technics of computational programming and the quality of performing systems brought out the activities that in their consequences led to gradual application of construction systems and materials known especially in the first half of 20th century, of course in other connections and in a higher technological quality. Examples worth mentioning are the membrane, pneumatic, foam and other sandwich structures, network space shells, hydraulic components, glass and plastic materials. Also the research on application of hybrid intelligent materials into the building architectures is going on and bringing new possibilities not only in planning the non-linear construction systems, but also in influencing the medium under the construction and inside the construction. The systems responding to the stimulations from outsider are arising this way. Thanks to the enlarged possibilities of the computer modelling the ability of teaching the computer program to accept the effects from the physical world was created, may these be the problems of branched structures or the forms of a catenary. Simultaneously with this other wals are searched that would be able to form the structures of architectures even better and smarter. Attention is paid to the construction and engineering firms fully automated and connected on-line by the Internet that are able better to coordinate the work, as well as the co-operations, and to use softwares on the principle of CAD/CAM/CAE technologies not only for preparing the models, prototypes and buildings, but also for their manufacturing. Planning by the method of digital prototyping is often spoken about in this connection. Everything around the digital prototyping began in the late 1980s and the dynamic development has taken place since 1992 especially in the USA. This period is characterized by replacing the drawing-boards by effective graphic working sites with constructional programs. Since the mere electronic replacement of drawing a 3D-geometric model of the product has gradually developed, which is of great importance for the evolutionary work. The general computational methods applicable in the frame of these constructional programs can test the particular components of various forms by diverse loading states before their own production and building. Besides that, the programs that can atest the technological process of production of the new object are available. The advantage of this digital planning is not only a precisely dimensed and formed component from various transparent or non-transparent materials, but after that a finally perfect object assembled from all the components in a very short time. The advancement of 3D-modelling gives rise to new technologies. In this connection one often speaks about the project of a new product or components of a construction by means of methods called in English Digital Prototyping /DP/, Rapid Prototyping /CRP/, Rapid Inspection /RI/ and Reverse Engineering /RE/. The word „Rapid“ means a great competitive advantage, which is not usually properly used in our situation. Digital Prototyping /DP/ is a process whose aim is to design a new produkt, a prototype or a building more quickly, more cheaply and in higher quality. This process ceases to be characteristic only for the development of new components in automobile or aircraft industry. I tis not necessary to work with a classical documentation, as the digital modelling enables not only to construct the prototypes without them being physically realised, but it often provides posibility to work with a digital model of the construction in the department sof the firms situated in quite other localities. The digital model has an outstanding applicability at manufacturing and control of the new components of the product or of the construction. Planned constructions or ready-made products and their components can be measured by optical methods and avaluated by comparing the measured values with the digital model. The quick building of individual components which the whole object is assembled of are dealt with the technic of Rapid Prototyping /CRP/ on the base of information involved in the digital model. RP is a technic of a quick issue of a physical component on the base of a 3D-CAD model. The time needed for the building is substantially reduced and it is possible to get an orbitrary form of the component during a short time without the classical methods of shaping. By means of the methods of digitally programable machines, CNC-shaping, milling and Rapid Prototyping we are able quickly to assemble the prototypes and whole constructions from components of very complicated shapes. It is often necessary to measure and evaluate them quickly. And it is just this that is the sphere of influence of the contactless laser digitalization through 3D-scanner of the Rapid Inspection /RI/ technic. More and more often we meet an opposite problem in the development of products, prototypes and constructions-the problem how to make a digital model on the basis of an existing product, prototype or construction. This demanding process is a method of reconstruction of a digital model on the basis of measured values of a physical object, which is indicated as Reverse Engineering /RE/. This technici s used in the cases, when the existing part or form must be reproduced and the space CAD-dates are missing or the drawing documentation does not exit, and it is necessary to make the component again. RE finds its application in the sphere of calculations by the method of final elements, especially when the real geometry of the produced part differs from the analysed CAD-model in an outstanding way. Digitalized dates are used more and more often just in the production, without processing by the CAD-system, which significantly shortens the process of manufacturing the model, prototype and the final construction. It is advantageous especially for the first stages of the study, when the shape of the components is often changed and adapted. The quality of the reached geometry is in these cases dependent on the precision of the digitalization and on the density of digitalized dates. The common denominator of all these methods is shortening of the necessary time for getting the CAD-dates or for the manufacturing of the model, prototype or construction. The shortening of evolutionary cycles makes the creation of further variations possible, lowering the expense for development, planning and faster realization. At present the principle of planning the construction is based on the team work, as dynamic modelling by means of a new generation of CAD-systems. Building and architecture have two aspects nowadays: on one hand they form a physical medium, on the other hand they suggest behaviour, the rules of the play, the state of „mind“ of the constructions and the medium directly connected with the physical places. It is usually called the enlarged reality. Planning in our everyday reality, as well as in the enlarged one, strongly relies on the parametric basis that brings a number of advantages for our designers. Perhaps the greatest benefit is the fact that a change on a form of a construction can be made by anybody at any time, without knowing the process by which the object was formed in the past. / » Miloš Florián: Architektura mÄ›ní formu, p. 51-54. The magazine ERA 21 5/2003, ISSN 1213-6212 / »»   • Process of simulation of the design • Simulations are important for planning and analysing of complex material systems. The procedure of simulation demands evolution of a mathematical model of physical processes, and a generative computational project can currently have in itself an integrated advanced physics of non-linear behaviour, because of investigating dynamic changes, whose influence the constructions and materials a exposed to in the reaction on the change of the conditions of behaviour. Much of the physical environments can be simulated by a computer. For example a simple looking for Google shows a set of places on the web net, which have an interactive simulation of physical principles including light, optics, elasticity and materials, pendulums and waves, harmony, mechanics and mobility, or even nuclear physics. In these simulations the parameters of objects can be modified, and then the consequent changes in behaviour can be observed. Most of the software of architectural design contents the modelling of solar light for any locality in the world, and the growing plug-in rows or scripts can simulate the behaviour of structures and elasticity with the influence of gravity. More sofisticated simulations, as those for presenting the reaction of a construction to the stress at a randon load, or for modelling the flows of air and heat in a space or in a material, are the standard modules of a technical software. • Technical simulation • Natural construction systems are analysed by the software Ansys Multiphysics that enables to construct and to keep running the simulations for building, heat and fluid dynamics, acoustic and electromagnetic analysis. It is also possible to use the desktop simulation of the environments Ansys Workbench for simulations of patterns of wind flows and stress forces that appear on the skin of buildings of a given total geometry on a building site in various periods during the year. The students of designing can apply the simulations as a part of the development of planning a project, for example, of a system of an adaptable façade that works with components locally changing the permeability, and distributed on the surface of the skin of the building. A careful analysis of the patterns of the wind flows and stress forces on the skin of the construction, made the simulation is used for evolution of a strategy for coordinated control of components located on the façade, so that the features of the wind characteristic for the given place are used for natural ventilation and passive modulation of the environments. Making a simulation requires two sets of dates: concentration and analysis of the meteorological information for the given place and the prevailing speed of winds and thein direction, and the manufacturing of 3D-models of the building and the surrounding topography, natural and developed, in the area of proximately one half of a square kilometre. Using of simulation technics with the unpredictable technologies and design does not only relace to the application of a technical software, but it also contents an animation software, for example Maya, known to a larger community of designers, and the capability of scripting and solving the evolution of a simulation tool for customization. It is necessary to study physics from case to case, as well as the characteristic features of self-organisation of tensile membranes and to use the script MEL for the reproduction of the simulation of relaxation of the tension strain in software Maya Dynamics Environment. The software Maya was enlarged so as to become a tool capable to simulate the process of distribution of a large amount of fixed points in the space in order to adjust the form of the minimum energy of the membrane. This process of the simulation of membranes for various types of pattern cuts in the initial phase proved that it is a precious tool in manufacturing a numer of physical prototypes of the system of a membrane tensegrity construction. The simulations in praktice are more and more used on one hand by the consultants of various scientific disciplines, and on the other hand they are used for the purpose of evaluation of various aspects of effects of the designing. An example of advanced simulation is an acoustic simulation which is used for evaluation of the acoustic quality of a space in a manner that is not possible to achieve by any other means. The planned halls usually reflect a complicated geometry of the building, which makes the foreseeing of acoustics of the space more difficult by a traditional method of comparing, which is based on the evaluation of the results of the studies, observing, and dates from the buildings already realised. A lot of the simple rules till now fixed for acoustic projects of spaces cannot be applied on solving of too complicated geometries. The simulation allows evaluation of an acoustic isolation including the qualities of the space immediately at the process of designing and the identification of problematic areas and surfaces, so that the modifications of the space can be made for the purpose of enhancing the space and they can be immediately integrated into the design of the construction. It is sometimes said that the modelling of non-linear behaviour of the cyclic stress of the construction components and the building site during earthquake with a sufficient precision of foreseeing of the actual behaviour is a problem refusing solution.The application of the software Ansys, simulation of the completing of construction systems during the earthquake is based on historical dates about earthquakes so as to expound the chronological course of a synthetic earthquake. The simulation of cyclic strain is not really difficult, because there is sufficient amount of dates from observed events. The difficulty lies in interactions of the components in the structure. For example when a minute disorder causes a new distribution of stress. These kinds of simulations have to be based on observations of the behaviour of both materials and components, as well as on verified use of dates from physical experiments. New projects of the structures of constructions in the areas of frequent earthquakes can be better developed, provided these simulations are applied rather during planning the design of the projects than for the optimation of testing the influence of earthquakes in the final projects. The program Open System for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (Open Sees) represents an advanced simulation software that is needed for an analysis of hypothetic and representative scenarios for the behaviour of the construction, of the foundations and of the building site. The software Open Sees is an open source, free available at Berkeley University as an appliable program of a dividing line, our interface /API/ that fully proves and makes available the examples and dates, conditions and methods of solution, databases and visualisations. Technical simulations in other fields beside the architecture are well developed and bring new notions in directing the research for architecture and engineering. In medicine the Centre for Biomaterials and Tissue at the Sheffield University develops for example simulations for biological materials. Similarly as in the research of behaviour of the plant systems in the studio Emergent Technologies and Design /EmTech/ at the London School of Architectural Association the 3D-models are exposed to the effects of stresses, and the reactions caused by then are consequently studied. These simulations reveal the behaviour of movements of human tissues under stress and under the influence of fluids inside the tissues. The simulations that precisely simulate the behaviour of the living human tissue are highly valuable for medicine as a whole, especially for designing substitutions of the parts of human body.                           Simulations that developed from the dynamics of fluids are useful for modelling the blood circulation through the heart that show flowing under the conditions of high shear stress that can damane the blood-corpuscles. The danaged blood-corpuscles have a tendency of forming coagulations, which are always dangerous, especially for the patiens with implants, for example with implanted heart valves. Technical simulations are used for designing and developing the same or similar implants. The simulations of dynamic behaviour of lungs are planned for direct using of medicines, which brings some hope for their quick diffusion into the patienÅ¥s blood circulation by means of the lung cellar. Fluids dynamics in the spaces filled with air is non-linear, and undoubtedly more komplex than the simulation of surroundings that is currently applied in the architectural engineering. The significance of the simulations of this type for planning an answering „skin“ of the architectural envelope and for adaptive intelligent systems of buildings is evident and unmistakable. • Simulation of the structure of the urban development • SimCity is an interesting game in which the driving forces  of the game simulate a complex growth of cities, where the player can change a lot of parameters and follow the effects of interaction among the rates, zones, infrastructure, pollution, topography and other parameters. It is repeated and interacted, which represents an important growth simulation in the field of the industry of games. This simulation is limited by the fact that a model of the urban development cannot be modified, and so both the evolution and the multi-purposeful programming of the buildings including the integration of variable flows of the multi-phasic traffic exchanges with the „air flows“ are impossible. The cities are complicated systems. Streams of vehicles and people inside the city represent emergent behaviour of such a system that is formel by a lot of decisions of individuals and their mutual interaction with the traffic infrastructure of the city. Complicated probléme are according to the definition non-linear and sensitive to the original conditions, and so even small changes in these conditions can cause turbulent behaviour in the global scale. There are two strategies for the task of modelling a complicated system. The simplest and fastest is abstraction of mathematical descriptions of the followed behaviour of the recent system and modelling the envelopes of distributed identifiable patterns and parameters. For example, the simulations of transport are often constructed according to the familiar patterns of behaviour of the fluid dynamics, and they are combined with the parameters of velocity and density in the transport network. Simulations constructed this way are economical with regard to the computational time and needed demands and results. They are made quickly and they reliably show the behaviour that is generally indicative. An alternative approach bottom up starts from the knowledge that a complex system represents a very high number of small and simple components, each of which is half-autonomous and at the same time in a mutual interaction with its neighbours. The behaviour of the global system emerges with the interaction and the local behaviour of individual components or agents. The software based on the agents builds detailed and complicated behaviours for the particular entities from simple rules. The capability of modifying the behaviour is immensely important. The behaviour of people in a city is not reliable and stable, because it has a tendency of changing according to the weather, time and locality. The software based on the multi-agents is in fact distributed and it can be installed to the net very well. The simulation that includes local information and control combined with the interaction of individuals represents a new software paradigma for simulations, in spite of the fact that it puts extraordinary demands on the computational capacity. An ideal system should include both the approaches and it would be very needful for elaborating complex urban projects.   • Simulation of production, construction and materials • In the aircraft, astronauntical, ship and automobile industry the physical behaviour, including the wear and fatigne during the life, is simulated in the phase of planning. In many industrial fields the production processes are also simulated digitally in the project studio. The real tracks of a numerically programmable tool can be made digitally efore the process of the physical manufacturing, which is at prezent a part of all the production processes controlled by a computer. The simulation of CNC-machine proceses, Rapid Prototyping and laser cutting is on one hand a commen part of the processes of preparing the projects for production, and at the same time their application is enlarged to casting, milling, extruding and bending machines, by means of which many architectural components are produced even more in the last time. The simulation enables the development and enhancing of projects efore the construction of physical models, prototypes and buildings. The prototyping simulation, sometimes known as virtual prototyping, usually demands a multiple repeating of the dynamic simulation before the manufacturing of a fast physical prototype.   The simulation of the production processes, as cutting, welding and heat treating are used for prediction of the material properties of the produced components. This is especially important regarding the fact that some thermal mechanical processes tend to deform the shape of the component to modify its material properties. There is a number of well developed simulations of metodologies inside the virtual production. In spite of that, even when the simulations are often used, there are rather the simulations of individual procedures than of the whole sequences of production processes which most of the artifacts are going through from a raw material to an installed component. The sequence of analyses of production processes demands a systém for exchanging information between various softwares, because most of the technical software will solve problems in a single sphere. Standardized formats as IGES and STEP, are useful, but the commercial aims of a developer of the software mean that it is necessary to develop the translations of protocols for sharing dates or even to re-define the limit conditions and to re-draw the geometric models. Regarding the fact that the architects are more and more getting used to direct working with the manufactures of the constructions at the beginning of the project, the potential of the integration of the production processes at the generation of the design of the project will become used more. The development of new or varied material composites is another sphere, where simulations enable fast innovation and avoidance of traditional methods of production in small series of physical samples and their testing in order to determine their properties. The process of testing, modification of material and production of new samples is usually a long series of repeating physical experiments and production processes, which go on, till the proper compromise between the production limits and a plausible performance is reached. Then the production can begin. On the mathematical model the digital simulations can investigate various densities of fibres that content various kinds of folds of varied orientation and from unlimited amounts of materials. This process is known as virtual testing and it replaces the physical testing which can be reserved for final prototypes, but cannot replace all of the tests. Virtual testing of the composites uses a mathematical model for predicting the behaviour of composites that are exposed to the influence of strain and for predicting the changes of a material in the case, when the strain and the following damage is growing. The material can be digitally modelled in a specific arrangement, as glass, a membrane, a surface, a stanchion or a support, and exposed to the influence of parameters of strain that is similar to the real strain the material will be exposed to when used in the physical world. These tests can be performed not only by the method of final elements, but also by means of special interactive softwares that were developed for the simulation of the composite behaviour and that are able to change the input parameters, to see directly and to analyse the effects of changes in the composition of materials. Virtual testing is of a great importance for designing a project and construction of complicated geometric forms, as well as the concrete casts. The properties of concrete are developed in time and on place and the testing usually includes the twenty-eight days′ waiting for the maturing of material from the point of view of the required performance. The simulation is used for predicting the behaviour and the properties of a great amount of various „misces“ and it can be performed not only for a new mixing and casting, but also for stiffening and hardening the concrete. Analysis of the concrete cast into the moulds is especially important for non-standard forms of constructions of the today′s buildings, for which there are no previous dates we could link up with. The traditional slump test, or the test of adaptability of the concrete represents a physical experiment that provides the limit of flowing of the concrete flow strained in known states.         The concrete flow can be fully modelled only when its viscosity is known too. Such a simulation whose parts are changeable parameters can be used for research of the effective building means of complicated architectural forms. The effect of the fibres or the filling on the flow is modelled by using of a variant of particle dynamics, or a dissipative particle dynamics, which is a little similar to the technics used for modelling the movement of the molecules, but with bigger „molecules“, or particles of the filling. The concrete represents a composite made from materials that are noted for being of various sizes and properties, and the behaviour of the flow is non-linear. That is why it is best to make its evaluation as a combination of the simulation and physical tests. • Aims • The digital revolution has brought other principles of a complex and parametric planning of adaptive buildings based on the studies of nature, the technology of making prototypes and the evolution of smart materials; it has fundamentally changed the way of planning, controling and realizing the constructions. For catching the new relations among the developing material properties, structural morphology, production technology and architectural expression new planning of parametric technics and tools is necessary, in the frame of which the integration of the manner of planning the construction structures, materials and production processes occur by means of generative computational procedures. The aim of our pioneer work not only in our country is to unity the application of softwares of parametric computational systems together with the properties of materials and the softwares of CAD/CAM/CAE technology in order to form the tools of optimation for planning not only in a digital, but also in the real medium in the sense of a generative design for an optimal dimensioning of the building part from the point of view of the form, material and production. With regard to the fact that the problem are complicated 3D operations, we will use either plug-in modules in the concrete language of the program, so called scripts, for an easy generation of the result. The origin and application of the script has its own regularities that follow the method of use. It is very helpful to employ a special software, which allows jointing the manual manipulation with writing the script. The script becomes something as a new „pencil“ for an architect. And another possibility is a direct assembling of the program for the second task. Both the methods need to reach an explicit precision, which relies on the choice of feedback and the following evaluation. For various experiments, for example in the form of an analysis of flowing round by the fluids or for the static-constructional analysis, special procedures in the computational programs were formed: AutoCad, 3D Studio Max, Generative Components, Rhino, plug-in Grasshopper Rhinoceros, etc. Very important is of course also the posibility of joining through with other programs working on the databases Exel and others. Our intention will be to make one software optimation, and to fill a big gap in an effective approach to planning buildings that way. Miloš Florián, Associate Professor, ing.arch., Ph.D. The author is an architect and pedagogue/tutor at Czech Technical University in Prague, Faculty of Architecture, Department of Building Construction I.-15 123. Since autumn 2004 the head of FLO│W, earlier Studio Miloš Florián_Glass/Freeform Architecture. He is interested in planning intelligent glass façades, in the innovative structure of freeform architecture simulated by computer, smart materials and nanotechnology.