Advanced Design Studies Blog: Critical Mass
Last week our lab had the opportunity to hear Thomas Weaver, Editor at the AA School of Architecture in London, speak on architectural education and the current state of research as a pursuit of architecture schools around the world. The following day, Weaver joined us in the first years’ critiques, which quickly turned into an exciting debate about our laboratory’s goals, the projects themselves, and architecture as a whole. It was a very productive afternoon to say the least.
Students and visitors to the lab recently had the privilege of hearing lectures from both Manuel Mensa of the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires, and Doris Sung of the University of Southern California. Professor Mensa gave a talk on “stateless architecture”– or architecture without context and aethetics. Doris Sung presented her works at USC with smart materials, particularly Thermal Bimetal, which reacts to heat and can create structure that responds to its environment by changing shape.
Today students and staff had the pleasure of listening to Kristof Crolla, architect and assistant professor from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Mr. Crolla showed several of his past projects and engaged the lab in discussion centered around the role of the architect in an increasingly automated industry, the role of craftsmanship and the human, and the role of technology and computation.
Below are photos from the symposium itself, which included lectures from Matthias Kohler, Dr. Russell Loveridge, and Yusuke Obuchi. Students and attendees were able to see their multiple perspectives on computational design, and the talks were followed by a productive debate and question session centered around the role of the human in digital fabrication.
Our first years recently went on a field trip with their Japanese Architecture and Cities class to Kyu Asakura House in the Daikanyama district. The house was built in 1919 by Torajiro Asakura and survived the Great Kanto Earthquake and the Pacific War. In 2004, the House was designated as an Important Cultural Property by the Japanese government and is open to the public.
This week we held the AR Toolkit Workshop, aimed at familiarizing students with the production and usage of AR Markers. Using Processing, Grasshopper, and AR Toolkit, students developed their own markers and used cameras to detect distances and synchronize them to points in a virtual model.
