Critical Mass Posts

We have started to work on our final studio project — design of ceiling systems at Tokyo Station’s arrival hall. The ambition of our project is to design a 3D surface that integrates structural, lighting, navigational and acoustic systems into a coherent form, reducing visual noises and confusions.

Ginkgo trees are everywhere in the University of Tokyo and they have all turned completely yellow in the last weeks, attracting people everyday to see them and to snap pictures on their mobile phones. Here is a view from our building entrance.

A student from Tsinghua University in Beijing, China sent us those images from a workshop Yusuke conducted with AADRL’s tutor Robert Stewart-Smith and recent AA graduates Xin Wang and Soomeen Hahm last summer. The Topic of the workshop was to explore the distributional logic of dry sand via multiple outlets using only gravity to generate three-dimensional patterns. Its generative logic was simulated simultaneously with Rhino/Grass Hopper for parallel analogue/digital experiments. The top layer of the sand was then hardened with sprayed resin. 96 panels were designed and fabricated for the Beijing Biennale 2010.

Here are some images from our Prototyping Architecture Workshop 1 Final Review. Prof. Kitagaki from Material Department joined us. His comments were productive and encouraging as to developing everyone’s projects more precise, controllable and constructible structures.