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Critical Mass Posts

Guest Lecture: Andrew Kudless of Digital Craft Lab

Obuchi lab will host Andrew Kudless of the Digital Craft Lab for a guest lecture on Friday, October 23, 2015. The lecture will be held in Room 415 of the Architecture Building (Engineering Building #1) on Hongo Campus. 
Lecture Title: Design Morphologies
Andrew Kudless is an Associate Professor of Architecture at the California College of Arts. At CCA, he is the Co-Director of the Digital Craft Lab that supports and promotes advanced research in architectural design, digital fabrication, material science, data visualization and robotics. In addition, he is the founder and principal designer of Matsys, a design firm based in Oakland, California.
This talk will focus on several design morphologies that have been served as a research framework for several projects at Matsys. These morphologies, from shells to cells, from fields to bubbles, extend across many scales in the work and facilitate the engagement of topics such as structural form-finding, difference and repetition, minimal waste fabrication, and self-organizing form and performance. 

Guest Lecture: Jason Kelly Johnson of Future Cities Lab

Obuchi lab is pleased to host Jason Kelly Johnson of Future Cities Lab for a guest lecture on Wednesday, October 14, 2015. The lecture will be held in Room 415 of the Architecture Building (Engineering Building #1) on Hongo Campus. Please join us!

Experiments, Prototypes, Utopias
Jason Kelly Johnson, Future Cities Lab

Jason Kelly Johnson’s Future Cities Lab is at the forefront of exploring how advanced technologies, robotics, social media and the internet of things will profoundly transform how we live, work, communicate, interact and play in the future. As a part of the lab’s core research agenda they synthesize past, present and future trajectories into radically synthetic forms of architectural production, interaction and participation.


Jason Kelly Johnson is founding design Principal of Future Cities Lab in San Francisco. He is currently an Associate Professor at the California College of the Arts (CCA) and Co-Director of CCA’s Digital Craft Lab.


www.future-cities-lab.net

Forty-Five: Arms Race (publication)

Obuchi lab has been published in Forty-Five, A Journal of Outside Research. Forty-Five features a variety of interesting works presented in non-conventional ways. We would like to thank Jonathan Solomon and David Hays for extending an invitation to submit an article.

The article, Arms Race, discusses the development of the stick dispensing machine used for the 2014 pavilion project and considers the evolution of tools from hand tools to power tools to network tools. It contextualizes the STIK project within the context of Tokyo, and introduces some of the challenges the laboratory faced when researching construction and fabrication techniques for the pavilion. The piece also includes a review by Kengo Kuma.

The full article is available for viewing and PDF download on Forty-Five’s website.

In Progress: 2015 DFL Research Pavilion

The prototyping phase for 2015 DFL Research Pavilion is under way. The proposed structure is made out of polyurethane foam deployed three-dimensionally by an originally designed hand-held tool. The research navigates between human craftsmanship and mechanical precision, mediated by computation technology. The students are engaged in constructing a large-scale maquette to test variables before the final construction of the final pavilion in November. Stay tuned.

July 7, 2015: Lecture “Moody Objects” by Matias del Campo, University of Michigan

On July 7th, 2015, it was our pleasure to have Matias del Campo, Associate Professor of Architecture at the Taubman College School of Architecture, University of Michigan, to present his lecture entitled “Moody Objects.”



Biography:
Chilean born and Austrian native, Matias del Campo graduated with distinction from the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, Austria. In 2003 he co-founded SPAN Architects in Vienna, together with Sandra Manninger. The globally acting practice is best known for their sophisticated application of contemporary technologies in architectural production. Their award winning architectural designs are informed by Baroque geometries, romantic atmospheres, and biological systems. Matias del Campo´s obsessive explorations of contemporary moods are fueled by the opulent repertoire of materialization in nature in combination with cutting edge technologies, as well as form as a driving force in design at large. Apart of his role as head of design at SPAN Architects Matias del Campo serves as Associate Professor of Architecture at Taubman College School of Architecture, University of Michigan

July 7, 2015: Upcoming Lecture “Moody Objects” by Matias del Campo, University of Michigan

On July 7th, 2015, we are very fortunate to have Matias del Campo of University of Michigan join us for a lecture event.  
It will be held in the ADS Studio, in room 415 of Engineering Building #1 on Hongo Campus from 17:00-19:00 on July 7th.
The event is open to the public, so please feel free to join.


Matias del Campo explores in his lecture “Moody Objects” the lineages of ontographic qualities in recent computational design techniques. It brokers between the quality of permutations of objects as design trajectory, and the nonphysical entities that constitute primary realities between sensual (moody) and real objects.