an experiment threading through some type using a combination of deconstructed source geometry and randomized trig functions

A continued exploration of fur-like forms and the aesthetics of variation resulting from indirectly linked parameters.

An orthographic projection introduces another degree of ambiguity between graphic and scene.

These posts archive the first and last exercises of a project executed by the Spring 2010 Computer Applications in Architecture course at UMD. Computation at it’s most fundamental levels (without computers) isolates the direct affects of an explicitly parametric methodology on design. This first image, by Michele Rubenstein, exemplifies the implications of the “student as computer” paradigm: heuristics, craft, randomness, fineness and indirection are all at issue, often in contradiction to the presumtive association of digital media with Zeitgeist phenomenon.

In the establishment of a trajectory toward architecture, this project tasks students with identifying effects, qualities or conditions that can withstand translation between media and can perform in response to aesthetic, environmental and programatic parameters. Students each produced a digital and physical model after the initial drawing exercise. This is Michele Rubenstein’s physical model.

The genesis of this project are three algorithms discussed in Computation Without Computers, a paper to be published at ASCAAD 2010.

manual drawing by Chris Donnelly

physical model by Chris Donnelly