Press Release: Studio Formwork has just released the designs for a lightweight inflatable solar skin.
This SOlar skIN is made of lightweight inflatable polymer and foam tubing that is 2 1/2 feet long and 1 1/2 feet wide. The panel has a solar mirror parabolic ellipse collector on the inner tube of the inflatable polymer skin. The top is made of translucent polymer and foam pieces that morph the shape of bones are put in place to add durability. The piece is lined on the outside with high density foam that is coated in a shiny white resin finish similar to the construction of a bicycle helmet, but the foam is slightly less rigid. The foam tubes hold the steel cables so the SOlar skIN can be put on the side of a building or on top as a tensile type structure. The skin panels fit snuggly together and seal to create a waterproof, high tech, lightweight, architecturally stimulating skin that can be used in new construction or old to enhance its visual siteline. The SOlar skIN , which is under patent production, will insulate and harness electricity for the building it skins at a fraction of the cost of solar panels. SOlar skIN is incredibly efficient, sexy and affordable.
We are currently doing renderings for those interested in seeing if the solar skin is something that would work for your building.
Please contact us for a quote.
Title: The Make It Right Project Founded By Brad Pitt
Designers: Morphosis, Pugh + Scarpa, Adjaye, Construct, GRAFT, MVRDV, Shigeru Ban, BNIM, Kieran Timberlake, and 5 Local Architecture Firms
Project Description: Newsflash: Brad Pitt sees destruction and wants to make change. In reaction to the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina and the government’s inability to solve the problem, Brad Pitt has stepped up to create the MIR Make It Right Organization, which is building green homes on a large scale for victims of the hurricane. The Make It Right site states the project ”settled on the goal of constructing 150 homes, with an emphasis on developing an affordable system that could be replicated.” The project is located in the Lower 9th Ward and aims at “proving that safe homes could and should be rebuilt,” Brad Pitt hopes that this project will be a catalyst for recovery and redevelopment throughout the Lower 9th Ward and across the City of New Orleans.
The Pink Project: He perceived the visual potency of pink houses as a metaphor. Working together with GRAFT, the idea was born to merge film and architecture into an installation that would bring immediate global attention to a pervasive local issue. The idea is that the pink signifies that “they have not been forgotten.” The MIR site states that “the simple legibility of the pink monopoly house reassembled from smaller individual components intentionally focuses attention on a problem of manageable scale, allowing the individual to physically participate in the installation through donations.”
Technical Critique: It is difficult to review a project like this with anything but high regards. So, without sounding like there is too much sunshine being blown, let’s just say, this project ROCKS. I think it is fantastic that Brad Pitt is showing the world that architecture can be used to help save humanity, not just to make it look shiny. He has assembled teams of architects from around the world who have experience with environmental design and other sophisticated projects. This is not just about the victims of Katrina. It is about how people should continue relief efforts long after the news has dropped the subject as the hot topic of the week. This project has shown a dedication to practically helping people. It also sheds light on how green building can be an affordable and ACHIEVABLE goal that we should strive for. For anyone who is interested in helping out with Katrina, I urge them to contribute to the Make It Right Foundation. It is going to be a landmark project in humanity relief efforts.
Find Out More: If you’d like to learn more - check out Archinect’s articles on the Pink Project. Here’s what Archinect is saying about the project “Make it Right is a non-profit organization, founded by Brad Pitt, to act as a catalyst for redevelopment of the Lower Ninth Ward. The organization emphasizes Cradle to Cradle (by William McDonough) ideals, healthy living, and quality design.”
image from Make It Right Project By Brad Pitt
by lauren taylor white
Title: Auralab From France Splits Into 2 Rendering Houses In France
Designers: Luxigon and Labtop
Project Description: Newsflash: “Auralab renderers in France have split into Luxigon and Labtop. Auralab has produced work for OMA (Office For Metropolitain Architecture, HDM and REX,” states Christoph in his post on Anarchitect. “After seven years of fruitful collaboration, Thomas Series and Eric de Broches des Combes, cofounders of the architectural rendering firm Auralab decided to go seperate and to split into Labtop and Luxigon.
Project Architects: If you are interested in the work of OMA with Rem L. Koolhaas (1944) specifically you can read the OMA Architecture Fan Site, which is done by a fan of the company keeping track specifically of their latest works. OMA designed the buildings and Labtop slash Luxigon have translated thier vision.
Technical Critique: OMA has a reputation for creating “pleasures of visual intelligence”. Their more recent designs are pushing the use of color in static white backgrounds. The contrast creates for interesting rendering effects and gives a nice refreshing change from the current all white trend that Rhino has made more popluar in the recent years. Their work appears to be as creative as as a project you would see in a top graduate school, but it gets realized, giving the aspiring younglings hope for developing an addiction for striving for the virtually unobtainable art of stamping your name on buildings like this.
Rendering Tips: In a post by Arjun Bhat, a blogger student from HDS Harvard Design School discusses the former Auralab and the tricks they use to make their renderings look real. “Back at my old firm, we stole a guy from Auralab - a complete rendering urberfirm. He let me in on some simple trade secrets (altho he wouldn’t give up the juicy stuff) utlines aren’t just for the toon/cell shaded effect. A big reason a lot of rendered images just don’t feel “real” is because of all the perfect right angles we make in the models. In real life, there is no such thing as a perfect right angle — things weather, edges get rounded. By using an extremely light pen thickness and overlaying either specific parts of a final rendered image, or the whole thing, you can simulate the slight shadow effect that comes from these weathered edges. I believe Auralab uses a program called “Illustrate!” to get their hidden line images done (its a great tool for those of us 3dMax junkies who otherwise lack an option to render to vector format). Another technique (which your tutorial touches on) is learning to render shading/ outline /reflections/ highlights/ and deep shadow all on different layers, so when you composite them in photoshop, you can really tweak the way your renders feel. If you would like to learn more about creating great shadow effecs - here is a great tutorial.
images from OMA Mexico 5, Auralab, and Luxigon Blog
by lauren taylor white
Project Title: Werner Sobek’s House 129
Designers: Werner Sobek & The Lab For Lightweigth Structure University of Stuttgart
Project Description: “R129 is a prototype in development at the Laboratory at the Institute for Lightweight Structures and Conceptual Design at the University of Stuttgart. The skin will be coated with an electrochromic foil, which allows the entire envelope to be made opaque, either in sections or as a whole.” as described by Architectural Record.
Technical Critique: Anytime skins and coatings are mentioned, my ears perk up. Smart materials are going to be necessary in our future and this project presents new options for this concept. They coat this glass with electrochromic foil which the We Make Money Not Art Blog states is the “skin” of the building that consists of a transparent plastic material and the structural frame is fabricated from carbon box sections. To prevent radiation of heat into the interior (in summer) and to the exterior (in winter), an electrochromatic foil -which can be controlled electrically- allows the envelope to be darkened in sections or as a whole. The external surface of the envelope also carries solar cells that reduce light transmission by only 20% but supply a large part of the electrical energy demand of the building.” This is an interesting concept and the delicate simplicity of the thin dome surrounding this space are alluring, but the question is whether it is truly a livable space. I am a big advocate of environmentally friendly design and care deeply about the future of our planet, but I wonder if people will really be willing to live in a fish bowl. I am all for giving up comforts, but privacy isn’t first on my list. Esoteric arguments aside, the rendering technique is subtle, yet elegant. It is difficult to model shapes that peel away from the structure and they have done it well. If you are interested in learning this type of technique it is called projecting onto surfaces. Click here for a link to the tutorial.
images from Architectural Record by Werner Sobek’s
by lauren taylor white
Designers: Sci-Arc professors Dwayne Oyler and Jenny Wu
Work Title: Density Fields
Project Description: Defying classification as either sculpture or architecture, the piece will flex with a gesture that extends imaginary lines of force beyond the small courtyard, seeming to pierce buildings and features in the neighborhood. An “extreme cantilever” built from aluminum and polypropylene rope will hover over the courtyard of Materials & Applications (M&A) in Silver Lake, Los Angeles. The Materials and Applications Space wrote in their coverage of this project that the ”installation consists of two basic materials: (1) an aluminum frame extending up from the ground and out into the space, and (2) a series of fine, tensioned cables pulling the cantilever in the opposite direction — forcing it to hover above the ground.”
Technical Critique: These materials and their method for bringing these pieces together is stunning, isn’t it? The tensile appears almost as if it is woven by a beautifully large silk worm who came upon this sculpture in the middle of the night. It appears as if it is really going beyond the extreme of stability, yet its materials are so delicate that it makes you want to forgive the piece for its subtle awkwardness. The thing that always fascinates me is how one goes from the sketch stage to fabrication. It is the single thin tensioned cables acting as detail pieces that make this piece extraordinary. Usually tensile is stretched over the steel as solid fabric, but this effect is unique and delicate. It will be interesting to see what the Oyler Wu Team has in store for the future.
images by The Materials and Applications Space
post by lauren taylor white
Project: Maximillian’s Schell Installation
Designers: Gaston Nogues and Benjamin Ball
Project Description: I just started this section because I would like to identify who I think are going to be the major players in tomorrow’s landscape. My first pick is a guy I worked with at Gehry named Gaston Nogues. He worked for Gehry for year, doing the various sculptural projects that pushed Gehry into the product and furniture design space. Gaston has teamed up with a fellow Gehry colleague, Benjamin Ball to form the Ball-Nogues Studio. Both graduates of Sci-Arc, their creative expression and uninhibted use of materials is emerging as a new form of creative sculptural expression. The project that first caught my attention was their Maximilian’s Schell Intallation. It is a vortex shaped temporary outdoor installation done at the Materials and Applications gallery in Los Angeles. They describe this project as it is “warping the flow of space with a featherweight rendition of a celestial black hole.”
Technical Critique: The project is constructed of tinted Mylar that is a beautiful trasparent yellow color. The shadow is not just a structure for shade, it reflects a beautiful sea of shades of yellow all around the space it covers, making the visitor feel as if he or she is in the vortex itself. It is one of those projects you see and say, wow, I wish I did that and… how the *$&% did they do that? Gaston and Ball clearly have a clever grasp of materials and they are not afraid of doing large scale pieces. They use Catia for rendering the object and then have the pieces fabricated. It is a not only a science to get this correct, you need to have incredible forsight for how it is going to hang in the space. This type of project shows that there is not only creativity behind the piece, it shows that there is an understanding of geometric modeling, and a grasp of real life fabrication. This piece is brilliant. I love the more recent work they are doing as well. They are getting recognition from Dwell, Icon, Metropolis, Surface and Architectural Record just to name a few. Keep an eye out for these guys - they are going to be a force.
*images Ball-Nogues Studio
