Syllabus

ARC 5176 – ADVANCED DIGITAL DESIGN


Instructor: Erik P. Sundquist
E-mail: erik.sundquist@fiu.edu


Description
Study of advanced digital techniques as generative tools for design and representation. Focus on surface and spatial modeling and parametric relationships.

Pre-requisites
ARC 4058

Course Objectives
This course works on two legs: with technique and theory. The first leg of the class seeks to build on digital design skills developed in ARC 4058. It introduces techniques of generative design using a ‘composite organizational strategy’ to execute an assembly that is critical to making and theory. This strategy embodies a graphic blending of space, structure and skin into a fluid thickness that is capable of responding tactically to environmental, topographic and programmatic criteria as well as configurability at multiple scales.
Grounded in this approach is a set of tooling techniques that optimize ‘commonality’ while being capable of accepting data that may form irregular, varied and intricate relationships.
The second leg seeks to build base theoretical understandings of contemporary architectural dialogs. The students will be exposed to texts that theorize, mystify and sometime attempt to clarify views of matter, materials and geometry within the contemporary digital discourse

Learning Outcomes
Students will learn 3D modeling techniques based in NURBS and polygon tools that will allow them to generate and control the geometry of complex topologies and spatial arrays.
The goal of the course is the ordering of space and form through the process of digital design so as to create a bridge between thought and practice, through digital techniques.
The sequence of tutorials and exercises will progressively equip the students with the capacity to identify potential for the direct application of the learned skills in a studio project.

Major Topics

Three-dimensional use of generative techniques for the production of space
Modeling of complex geometries
Procedures for spatial aggregation
Transformation and editing of sophisticated tectonic surfaces
Design versioning as iterative process

Applied Software
Autodesk Maya 10, Rhinoceros 4

3D – Digital Modeling Techniques
It is impossible to think design and mathematics as separate terms after the advent of digital design into architecture; calculus is embedded in the operations that gave rise to a new way of performing in design. The digital field allows its calculating power to engender an extensive array of formal manipulations, at the same time the digital environment transforms the understanding of the object by collapsing the vertical and horizontal. Via simultaneously rendering plan, section, elevation and perspective, the three-dimensional device enables spatial analysis and design to become congruent. The tool does not represent, it engenders; it is a technical apparatus that inserts a generative mechanism, a technique.
Techniques are behaviors and procedures that are systematic, repeatable, and communicable. Over time and as contexts change, existing techniques may become inadequate, stimulating users to develop new methods through experimentation; over time, users develop new techniques for exploiting the technology, and the technology itself is adapted and transformed.
Techniques are the specific means by which architects can harness and direct the powerful potential of new technologies toward the shaping of architectural design, research, and manufacturing. Techniques are process-driven; they often grow out of trial and error, evolving and undergoing continual adjustment.
Contemporary technological practices employ scaleless techniques that can be applied equally well to the design of products and cities, whereby details are retained from the largest to the smallest scale; digital design strategies operate across different scales and contexts –from the molecular scale of materials to the scale of the body, from the dimensions of a building to those of the city-.

Iterative processes: Transformation logics
As dynamical systems, transformational techniques allow technological practices to access the virtual. Transformational methods entail the manipulation of continuous surfaces or objects through procedures such as cutting, folding, and stretching. The objects are structured as sets of interconnected points in such a way that operating on one area of the object induces changes to all other areas. The precise manner in which an individual change will be redistributed over the whole cannot be predicted.
Each transformational procedure applies a pressure on the surface that generates other transformations across the surface. The interactions between these transformations comprise the ‘versioning’ power of the technique.

Theoretical positions
Thorough investigations of contemporary architectural discourse, positions on matter, materials and geometry will be explored. Each project will develop a theoretical component, positioning the project within a contemporary architectural context.




Meeting Time
Tuesdays 12:30pm to 1:45pm, room #175, PCA
Thursdays 12:30pm to 1:45pm, room #175, PCA

Course Evaluation
Students will be evaluated upon performance in the assignments. While a satisfactory grade in the course may be attained by the completion of all work required to the satisfaction of the professor, individual initiative and investigation of design and research issues that extend beyond the basic requirements are strongly encouraged.

Grades:
94-100= A 87-89= B+ 80-83= B- 74-76= C 67-69= D+ 60-63= D-
90-93= A- 84-86= B 77-79= C+ 70-73= C- 64-66= D 0-59= F

Attendance Guidelines:
Attendance and class participation are required at all class meetings. (see Course Schedule) Every absence is 20% off the attendance and participation grade. Four (4) unexcused absences automatically result in a failing grade for the course. Every day you are late, you will receive half (1/2) an absence. An acceptable excused absence is defined by the student having missed class due to extraordinary circumstances beyond his or her control and must be accompanied with written proof. In the event that you have missed a class, you are responsible for all the material covered. If you have any questions you contact your professor at the above phone number or you may leave a message at the School of Architecture Main Office (tel. 305-348-3181) located at VH 212. A sign in sheet is made for each class. It is the student’s responsibility to write their initials next to their name. Failure to do so will be marked as an absence.

Student Work
The School of Architecture reserves the right to retain any and all student work for the purpose of record, exhibition and instruction. All students are encouraged to photograph and/or copy all work for personal records prior to submittal to instructor.

Students Rights and Responsibilities:
It is the student's responsibility to obtain, become familiar with and abide by all Departmental, College and University requirements and regulations. These include but are not limited to:
-The Florida International University Catalog Division of Student Affairs Handbook of Rights and Responsibilities of Students.
-Department Curriculum and Program Sheets
-Department Policies and Regulations

Student with Special Needs:
Students who may need auxiliary aids or services to ensure access to academic program should register with the Office Disability Services for Students.

Civility Clause:
Students are expected to treat one another with a high degree of civility and respect. Students can and should expect the same from the instructor. If a student fails to act responsibly or disrupts the
class or impedes instruction he or she may be asked to leave the class and will be held responsible for all the information missed through this absence.


Blog:
You will be required to participate in the class blog. The blog will be used for both the posting class of tutorials and the posting of student work. You will be expected look at the blog daily and to post all of your assignments to the blog the before class.

You must send your email the first day of class to erik.sundquist@fiu.edu to get access.

ADDFIUSpring2010.blogspot.com


Required Texts
The Atlas of Novel Tectonics (J. Reiser)
Digital Tectonics (Leach, Turnbull, Williams)
Catalytic Formations: Digital Design in Architecture (A.Rahim)
Maya at a Glance (G. Maestri)

Supplemental Texts
AD- Folding in Architecture (J.Kipnis – G.Lynn)
AD- Elegance: Contemporary Techniques in Architecture (A.Rahim)
AD- Contemporary Processes in Architecture (A.Rahim)
AD- Digital Cities (N. Leach)
AD- Versatility and Vicissitude (Hensel, Menges)
AD- Emergence: Morphogenetic Design Strategies (M. Hensel)
Animate Form (G.Lynn)
Digital Fabrications: Architecture and Material Techniques
Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy (M. DeLanda)
Folds, Bodies, and Blobs (G.Lynn)
The Function of Form (F. Moussavi)
The Function of the Ornament (F. Moussavi)
Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy (M. DeLanda)
Phylogenesis Foreign Office Architects
Points and Lines: Diagrams and Projects for the City (S. Allen)
Studies in Tectonic Culture (K. Frampton)
Tooling (Aranda, Lasch)



Course Schedule
Calendar dates are subject to change. Please contact appropriate offices for verification and updates. This calendar includes Official University holidays. Faculty is encouraged to make accommodations for students who wish to observe religious holidays. Students should make their request know at the beginning of the semester in writing. The instructor reserves the right to implement changes to this schedule as required.




WEEK 1
1/05- Introduction, Maya Interface, Polygons,
1/07- Tutorial 1 “duplicating the cube”, Tutorial 2 “basic building”
WEEK 2
1/11- Polygons, Extruding, Boolean, Importing drawing files, Building a Site Model.
1/14- Tutorial 3 “modeling Ando’s 4x4 house”
WEEK 3
1/19- Polygons, Bridging and Smoothing Tutorial 4: “honeycomb”,
1/21- Tutorial 5: Hauer Screen and Variations
WEEK 4
1/26- Reading Assignment 1 Due, Discussion and Examples
1/28- Tutorials 1-5 Due. Introduction to Project 1
WEEK 5
2/02- Polygons, “Exact” and “Anexact” component aggregation. Inspirational Images Due
2/04- Tutorial 6 “rendering”
WEEK 6
2/16- Tutorial 7 “Lattice, Deformers, and Soft Modifications”
2/18- Project 1 components due, Desk critique
WEEK 7
2/23- Reading Assignment 2 Due, Discussion and Examples
2/25- In class work, Desk critique
WEEK 8
3/02- MIDTERM: Presentations
3/04- MIDTERM: Presentations
WEEK 9
3/09- Tutorial 8 “animated curves”, Final assignment Introduced
3/11- Tutorial 9 “blend shapes”
WEEK 10
3/16- Component detail/ornament: structure + skin – part to whole relationship
3/18- Animated Forms and Field Conditions Due
WEEK 11
3/23- In class work, Desk critique
3/25- Components Forms and Structure Due
WEEK 12
3/30- In class work, Desk critique
4/01- In class work, Desk critique
WEEK 13
No class
WEEK 14
FINAL REVIEW