F

olding

A

rchitecture

LOGO

Contents

The emergence of Folding Architecture F olding A rchitecture d efinition

Folding structure

F olding A rchitecture P roperties

Case study LOGO

T he emergence of F olding A rchitecture Folding

is relatively an ancient tendency in contemporary architecture. Traditional cultures – Japanese art have used paper folding to create a given result by using geometric folds and crease patterns preferably without the use of gluing or cutting the paper medium. For instance, origami refers to all types of paper folding and kirigami. It is a precise design method. Paper folding and paper cutting are very playful way of designing, which offers free leash to spontaneity and surprise during the design process. LOGO

F olding A rchitecture d efinition

LOGO Folding as a generative process in architectural design is essentially experimental: agnostic, non-liner and bottom up.

Our interest lies on the morphogenetic process, the sequence of transformations that affect the design object. Considering this an open and dynamic development where the design evolves with alternate periods of disequilibrium, we can appreciate the function of folding as a design generator by phase transition, that is, critical thresholds where qualitative transformations occur. Cut off from the continuum of the studio process, four phase transitions are presented further illustrating the case with a visual essay: matter and functions, algorithms, spatial structural-organizational diagrams and architectural prototypes.

Peter Eisenman - BFL Software Limited Bangalore - 1996

Transition1:

M

atter and

F

unctions

Ivory Carton is introduction as quintessential foldable material given the papers weight and structural capacity. The task is to extensively explore transformation of a single paper surface continuity of the material. The papers transformative origins are simple actions, intuitive responses, delivered here as a list of verbs ; fold, press, crease, pleat, score, cut, pull, rotate, twist, revolve, wrap, pierce, hinge, knot, weave, compress, unfold. In the early as a diagram in Deleuzian terms, an abstract machine by matter and function. Reading the paperfold as a diagram, that does not represent but rather constitutes a new type of reality introduces architectural research into a field of actualization.

LOGO

Transition2:

A

lgorithms

The paperfold is a dynamic artefact, unstable and evolving. It bares the traces of activity that brings it into being: scores, creases or incisions drawn in the surface of the paper. The paperfold unfolded, becomes a map of its origination process. Repetitive paper folding performances evolve initial intuitive responses into primary techniques: triangulation, stress forming, stratification of folds, folds within folds, or patterns like strips, spline curves, spirals, or meanders.

LOGO

Transition3:

Diagrams

s

patial,

s

tructural and

o

rganizational

LOGO Space emerges in the paperfold during a dynamic volume generation process. The void bounded between the folds of the paper manifests a curvilinear from that cannot be exactly defined. Like its delimiting surfaces it manifests increased continuity despite its fragmentation. Mapping the paperfold as a spatial diagram requires an abstraction of spatial diagram requires an abstraction of spatial relations. Geometric irrelevant. characteristics Topological are initially properties are crucial to describe the space emerging in the paperfold; proximity, spatial succession, enclosure and contiguity.

Transition4 :

A

rchitectural

P

rototypes

In design generative process by folding, the architectural object is not an a priori target to be achieved. Given the educational context, the spatial, structural and organizational diagrams emerging in the process are developed into architectural prototypes. The task here is to attribute architectural properties to the diagram introduction parameters of material, program and context. Thus we can define here as architectural prototype the spatial, structural or organizational diagram that has acquired 'architectural substance' LOGO

F olding a rchitecture , concise genealogy of the practice

LOGO Folding emerged as an architectural discourse aspiring to become the new architecture of the end of the 20th century.

In the perspective of a concise genealogy we can consider the architectural design profile .guest-edited by Greg Lynn .folding in architecture its early manifesto . the issue released in 1993comprises an anthology of essays and projects by a group of architects seeking an alternative to the contradictory formal logic of deconstructive and includes among others .Gehry.Kipnis.Lynn

Cobb. and Eisenman shirdel .featunng an excerpt from Deleuze s at that time recent English translation .the fold .leibiz and the baroque .folding in architecture .

LOGO Draws philosophical substance from the work of Deleuze .a radical understanding of Leibniz employing the baroque as atheoretical tool to analyze contemporary artistic and intellectual movements.

Greg Lynn in his contribution to the above issue .titled architectural curvilinearity the folded .the pliant and the supple introduces folding as third architectural response to compels and disparate cultural and formal contexts .operating neither by conflict and contradiction as deconstruction nor by unity and reconstruction as neo-classicm. New modernism and regionalism .etymologically relating complexity with pliancy the architecture of the fold is considered a cunning tactic for intensive integration of difference within a heterogeneous yet continuous system

LOGO These geometries bend and stabilize with viscosity under pressure. Where one would expect that an architect looking at catastrophes would be interested in conflicts, ironically, architects are finding new forms of dynamic stability in these diagrams. The mutual interest in Thom's diagrams points to a desire to be involved with events which they cannot predict. The primary innovation made by those diagrams is the geometric modeling of a multiplicity of possible co-present events at any moment. Thom's morphogenesis engages seemingly random mathematical probability.

events with

F olding A rchitecture P roperties

1.

2.

The fold the infinite work in process .not now to conclude but how continue to bring to infinity .

The inside and the outside :infinity fold separates or moves between matter and soul .the façade and the closed room .the inside and the outside .

3.

4.

5.

6.

The high and low :being divided into folds .the fold greatly expands on both sides thus connecting the high and low .

The unfold :not as the contrary to the fold but as the continuation of this act .

Textures :as resistance of the material the way a material is folded constitutes its texture .

The paradigm : the fold of the fabric must not conceal its formal expression .

LOGO

Ali Rahim - Variations - Islamabad - 2001 Greg Lynn - H2 House - 1996 Mark Goultorpe dECOI - Ether/I

LOGO

Mark Goultorpe dECOI - Paramorph - Londra - 1999 MVRDV - Sloterpark swimmimng-pool - 1994

LOGO

Foldable structures: folding to give tensile strength, Paper Tower by Shigeru Ban

LOGO

folding to give tensile strength as in building structure

On a tangible level, folding is most commonly referred to as in the art of origami or the Japanese art of folding paper into shapes representing objects. Planar folding incorporates the subtle geometric transformations that allow a flat surface to be transformed into a 3 dimensional structure. Thus, giving a new platform for exploration of structural design via one that can carry loads and contains tensile strength in a gravitational world. Folding of forms can be of any type of surface or skeletal structure. Even the softest most pliable material when folded in certain configurations gives remarkably high tensile strength. Often, soft materials are actually stronger while hard materials are brittle.

Thus, depending on the molecular structure or composition of the material one is folding, all forms can be transformed into one of tensile strength. Since structural integrity exists in all things, even of the smallest element due to the nature of charge particles. LOGO

LOGO Folding in this case creates new geometries and connections to create innovative load bearing designs. For example, membrane folding is a fairly common transformation process that allows plants to assume more than one spatial configuration. In architecture it is referred to as a method of changing space definition and enclosure. And is historically seen as the origins of transformable architecture as ‘close packs of membranes’ the oldest form of portable home that is carried on a camel’s back. (Liapi, 2002) Even tent structures that cover big market places involve membrane folding. Similar to paper folding, the significance of membrane is that it really has no thickness, soft, pliable, planar, light, and when stretched, produces 3 dimensional stressed-skin structures which give surface coverings or space definition elements.

LOGO Tent structure via fabric when stretched is given tension to produce strength. Hence, membrane folding can generate new methods of structural representation. Such example can be seen in Shigeru Ban's latest tensile structure erected on the South Bank in London at the London Design Festival 09: Shigeru Ban – have been commissioned by the organizers of The London Design Festival to create installations for its annual Size + Matter initiative. Using everyday materials to create dramatic temporary installations, this project challenges Ban to create tensile structures with simple materials. Paper Tower is displayed from 19 September, the opening date of the Festival, until mid October.

LOGO

Study case Folded-Plate Hut

The Ordrupgard LOGO

REBSTOCK PARK

Study case

Neil Denari

LOGO

REBSTOCK PARK

One of the first to articulate the post architectural style was Peter Eisenman. In 1992 Eisenman submitted a proposal for the redevelopment of Rebstock Park, a 250-acre site on the perimeter of Frankfurt. First developed in the mid-19th century by Ernst May, the original architecture of Rebstock Park employed the once fashionable suburban solution of the Siedlung: mass-produced blocks of housing and commercial areas repetitively and densely staggered across large peripheries of development without interpenetrating streets or alleyways

.

Peter Eisenman - Rebstock Park - 1990

LOGO In order to trigger a new shape for Rebstock, Eisenman first mapped the local geography of the site using a 7x7 orthogonal grid, choosing the number seven arbitrarily, simply to represent the seven drawings of Thom ’s butterfly cusp series. Eisenman then overlaid and shaped this grid to the Rebstock ground plain “in an attempt to establish both spatial and temporal modulation.

” As a second step, Eisenman superimposed another unmodulated 7x7 orthogonal grid over the modulated landscape grid and connected the translated vertices between the two “to produce a warped surface which first appears to separate the two grids rather than connect them.

” In a second study of the two grids, Eisenman again connected each vertex of the orthogonal grid to its corresponding vertex of the landscape grid as well as the vertex directly below it .

Diagram of Peter Eisenman’s creation of the Rebstock Park fold, displaying how the fold emerged when each vertex of the seven-sqaure butterfly cusp grid was attached to the corresponding vertices of the and adjacent modulated groundplain grid.

LOGO The result of this second translation was that “another warped, netlike structure/surface appears which suggests not an oppositional relationship between the two figures, but rather a construct of perpetual mediation – the fold.” The topology of the fold became the primary logic for Eisenman's new plan for Rebstock. Eisenman then orthogonally projected the original Siedlung footprint onto the disrupted, multidimensional surface of the fold such that the uniformly repeated blocks of the Siedlung were distorted in accordance with their position in the fold, each building disrupted and disrupting within the productive transformation of the grid.

Eisenman ’ s projection of the original Siedlung footprint onto the east-west orientation of the fold

LOGO “Deleuze’s idea of folding is more radical than origami, because it contains no narrative, linear sequence; rather, in terms of traditional vision, it contains a quality of the unseen.” The grid is therefore inflected by what cannot be seen by the subject: the virtual field of possibilities indigenous to each site.

Neil Denari

Neil Denari also employs techniques of folding to produce what he calls a “localized worldsheet, ”consisting of “a single curving sheet …that bends into itself, creating invelopes or internal surfaces that merge seamlessly with the exterior.

” In projects such as his Vertical Smoothouse of 1997, Denari used his localized worldsheets to transgress traditional binarisms of architecture such as inner/outer. In all three projects, the final architectural form was produced by the interaction of outside forces with more traditional forms of modernism in the affective space of the site, thereby displacing the architect subject as the anthropomorphic interpreter of form.

LOGO

LOGO Eisenman describes this process of decentering: “When the environment is inscribed or folded in such a way, the individual no longer remains the discursive function; the individual is no longer required to understand or interpret space.

”

Longitudinal sectional perspective of Neil Denari ’s 1998 Multisection Office Block project. The “laminar structure” of Denari’s localized worldsheets serves as a single continuously folded structure that mediates between previous binaries such as ” inside/outside ” and “vertical/horizontal.

“

Floor plan and local site plan for Neil Denari’s 1993 Details Design Studio project, in which Denari mapped the local flows of information. The project was designed to act as a functional “wall” that would divide act as an architectural interface between the clerical and design spaces of the Details company. Final design for the Details Design Studio project. The undulating sheet of Denari’s design is a physical model of information and personnel flows around and through the office space. “The project creates an information cipher that passes through the space, becoming reified in form within the room itself.” LOGO

LOGO The Ordrupgard The museum addition opened in the autumn 2005 following the result of an invited competition among 7 architectural firms held in 2001. As the most striking difference from Zaha Hadid’s winning scheme compared to the built reality the museum has become somewhat shorter with the unloading facilities for temporary exhibitions moved to the rear façade - conveniently out of sight from of the main entrance on the western side of the addition.

LOGO All visitors arriving from the north will be met by a huge mound of earth almost covering the tail or rear end of the snail like structure with a grass covered rampart in the lushly mature park. The new main entrance appears a little too discrete from the outside since it is resting in the dark and partly hidden by a tilted piece of blackish concrete as a measure to transform the inside to the exterior space.

It was lack of space and a less than ideal climate conditions in the adjacent historic house dating from 1918 that demanded the new extension that doubles the exhibition space allowing the excellent collection of French Impressionism Art to be displayed in its entity for the first time. The argument for an enlargement was widened to a claim for also adding a new gallery for temporary exhibitions next to the permanent one.

LOGO From the outside the organic almost Art Nouveaux-like forms of the Hadid addition are looking almost modest against its neighbouring villa since they appear lower and darker like an appendix not really competing with the architecture of its predecessor. And valued for its functionality the addition is interesting by being cut in two by the reception space dividing the permanent exhibition clearly from the temporary part.

LOGO Another remarkable measure is the use of glassed corridors along the outer borders of the protected exhibition spaces in the middle of the building, since following the corridors the visitor has an excellent view to the surrounding groves of trees. Focusing at the addition from the outside the glassed facades also provide a more pleasant impression by reflecting the surrounding greenery than the well protected cultural bunker of concrete itself.

LOGO Besides bearing the clear signature of their artistic Hadid origin the Iraqi-born architect always insists on her buildings to be site specific. By this notion she underscores that even if there will be some formal resemblance between different works of hers every building is given a specific relation to its surrounding landscape or neighbouring context of utterly importance. And by belonging so strongly to their site none of her buildings could be moved to another place without loosing its relevance, she claims.

LOGO Inside every gallery has a dynamic plan almost like a parallelogram, a form that acts on the visitor like a gently push to move on while the different spaces are weaving around each other in the most dynamic way. The dynamic found in the galleries are even repeated throughout the building in the reception desk, sinks in the restrooms, the solitary tilted wall fragments and so on. Besides this indirectly indication of direction the museum guest could rely on the consequence of the ceiling skylights arranged in parallel rows along with the lighting fixtures. Like most modern museum spaces this one is in fact blind folded to ensure the security of the masterpieces in its core protected like being a shrine.

LOGO

Folded-Plate Hut

Constructed for the Aqua Metropolis Osaka 2009, the Folded Plate Hut is one of the many temporary structures conceived by Ryuichi Ashizawa Architects and located at Nakanoshima Park in Osaka. The origami inspired hut which hosted concerts and theatrical events, consists of folded wood panels with a dramatically-cantilevering roof, and is perched at the edge of the waterfront.

The rest of the complex lies a Bamboo Forest – a series of structures made from curved bamboo that acts as a floating roof covering.

LOGO

LOGO

www.themegallery.com

LOGO