Liz Dolinar: Assignment 6a

Moving the ray source point.

Changing the U/V division sliders.

Liz Dolinar: Looking Out Week 13

This is the Café del Arco by Clavel Arquitectos in Murcia, Spain (2009). The project was a redesign of the existing cafe, which linked two important districts in the city. The vertical wood facade wraps around the walls from the street face to the "interior," showing that the whole cafe is really an open eating space. The facade/interior screen is made from strips of iroko wood set on a steel frame, and designed to balance transparency and privacy. The wood serves as an extension from the street, emphasizing the open, outdoor nature of the cafe, while adding a sense of enclosure from the "screen" and a warm atmosphere.

Daniel Ha: Looking Out Week 12

Woodskin
Designer: MammaFotogramma

     The woodskin is made out of a bunch of triangular pieces of Russian plywood (routed) all held together by a vinyl mesh. It allows people to create complex geometry that is impossible for normal sheets of plywood. This product really pushes what wood is able to do by configuring and coupling it in such a way to keep the aesthetic qualities while introducing a completely new way to use it. The primary use of this woodskin will be for cladding.

Carter Nelson: Looking Out Week 13

This chair designed by Hermann August Weizeneggeris made out of 900 sheets of paper that a combined to create a fluid shape. He used fabrication equipment to create this smooth modular shape that is both aesthetically pleasing and functional. A laser cutter formed these pieces which were then placed upon a structure to form the exterior of the chair. Once again, the feature that makes this chair successful is the honesty of the process and the end result that is beautiful because it shows off the process from which it was made.




















































See more HERE.

Danielle Lehmann: Looking Out Week 13

This week focuses on the Fusionopolis's Genexis Theater, a spherical theater with a light show on the exterior and wooden acoustic paneling on the interior. The theater was designed by Kisho Kurokawa in Singapore. The theater seats 400 - 500 people (all the seats are moveable depending on the type of performance and the amount of people expected) and has bowed walls within a rounded exterior, all of which is elevated five stories off the ground. The back of the theater is rounded to move with the exterior wall. On that wall there are 400,000 rounded wooden balls which have been extensively testes for their acoustic properties. This type of acoustic paneling has never been tried before, so there has been testing digitally before construction and currently after construction.

Candace Ju | Looking Out Week 11

These resonant chambers by rvtr are interior architectural acoustic panels. They are made of  reflective pieces (solid bamboo inserts) and absorptive (porous polypropylene) they are wired so they can change form to adjust to different acoustic needs. There are also embedded speaker pieces in there. These panels can be tessellated  and arranged in greater surfaces to cover performance area ceilings. 

Candace Ju | Looking Out Week 10

Wood AND Acoustics!

The design group GrupoVibra from Chili designed these modern retro speakers out of lasercut wood! (they note that the wood is harvested from sustainable forests, typical hipsters...)

Daniel Ha: Looking Out Week 11

LiYuan Library in Huairou (a small village on the outskirts of Beijing, China)
Architects: Li Xiaodong Atelier

     The architects who designed this library wanted it to blend into the nature that surrounded it. In order to do this they first picked a site that was away from the noisy city (they chose a mountain about five minutes away from the village center). After that they chose materials that would help that idea out further. The exterior shows this obviously through the use of locally found sticks that are used to clad the building.

Assignment 5 Nahyung Kim

There are many factors related to the acoustics of a space. Components of a space, walls, floor, and the ceiling, are all very important in how sound works. The acoustic performance depends on the shape, size, proportion, and surface conditions of these components. Doors and other openings are also important in blocking out unwanted noise.
Sound reflections depend on the surface shape. A flat ceiling and a curved ceiling distributes sound differently in a closed space (usually, a curved surface does a better job in evenly distributing sound). Doors and other openings are also important in blocking out unwanted noise. Absorbing sound is as important as reflecting them. The critical places to consider are side walls that are the closest to the screen/speakers. Noise transmission between theaters and between the theater and other programmatic spaces can be solved with methods of absorbing sound through tightly sealed openings and materials.
Professionals talk about sound waves when dealing with acoustics. They discuss sound waves in its "frequency," which is how humans perceive sound. In physics, acoustic wave equation is used to calculate and deal with sound waves and acoustic performance. The equation describes "acoustic pressure," which is the deviation caused by sound waves from the ambient atmospheric pressure, the particle velocity, in relation to position and time.
Architects deal with acoustics when designing a space through different tools and programs. A program architects may use is called "Listen," which is a 3D modeling aural simulation tool. Grasshopper plug-in, Revit, and other 3D modeling tools are also widely used. Architects refer to professional rules like the THX criterias to make sure the designed space meets the requirements that allow for the best audience experience.

LMN Architects - University of Iowa School of Music (ceiling canopy)

 The ceiling canopy designed by LMN Architects is composed of 946 uniquely laced and suspended panels. These panels serve many functions like: sprinklers, theatrics, acoustics, lighting, speakers, and sculptural (hiding the structural elements). The different degrees of openings in the panels determine what function each panel serves (70% enclosure hides sprinklers). LMN Architects used parametric modeling and CNC milling (for study models) in order to bring and transmit sound as quickly to the audience as possible.

Sources:
http://www.acousticsbydesign.com/venues/cinema-acoustics.htm
http://sensingarchitecture.com/1403/architectural-acoustics-a-simulation-tool-video/
Wikipedia - architectural acoustics, acoustic wave equation