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Dustin Altschul
Advisor: Ayodh Kamath
Climate and weather, the coupling that creates both discomfort in humans while also providing resources of energy that are not environmentally depleting. Architecture sits at this intersection of reconciliation between the natural and human habitation. The building facade needs to be optimized to relate to climate while utilizing the energies within winds, the sun, and precipitation as resources. In order to reduce dependency on environmentally depleting processes of creating energy that are used for the singular purpose of achieving environmental comfort in human occupancy, alternate methods of design should be adopted. Methods that are capable of reducing design time to arrive at climatic responsive solutions, but are optimized for discovering energy reductive designs that consider the multi-variable intricacies of climatic forces.
Pre-modern days, climate responsive design were mostly achieved through the application of” rule-of-thumbs”. However, we now live in a time where our understanding of climate conditions have extended from generalized assumptions to finite collections of hourly weather data. In doing so our collective perspective of climate responsive design is not simple, but rather a complex consideration that must consider extreme multifaceted temporal changes that can have profound energy ramifications. It is hypothesized optimal climate responsive design can be achieved through the use of design methods that can address more complexity than the human mind, while still supporting the tradition of architectural design.
Digitally based methods of envisioning a design, as the design is being developed, are becoming normative within the architectural design process. This is particularly true as designers fully utilize computational resources to arrive at designs non-deterministically. In doing so, the computer can fully imagine a design response that may be beyond the capacity of the human mind, thus achieving elevated objectives of spatial programming, optimization, complex geometric form finding, volumetric reasoning, etc.. Climatically, these types of form finding exercises could identify how negative solar radiation can be mitigated best and used as an energy resources for direct power production and natural lighting, and/or how wind can passively cool buildings. Architect and researcher Achim Menges discusses in both Computational Design Thinking and Algorithmic Architecture how the use of computer technologies are modifying design processes to achieve unanticipated results. The use of digital aid, therefore, alters cognitive design thinking. Design thinking that is situated in establishing generative relationships and not preconceived outcomes- a dramatic indifference to “rules-of-thumb” climate design.
In the realm of climate responsive design, computational tools are rarely being utilized to find non-deterministic outcomes provided by the computer. Instead, these designs rely on a process of analysis after a design has been created. While post-analysis results introduces information that a designer can utilize for refining a design and reducing the design’s energy demands, it also introduces a number of issues. For instance, analysis requires time. The time used to analyze turns into design latency and cripples the traditional fluid nature of designing; a potential determent to the energetic, creative process present in architecture. The design-analyze model could also potentially limit the ability to reach complete energy use reduction optimization because only a limited amount of design iterations can be studied within the duration of a project. In Post-Parametric Automation Keith Besserud expresses this phenomenon as time taken away from finding the absolute ideal design solution. And in Convergence in Architectural Agenda for Energy, author and co-director of Energy Environments and Research Lab at Harvard University, Kiel Moe also poses that design decision making and energy use ramifications should be synonymously integrated. Moe outlines how the practice of architectural design needs to have self-awareness to the interconnectivity of design decisions and energy impacts. When design and energy analysis are treated as separate functions, so are their integral understanding and design response manifestations.
A significant knowledge domain issue also exists with design-analyze practices because analysis results are objectively scientific based; unlike like design which considers science-based principles in conjunction with social phenomenon. If the designs of buildings are purely stimulated by scientific findings of analysis, there is grave danger that much value will be lost in the design process and therefore the outcomes. Designerly Ways of Knowing: Design Discipline vs. Design Science, an article by researcher Nigel Cross, identifies and supports that design practice and design science are separate entities, while cautioning the negative effects of design practices becoming a science discipline and vice versa.
The proposed thesis explores how a computational methodology can be developed for the purpose of self-generating climate responsive façade geometry by viewing the establishment of data reading algorithmic relationships as the principle design input. This thesis will also inquire if climate based multi-variable optimization can be automated, and if so, how this computational process will facilitate critical discussions within the architectural practice, as well as the realms of digital design, design process/thinking, energy efficient design, and façade tectonics.
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