THAD Studio
- Tongzhou as a New City Centre of Beijing
Computational Generation of High Density Neighbourhood by dotA
AA Beijing Winter Visiting School 2011 / 2012
Architectural Association School of Architecture Visiting School
In Collaboration with Tsinghua Architectural Design & Research Institute
Saturday 28 Jan – Sunday 5 Feb 2012
AA北京冬季访校2011-2012
承办：清华建筑设计研究院
Sponsors:
新城中心 Neo-Center
Tsinghua Architectural Design & Research Inst.
The East Gate, Tsinghua University
清华大学东门，清华建筑设计研究院
Agenda: Immersive Computational Design in environmental, social and economic dimensions
The purpose of this visiting school is to investigate alternatives to substantiate the intelligence and automation of computational design into more meaningful levels through experimentation on high density re-development for transforming Tongzhou (one of the existing downtowns of Beijing) into a new city centre in order to release burdens of the old city centre, which has reached a bottle-neck for the further growth in Beijing. Nobody can force citizens out to off-skirt suburbs unless they are well developed new city centres comprising sufficient job opportunities and vibrant economic activities, as well as social diversities.
According to the city planning policy, Tongzhou will be the first paradigm among all the 11 new city centres. In 2010 the local government chose a winning urban planning scheme, which embraces the history and culture of Tongzhou Cannel with the concept of River of Time and Space, which was unfolded into 4 analogical themes along the cannel, i.e. Shadow of Islands, Shadow of Pagoda, Shadow of Buildings and, Shadow of Trees. Rather than interpreting this granted scheme from a metaphorical perspective, this workshop aims to explore a series of adaptable & network models, which integrate parameters in the environmental, social or economic dimensions to investigate new topological models for city centre (more about the spatial order and sequence instead of form and dimension).
Our questions include but not limited to the following three:
- What is the alternative to One-off Development through a computational process, which generates time-dependent outcomes according to changing conditions with minimal redundancy and maximal capacity?
- How to use Computational Design to achieve Social Integration to share city resources to sustain the social diversity on the basis of communal integrity? And,
- How to sustain Economic Growth through Computational Design, so that an economy-robust HDR could be stitched into the city as a positive node to a larger urban network, which may trigger more economic?
Theme: New Centre Models
What is the meaning of a city centre when everything is connected with everything? What functions, programs and activities should be associated with a city centre? What are the characteristics this new city centre should it become the symbiosis of the existing city centre? How could it become attractive and pleasant place to accommodate the constant growing migration/population into Beijing? What are the essential provisions to the success of such a new city centre, which could still sustain itself when growth slows down? Each team will initiate its own argument from a particular aspect of Tongzhou new city centre, e.g. live, move, shopping, leisure, work, entertainment, rather than comprehensively address every part, nor to treat this centre simply as a collage of multiple layers. The design speculation will reflect the ideologies in the scale of one or several urban plots.
Approach: Learning by Experimental Design
This 9-day design studio is organised as a two-stage programme. Initially, students will depict their own concepts inspired by the introductory technical demonstration and contextual seminars, which will lead to a second stage of work culminating in conceptual design proposals for some meaningful and ultra-adaptable architectural prototypes to address the framed issues of the Tongzhou new city centre. Technical demonstrations and design seminars will tap on contemporary urban and architectural challenges, as well as critical design thinking and techniques.
The objective of experimental design is to explore alternative approaches, techniques, methodologies and philosophy in the architectural realm to generate new and valid possibilities in order to get out of the box folded by conventional design methodologies. Instead of traditional model of teaching and learning, tutors will lead the explorative learning with the student teams as extension of their own research interests and strength. Action is equivalently important as thinking in this approach, which becomes the vehicle to emerge innovative thinking.
Participants will compare the history of this new city centre between Beijing and other western metropolis and critically evaluate the government approved Tongzhu Planning Scheme. A bus tour around the old and new city centres will be arranged during the course. Although participants will be exposed to several computational tools (e.g. Rhino Scripting & Grasshopper, Processing, Maya), it is more important to grasp the merits of systematic thinking to deliver both innovative and significant proposals.
Organization: Design Studios + Technical Workshop + Theoretical Seminar + Evening Lecture
This Winter School will be divided into small design teams led by teaching staff. Each design team will approach the sites of Tongzhou City Centre with a set of bespoke design tools and techniques, creative design processes and, critical forms of thinking. The technical support will be specified according to each design team’s tasks. Participants will work in team-based studio environment, and attend a series of evening lectures presentations by invited critics to address broader issues related to the agenda of this Winter School.
This programme requires full-time participation each day of the workshop, leading to a final presentation on Feb 5, to a panel of invited critics and the winter school tutors. This Winter School will also give participants an opportunity to explore Beijing during the course of the studio.
Team-based Design Experimentation
Following initial introductions and presentations, participants will be asked to form teams to amplify the collaborative nature of this international programme. Each design team will be led by one teaching staff to address design issues of the new city centre in line with the program agenda. Hence, each tutor will help each team to teeth out one coherent project as a team manager.
Technique: Computation and Simulation
The development of digital technology has changed the current architectural design radically in many aspects. Corresponding to the new wave of the digital evolution, this Winter School will focus on code-based digital techniques, e.g. Rhino Grasshopper, Scripting, Maya, etc. Rather than teaching how to use the software, some hands-on exercises will be provided to help students understand the underlying computational thinking in favour of conceptualising ideas and realising design proposals.
Initial Design Presentations, Seminars and Workshops
In a series of short seminars and workshop sessions, the winter school tutors will introduce a range of design topics and techniques, with which to initiate design exercises in each team.
Technical Demonstration and Presentation
The technical teaching and learning will be completely immersed into the design studio. In another word, it takes place whenever necessary.
Design Team Challenge
Each tutor will prepare a specific area of design investigation with a set of associative design constrains, methodologies, techniques and, outcomes for each team. The team brief will be presented on the 1st day with a document (one A4 page) to be handed out thereafter.
Two Stages Experimentation
Stage 1: Jan 28-31:
Abstract Machines: Preliminary Design Concept
In this first session, students will take part in short seminars and technical demonstration, aiming at developing the techniques and concepts in response to informational complex and future uncertainties. This first stage will focus on the concept of establishing computational / information-based systems in the domain of architecture, urban or landscape, which will be formalized into each team’s design proposal in the second stage. The outcomes of this stage are illustrations of the systems, relevant digital techniques which indicate design possibilities, as well as the projections for Stage 2.
Stage 2: Feb 1 – 5:
Informational Prototypes: Design Proposal
This second stage aims to consolidate the preliminary concepts depicted in Stage 1 into a design proposal by specifying the information based systems developed in the first stage with understanding of the site context. Each studio will choose one site to test their design concepts, methodologies and techniques.
Biography of Teaching Staff
Brendon Carlin
Unit Master of Intermediate Unit 6, AACo-director of The Build OperationsConsultant, ArupBA, the University of Colorado, Boulder | M.Arch AA DRL
Brendon Carlin has worked on architecture projects of various scales for offices in Holland, the UK, China and the US including UN Studio and Plasma Studio. He has also taught and/or co-ordinated courses and workshops at the Berlage Institute, the AA, Harvard and the University of Colorado. Currently he is consulting with Arup for Relational Urbanism, and practising as co-director of The Build Operations, an architecture and urbanism studio. In recent years I have focused on using digital tools and fabrication research to substaintially increase productivity and possibility in architecture, as well as to change the way in which we operate as designers in a rapidly advancing technological context. With the proffesion, resources, population and our built environments in a crisis of epic proportions, we must become relevant and visionary again not by making shiny shapes and stories, but through the way we operate and think as designers of our social and material urban fabrics. My work with 2nd and 3rd year students at the AA in intermediate Unit 6 challenges the students to start a project by designing an inventive construction system which is informed by historical research of related systems. We ask them to set up digital relational models for prototypes made with their system that have been informed by its materiality. In the first term the students will build full scale moc-ups of a unit of thier system, and in the second they will design a proposal for a large housing project for a specific cultural context which will push them to inform and modify system they developed in the first term.
| 常强 Qiang Chang Director of Parametric Design Studio of Architectural Design and Research Institute of Tsinghua UniversityConsulting Director, dot-A Ltd BeijingState Registered Class 1 Structural Engineer of China |
Qiang is a state registered Class 1 Structural Engineer who has more than decade working experience on a big variety of construction projects, among which many are extremely challenging and complex structures, e.g. Structural optimizing of Bicycle Arena of 2008 Olympic Games, Samsung Pavilion of 2008 Olympic Games, Vanke Pavilion of Expo 2010, Maintaining Garage for Boing747 of National Airport of Ethiopia. His research interest is in the studies and practice of spatial structures, lightweight structures, and parametric structure. He was the director of Parametric Design Studio of Architectural Design and Research Institute of Tsinghua University, Beijing and a Co-founder of the Network of Design Emergence. At present, he works as consulting director for dot-A Architectural Design Consultancy, Beijing and, consultant for Yonghe Chong Atelier, Crystal Design Centre and Duoxiang Studio. Qiang holds several national invention patents including the most recent dot-A I spiral observation tower. His international awards include the First Prize of “Minus-Pressure Skin”, David Alsop Price, Young structural engineers’ international design competition organized by IstrctE, 2002 and, “F.O.R.M” the First Prize of the 3rd AAA international membrane-structure design competition, 2004.
| 陈忱Chen Chen Landscape Architect, OPEN architectureCo-founder of reMIXstudioBA Tsinghua | MA in Landscape and Urbanism, AALanscape Architect Candidate, GSD Harvard |
Chen Chen has collaborated with design offices in China, Spain and the US, and is currently working in OPEN architecture in Beijing. In 2011, she won the ASLA (American Society of Landscape Architects) Honor Award and the 3rd place in IFLA (International Federal of Landscape Architecture) with a brownfield redevelopment project in Boston. Her project “Delta city” which engaged natural dynamics into urban form on an ecologically sensitive site was nominated by Graduate School of Design Harvard to IABR 2012 (International Architecture Biennale in Rotterdam). Chen Chen’s design interests and academic background covers the fields of architecture, landscape and urbanism. Her recent researches and practices have been exploring to engage eco-sustainable approach into the process of urban planning, not only employing cutting edge technologies to address environmental issues and propose alternative models of urbanization, but also exploring the potential to inform new urban forms and spatial experiences. This spring, Chen carried out a parametric workshop at Veritas (San Jose’, Costa Rica) with Nicola, an 8-days grasshopper workshop which addressed ground-related environmental issues through the development of prototypes which deals both with ecological and urban parameters.
| Kristof CrollaAssistant Professor, The University of Hong KongFounder of Laboratory for Explorative Architecture & Design (LEAD)RIBA III, ARB Registered Architect (UK)M.Arch AA DRL | B.A Magna Cum Laude at Ghent University, Belgium |
Kristof Crolla is a licensed architect who combines his work as Assistant Professor at the University of Hong Kong with his architectural practice “Laboratory for Explorative Architecture & Design” (LEAD). After graduating Magna Cum Laude at Ghent University and practicing in Belgium, he moved to London in 2005 and attended the AA’s master program Design Research Laboratory, from where his student work with team “Sugar Inc.” was exhibited at the 2006 Venice Architectural Biennale. Following this he worked for several years as Lead Architect for Zaha Hadid Architects while teaching in parallel at the Architectural Association School of Architecture, London (AA) and other institutions worldwide. He is the founder of the International Workshop Series (IWS) which organise workshops worldwide exploring digital design and fabrication in architecture and has been invited as a jury critic, lecturer and tutor in numerous institutions in Europe, China, Chile and South Africa.
| 高岩 Yan Gao Assistant Professor, HKU Tsinghua B.Arch.(hons) | AA M.Arch(with Distinction), RIBA III, ARB Registered Architect (UK) Creative Director, dot-A Beijing Design Director, Ocean Consultant Network |
Mr. Gao is a British qualified architect who teaches as Assistant Professor at The University of Hong Kong with research focus on Synthetic Computational Design. He co-founded Network of Design Emergence (NoDE) as the pre-launch of dot-A (“度態”設計) while practicing as the monitor of REALM (Research in Emergent ALgorithmic Modelling) group at Marks Barfield Architects in London, where he delivered many high profile projects including the multiple awards winning project, Kew Tree Top Walkway and Rhizotron (Completed in May 2008). He then joined CrystalCG London as the Architectural Director responsible for the Department of Research & Development until the end of 2009. Mr. Gao’s work and writing have been published in the UK and China, including the two influential issues, Articulating Complexity and Parametric Design for World Architecture Magazine at Tsinghua University Bejing. He taught in AA Shanghai Summer School 2007-2009 and AA Design Research Lab, London in 2009, and directed the first Parametric Design Workshop in China with Institute of International Engineering Project Management at Tsinghua University in 2008. He is also the director of AA Beijing Visiting School, director of Digital Practice Summer Program at HKU and, the curator of AA Beijing Symposium 2009.
| Daniel Gillen Founder, DGILLENdesignSenior Project Architect, MADBS in Architecture, Virginia Tech U |
After founding DGILLENdesign in 2002 Daniel worked as a designer at Asymptote architecture in New York, where he received first place for the Vake Multicultural Center competition, special prize for the Perm Museum competition and served as Senior Project Architect for the 38 billion dollar Yongsan IBD competition in Seoul. While at Asymptote, Daniel utilized parametric modeling software, specifically ‘Digital Project’ on numerous projects including Orco Bank Tower in Budapest, and Arch Daily’s 2009 building of the year, Yas Island Hotel in Abu Dhabi. Daniel received a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from Virginia Tech University, and has taught Advanced Parametric Design at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China and the Architectural Association Visiting school in Shanghai. Daniel has been an invited critic at university’s including, Princeton, Tsinghua, Parson’s New school of design, and New York Institute of Technology. He is
currently working as Senior Project Architect for MAD architects, building two complex geometrical cultural projects in Harbin, China, a museum to be completed in 2011, and an opera house to be completed in 2013.
| Nicola Saladino Co-founder of reMIXstudioProject Architect, Plasma StudioBA Polytechnic U of Cataluña, BarcelonaMA Landscape and Urbanism, AA |
Nicola attended preliminary studies of architecture in the Polytechnic University of Milan and majored in architecture in the Polytechnic University of Cataluña, in Barcelona, where he soon joined the teaching staff as design tutor and co-editor of the Projects Review publication. In 2009 he entered the Architectural Association to join the master program of Landscape Urbanism, where he graduated with distinction with a design thesis focused on an alternative masterplan for Lingang, an 800.000-inhabitants city located in the Yangtze River Delta. Since 2010 he has been involved in the AA Landscape Urbanism program as studio tutor and took part in various intensive workshops focused on the exploration of indexical tools and the development of parametric prototypes.In the last year he has been working as project architect for Plasma Studio in Beijing, researching the tectonic integration of the buildings with the surrounding landscape, and collaborated with London-based Groundlab on international competitions of Landscape Urbanism.He is currently visiting assistant professor of architecture in the University of Hong Kong (in the course held by Eva Castro and Holger Kehne) and visiting professor of Landscape Urbanism at Tsinghua University.
| 徐丰Feng Xu Principal architect of XWG Archi-StudioB.Arch Tsinghua UniversityTsinghua B.Arch.(hons) | AA M.Arch (with Distinction) |
Feng Xu is principal architect of XWG Archi-Studio, which is a research based architecture firm in Beijing, engaging the field of architecture via encoded and explicit processes. XWG’s work is trying to investigate and reflect the problems of social-economy and ecology in the process of the rapid urbanization in China. Feng studied the Design Research Lab of the Architectural Association in London, engaging the research of vector field and fluid dynamics, which the thesis project Vectorscape has been widely published and exhibited. Continuing the vector field research, he further on designed the VectorScape Pavilion in Beijing Biennale 2006, VectorScape Installation for AA project review 2007, and VectorX pavilion on the final list for DRL 10 year anniversary. Feng’s work experience in London, Beijing and New York includes ZAHA HADID ARCHITECTS, where he worked on several high-rise towers in Cairo, Brisbane and Melbourne. He has also worked with Jesse Reiser on the Foshan masterplan competition. His Previous work No.3 Villa in Commune by the Great Wall has been exhibited in Venice Biennale 2002. Feng’s teaching in Nonlinear Studio in Tsinghua Univ., also has led workshops and appeared as a guest critic in Beijing, Shanghai, New York, Boston and London, He’s currently working on 5sqkm masterplan in Wuming, China.
