Designing Kinetics for Architectural Facades: State Change

193 Pages·2011·9.22 MB·English

by  Jules Moloney

Designing Kinetics for
Architectural Facades
Architecture has typically resisted kinetics, but with advances in dynamic screens
and animated surface there are new opportunities for designers. This book examines
the architectural facade, to identify a latent aesthetic within contemporary practice.
How might precedent from architecture and the arts inform this new fi eld? What are
the design parameters, when composition shifts from stasis to a state of constant
fl ux? And given this liquidity, what are the distinctive contours of this new aesthetic?
These questions of precedent, design ontology and kinetic morphology
are explored here in a strategic mix of theory and experiment. Analysis of architec-
tural praxis intersects with discourse from kinetic art, to provide the conceptual spark
for the study of ‘movement itself’. The potential is for the realization of indeterminate
states, where parts coalesce, forming clusters and sublime patterns that resonate
over time.
This is the fi rst book to articulate a framework for the design of kinetics
developed from fi rst principles. Located between theory and practice, the analytical
diagrams and time-lapse images provide a unique and timely resource for designers,
theorists and students interested in the potential of kinetics to enliven the public
face of architecture.
Jules Moloney is Associate Professor in Interdisciplinary Digital Design at the
Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. His research, creative practice and
teaching span the fi elds of architecture, kinetic art and virtual environments.

Designing Kinetics for
Architectural Facades
State change
Jules Moloney
First published 2011
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2011.
To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.
© 2011 Jules Moloney
The right of Jules Moloney to be identifi ed as author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identifi cation and explanation without intent to
infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Moloney, Jules.
Designing kinetics for architectural facades : state change / Jules Moloney.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Facades--Designs and plans. 2. Motion in architecture. 3. Architectural
design. I. Title. II. Title: State change.
NA2941.M65 2011
729’.1--dc22 2010049566
ISBN 0-203-81470-3 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN: 978-0-415-61033-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-415-61034-6 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-81470-3 (ebk)
Contents
Illustration credits vii
List of illustrations viii
Foreword xii
Acknowledgements xv
PART I
1 Movement at the periphery 3
A morphology of pattern for kinetic facades 3
The potential of kinetics 8
2 Kinetic precedent 13
Contemporary practice 13
Contemporary discourse 24
Kinetic theory 30
The challenge of kinetics 33
3 Systems, fi elds and refl exivity 39
A wider perspective 39
Compositional systems 40
Field thinking 46
Cybernetics 51
Some implications for kinetics 55
4 Kinetic art 57
The temporal arts 57
Popper: kinetic procedures 61
Lye: fi gures of motion 64
Rickey: the ship at sea 66
Dorin: taxonomy of process 70
Contents
PART II
5 Decision planes 77
Rewind < 1 77
Animated variables 79
Towards a framework 80
6 Experiments with kinetic pattern 91
Index and intuition 91
Variables 93
Visualizing pattern 99
Stages 101
7 All at sea: a provisional taxonomy 105
Taxonomy as heuristic device 105
Overview of animations 106
From ship to sea 120
A fi rst cut 123
8 State change 135
Non-ascribable 135
Taking stock 137
Towards state change 143
From theory to practice 148
Notes 151
Bibliography 168
Index 174
vi
Illustration credits
All illustrations are original drawings and images produced solely by the author, or in
collaboration with John Bleaney.
Illustrations
1.1 Defi nition of kinetics as three spatial transformations and material
deformation 7
2.1 Analytical drawings of pneumatic structure prototypes developed by
the Hyberbody research group, TU Delft 14
2.2 Analytical drawing of adaptive shading for the Ciudad de Justicia,
Madrid, 2006–2011, by Hobermann Associates 15
2.3 Analytical drawings of screen translations based on a student project
undertaken at the California Polytechnic, 2002 16
2.4 Analytical drawings of screen translations based on Kiefer Technic
showroom designed by Ernst Giselbrecht and Partner, Bad
Gleichenberg, Austria, 2010 16
2.5 Analytical drawings of perimeter wall to Nordic Embassies, Berlin,
designed by Berger and Parkkinen, 1999 17
2.6 Analytical drawings of Malvern Hills Science Park, UK, designed by
Rubicon Design, 2008 17
2.7 Analytical drawings of student project, by Andreas Chadzis, 2005 18
2.8 Analytical drawings of LIGO Science Education Center, Livingston,
Louisiana, designed by Eskew, Dumez and Ripple, 2006 18
2.9 Analytical drawings of kinetic wall sculpture Battleship, by Anthony
Howe, 2006 18
2.10 Analytical drawing of project by Ho Sun for a pneumatic ‘quilted’
facade, University of Melbourne, 2007 19
2.11 Analytical drawing of Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris, by Jean
Nouvel, 1987 19
2.12 Analytical drawing of Aegis Hyposurface by dECOi, Birmingham, UK,
1999–2001 20
2.13 Analytical drawing of Dynamic Terrain, by Janis Pönisch, Amsterdam,
2006 21
2.14 Analytical drawing of Flare facade prototype by WHITEvoid, Berlin,
2008 21
2.15 Analytical drawing of responsive awning by MIT Kinetic Design
Group, Boston, 2000–2002 22
2.16 Analytical drawing of responsive timber surface by Ocean North,
London, 2008 22
2.17 Analytical drawing based on proposal for robotic ‘edge monkeys’, by
Stephen Gage, London, 2005 23
Illustrations
2.18 Analytical drawing based on Digital Water Pavilion by MIT Media Lab
and Carlo Ratti Associati, Zaragoza, Spain, 2008 24
2.19 Analytical drawing based on Blur Building by Diller and Scofi dio,
Swiss national expo, Yverdon les-Bains, Switzerland, 2002 24
3.1 Diagram of catastrophe surface that shows control space, event
space, fold, and its projection as a cusp (the catastrophe set) 47
3.2 Diagrammatic drawing of an extension to Kaufmann’s three
compositional systems: (A) typical ‘ancient’ proportional system;
(B) proportional system in tension with Baroque hierarchy of
parts; (C) repetition and reverberation of eighteenth-century
French rationalism; (D) neutral grid of the modernist curtain wall;
(E) graduated surface of contemporary fi eld-fi eld composition 50
4.1 The ship at sea (redrawn from George Rickey, 1963) 67
5.1 Diagram of design variables conceived as a planar continuum
between two extremes. Location on the plane identifi es the zone of
a design instance, but when mapped to time, multiple outcomes are
possible from the same combination of variables 82
5.2 Global design variables of temporal structure overlaid on a decision plane 88
5.3 Summative diagram of sampling, control and tectonic decision
planes. Specifi cation of variable continuum in combination with
periodic structure and temporal scale produces design multiplicity
over time 89
6.1 Summative diagram of variables to be used for design experiments 98
6.2 Trials of different geometry undertaken as a pilot study. Hexagonal
parts provided the best mix of edge detection and shading depth for
motion detection 100
6.3 Summative diagram of 19 control scripts used for stage 2 102
7.1 Stage 1 animation study to determine singular and compound
kinetics. The seven kinetic types selected for the experiment are
annotated 107
7.2 Stage 2. TRANSLATION × 19 control types 108
7.3 Stage 2. ROTATION × 19 control types 109
7.4 Stage 2. SCALING × 19 control types 110
7.5 Stage 2. TWIST × 19 control types 111
7.6 Stage 2. ROLL × 19 control types 112
7.7 Stage 2. YAW × 19 control types 113
7.8 Stage 2. SPRING × 19 control types 114
7.9 Stage 3-A. Selected animations from intuitive experimentation with
one representative kinetic type (rotation) and various amplitude- and
period-based arithmetic and geometric progressions 115
7.10 Stage 3-B. Selected animations from intuitive experimentation with
one representative kinetic type (rotation) and various amplitude- and
period-based arithmetic and geometric progressions 116
7.11 Stage 3-C. Selected animations from intuitive experimentation with
ix