Differentiation and Performance: Multi-performance Architectures and Modulated Environments

‘Societies who do not build substantial structures inhabit a space whose external boundaries are vague, adjustable and rarely regular,’ wrote Banham.

Differentiation is thus expressed in gradient threshold conditions rather than by a hard division between inside and outside.

Suggesting a more sustainable approach to architecture by shifting away from the homogenous and largely monofunctional material systems that make up the built environment today, and towards heterogeneous and multi-performance systems. The aim is to show how these systems can modulate and, in turn, be modulated by environmental conditions, and to suggest alternative spatial strategies based on gradient threshold conditions.

Modernist discourse postulated universal space as the key paradigm for democratic space. The open plan, ideally extended to an infinite homogenous grid, The preference for universal space brought with it the modularization of building elements and systems, as well as a homogenization of entire climates.

This single-objective approach to optimization is based on an understanding of efficiency that entails the minimum use of material and energy to fulfill one single task. A critical view yields the question of whether an alternative understanding of optimisation, efficiency and redundancy in relation to multi-performance material systems can facilitate a very different take on spatial organisation and environmental modulation. Architectural discourse in the last decades has largely moved away from universal space and declared a preference for heterogeneous architectures.

material and building systems are not being critically reviewed with respect to established types and their monofunctionality, as well as building-type-dependent interior climate requirements and uniform condition zoning. Architecture has thus largely remained ‘neufertised’.

Unfortunately, environmental design and engineering remains a question of post-design optimization rather than informing the design process from a very early stage. Moreover, a homogenized interior environment simply cannot satisfy the multiple and contrasting needs of its inhabitants.

The proposed approach to architectural design is based on the deliberate differentiation of material systems and assemblies beyond the established catalogue of types, on making them dissimilar or distinct in degree and across ranges. Varied ranges of material systems can provide for diverse spatial arrangements together with climatic intensities. This involves the deployment of the inherent behavioral characteristics and modulation capacities of building elements and systems, rather than a retrospective optimization process towards monofunctional efficiency. From this arises an understanding of efficiency as a dynamic characteristic of the effective, based on utilizing redundancy predominantly as latent capacity to perform a series of different tasks, rather than a safety measure.

Instrumentalising multiple-performance capacity requires an understanding of material elements and systems in a synergetic and integral manner. It considers these systems in terms of their behavioral characteristics and capacities with respect to the purpose they serve locally and within the behavioral economy of larger systems.



NOTO, MALLEMADUGULA
BIOMIMETICS: CR ASSULA PER FOR ATA
EMTECH
WEINSTOCK, HENSEL, MENGES, HEMBER G

Team: Matteo Noto, Sreedhar Mallem adugula











http://www.aaschool.ac.uk/aatestsite/default.aspx?section=projects&page=archive&id=26,7












http://www.aaschool.ac.uk/aatestsite/default.aspx?section=projects&page=archive&id=26,7












http://www.aaschool.ac.uk/aatestsite/default.aspx?section=projects&page=archive&id=26,7













http://www.aaschool.ac.uk/aatestsite/default.aspx?section=projects&page=archive&id=26,7

This research involved the exploration of the computation in studying the behaviour of natural systems. The slender stem, the orientation of leaves, and the growth process at the tip of the plant Crassula Perforata are studied, modeled, and analysed. This entailed an inquiry into multiple-objective optimization processes employed by natural systems, including surface optimization, orientation towards sunlight and general structural optimization.

Advanced Simulation in Design

Simulations are essential for designing complex material systems, and for analysing their behaviour over extended periods of time. As Michael Weinstock and Nikolaos Stathopoulos explain, working with simulations requires the development of a mathematical model of physical processes, and generative computational design can now inexpensively incorporate the advanced physics of nonlinear behaviour to explore the dynamic changes that structures and materials undergo in response to changing conditions.

CFD Simulation of Supply Air Flow: copyright of BURNS-PAK data center design/ build solutions www.bruns-pak.com



















CFD Simulation of Return Air Flow: copyright of BURNS-PAK data center design/ build solutions www.bruns-pak.com


Thermal modeling using the CFD tool that helps to ensure that failure simulations are performed to validate redundancy requirements are met. In creating the model, location size, and placement of the supply air floor tiles must be considered.


Much of the physical environment can be simulated in the computer: a simple ‘Google’ search will show a collection of sites on the web that have interactive simulations of physics principles, including light, optics, springs and masses, pendulums and waves, harmonics, mechanics and momentum, and even nuclear physics.



















































Contributing Authors: Mortimer Abramowitz - Olympus America, Inc., Two Corporate Center Drive., Melville, New York, 11747. Robert T. Sutter and Michael W. Davidson - National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, 1800 East Paul Dirac Dr., The Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, 32310. http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu


This tutorial explores the effect of prism-induced refraction on visible light according to Snell's law. Both incident angle and beam thickness are adjustable using the sliders in the tutorial window.





Engeneering Simulations: Ansys software containing a coupled physics ‘engine’ that enables us to construct and run simulations for structural, thermal, fluid dynamics, acoustic and electromagnetic analysis.

















CFX calculates the streamlines and surface pressure distribution for specific wind conditions, giving vital information to assess the structural integrity of the design, ANSYS case study, ANSYS copyright www.ansys.com

The challenge was to assess airflow around a new railway station to meet environmental regulations and maintain building structural integrity.
The CFX-5™ computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software from ANSYS was used to numerically simulate flow around the building.
Advantages of using the ANSYS software:
Understanding of the flow could be obtained without expensive wind tunnel testing.
Concern that, under certain prevailing conditions, there would be a tendency for the external wind pressure to limit the egress of diesel fumes was addressed.
Inadequate roof ventilation was identified early in the process allowing design changes to be made at minimal cost.


















For fire and safety risk assessments, CFX calculates the amount of smoke leaving the station via the roof vents during a simulated fire on a stationary locomotive . Shown is an isosurface of smoke concentration above the roof vents. ANSYS case study, ANSYS copyright www.ansys.com

















CFX calculates the wind velocities and surface pressure distribution for specific wind conditions. This permits the total lift on the station roof to be calculated and used in the assessment of the structural integrity of the design. ANSYS case study, ANSYS copyright www.ansys.com

A computational model of the station was set up to accurately represent all of the important aerodynamic features.
This also included those buildings nearby that were likely to significantly influence the aerodynamic phenomena at the station.
Based on the need to resolve the flow in the ventilation cowl and slot regions adequately in each of the six roof segments, localized resolution down to 10cm was adopted in a model of overall dimensions 668m east-west, 431m north-south, and 60m vertically.
This set-up automatically produced a CFX-5 surface mesh with approximately 200,000 surface elements, and a volume mesh of about 2,800,000 elements for the combined internal/external flow simulation.
Several steady-state simulations were performed using different wind speeds and directions, and incorporating the locally measured atmospheric boundary layer profile for wind direction, speed and turbulence. Time-averaged emissions of mass, momentum and heat from the locomotive exhausts were included to account for the effect of trains moving through the station, as well as those which had stopped temporarily.
Turbulence was represented using the k-ε model, while buoyancy effects were included in both the mean fluid motion and in the turbulence. The movement and distribution of particulates emitted in the exhaust gases was determined by solving an additional scalar equation.
The simulations of the original design showed that the roof ventilation was inadequate, and that pollutants were not dissipating as quickly as required. Identified at an early stage in the design, these shortcomings were addressed by re-designing the vents, and the effectiveness of the changes was then easily verified through further simulations. This example is indicative of many of the environmental CFD analyses being undertaken with CFX-5 that involve the coupled modeling of internal and external flow domains.
CFX-5 is extremely efficient, particularly on large problems such as this. The flow solver required only 40 iterations to reach a converged solution (20 CPU-hours on a single-processor 400MHz DEC Alpha Unix machine) for this model containing 2,800,000 cells.


Maya was extended to make it a tool capable of simulating the process of a membrane settling to a minimum energy shape when fixed in a number of points in space.




The acoustics simulation conducted by ArupAcoustics for the Greater London Assembly (GLA) building is a very good example of advanced simulation used for evaluating the quality – in this case acoustic – of a space, in a way that would not have been possible via other means.




Open System for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (OpenSees) is an advanced simulation software that is useful for the analysis of hypothetical and representative scenarios for structural behaviour, and for soil and foundation behaviour.



In medicine, simulations are revealing the movements of human tissues under stress, and of the fluids within the tissues.
Simulations developed from fluid dynamics are useful for modelling the flow of blood through the heart, indicating flow situations of high shear that may damage blood corpuscles.
The value of this kind of simulation for the generation of responsive architectural ‘skins’ and for adaptive intelligent environmental systems for buildings is evident.



Urban Simulations
SimCity is an interesting game, a simulation in which the game engine simulates the complex growth of cities, with the player able to alter many parameters and see the effects of the interaction between taxes, zoning, infrastructure, pollution, topography and so on.
Its limitation is that the model of urban development cannot be modified.
If it was possible to alter the model the simulation ‘engine’ uses, SimCity would be a useful tool for evaluating hypothetical urban developments and urban flow that would be impossible to observe in the physical world.



There are two strategies for the task of modelling a complex system. The simplest and fastest is to abstract mathematical descriptions from the observed behaviour of an existing system, and to model the overall distributions of identifiable patterns and parameters.


An alternative bottom-up approach starts from the recognition that a complex system is a very large number of small and simple components, each of which is semiautonomous but interacts with its neighbours.
This approach produces the degree of complexity observed in the physical world.


An ideal system would incorporate both approaches, and would be very useful in the design studio for complex urban design.


Manufacturing, Construction and Material Simulations
Simulations allow the development and refinement of designs prior to the construction of physical models and prototypes.
These are usually simulations of singular processes, rather than the complete sequence of manufacturing processes.

Conclusion
A model is an abstraction of a process.
Simulations are essential for designing complex material systems, and for analysing their behaviour over extended periods of time. Simulations can and should be used as part of the generative design processes in architectural studios. Where the design ambition is to develop ‘responsive’ architectures, buildings or artefacts that have the capacity to make controlled changes to themselves in order to adapt to dynamic loading conditions and environmental changes.
advanced simulations are essential.