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Co-de-iT + Mirco Bianchini, Tommaso Casucci, Mirko Daneluzzo and Alessandro Zomparelli

PAV – Parco Arte Vivente, Torino  45° 2′ 36.54″ N,  7° 39′ 51.65″ E

2011

Design team: Mirco Bianchini, Tommaso Casucci, Mirko Daneluzzo, Alessio Erioli and Alessandro Zomparelli

[english text coming soon]

Il progetto Fiber shelter nasce dall’idea di proporre un progetto altamente integrato con l’ambiente del Parco arte vivente di Torino, relativamente alle sue qualità spaziali e di fruizione.

La proposta è quindi quella di determinare un sistema che ha la possibilità di diffondersi all’interno del parco.
Questo tipo di strategia potrebbe inoltre essere utilizzata per inserire futuri interventi mantenendo coerenza distributiva.
La struttura dello shelter si avvale di una tecnologia che permette la realizzazione di strutture fibrose e in grado di definire una struttura rigida , facilmente montabile.
Il materiale e la tecnologia ipotizzata è splineTEX® Carbon, un materiale composito in plastica fibrorinforzata che permette di creare strutture leggere e resistenti senza la necessità di costosi processi di piegatura.

La struttura primaria è costituita da un doppio livello di elementi tubolari interconnessi ai quali si andrà successivamente ad agganciare una struttura secondaria di fibre più fini. Alla struttura primaria si aggancia inoltre un ulteriore livello di fibre di carbonio le quali una volta trattate con apposite resine diventeranno parte integrante della struttura.
Le fibre sono distribuite secondo un gradiente che dipende dalla curvatura della superficie di proliferazione: si infittiscono nelle aree dove la curvatura è maggiore, rappresentando le parti più deboli della struttura.
Il sistema definisce una struttura rigida altamente resistente dove l’infittimento determina un modello statico ridondante, in cui i vincoli tra gli elementi sono molti più di quelli minimi necessari per determinare un struttura rigida.
Questa strategia è presente in molti sistemi naturali: il surplus di elementi aumenta la resilienza del sistema, rendendolo in grado di rispondere complessivamente in maniera migliore a sollecitazioni di natura imprevedibile; inoltre rende ogni singolo elemento non indispensabile, per cui eventuali lesioni manifestatesi in un elemento specifico non andranno a compromettere l’integrità complessiva del sistema.
L’utilizzo di fibre di carbonio è stato scelto sia per le elevate caratteristiche meccaniche del materiale, sia per l’economicità del materiale e sia per la bassissima manutenzione che tale tipo di struttura richiede dopo la messa in opera.

Il pattern di densità definisce inoltre la transizione tra spazi più aperti e permeabili ad altri in cui la variazione delle fibre crea una maglia densa, influenzando e dando così una nuova gerarchia di ombreggiamento (e quindi temperatura) e permeabilità (accessi) all’interno del proprio spazio e campo di influenza esterno.

Barcelona 1-3 June 2011

Alessio Erioli will be co-directing the workshop and lecturing on Intensive Aesthetics at the Biodigital Architecture & Design Conference.

info: www.biodigitalarchitecture.com

More details to come.

Lecture

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Alessio Erioli

for:

fAAshions – AA visiting school Paris – spring 2011 – http://aaschoolparis.tumblr.com/

Director: Jorge Ayala – http://www.ayarchitecture.com

Musée des Arts Decoratifs, Paris

22.03.2011

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Invited by Jorge Ayala, Director of fAAshions – AA visiting School in Paris, Alessio went to Paris in Spring 2011 to give a lecture about “intensive aesthetics|intensive surfaces”. PDF format of the lecture available soon.

Lecture Abstract:

There is a tight interrelation among culture, language and the physical substratum they are connected with. We store and transmit information through patterns, defined as sequences in space and time; this general framework encompasses cultural and material processes: patterns are made of matter, energy and information, which is flowing as an embedded property and not only through conventional symbols.

In living organisms skin is the outermost aspect of a complex system and thus is deeply and intimately intertwined to its processes of formation, life, cognition, behavior (including morphology, metabolism and its communication system, all involving patterns); the surface is an orbital where intensive properties (which are scale invariant – they do not depend on system size – and tend to eliminate mutual differences producing dynamics), self-organization processes and emergent effects+affects meet and gravitate mutually influencing each other through matter-energy-information exchange. Coded language interacts and feedbacks with the sonic matter it started from and the physical means of its reproduction and diffusion (organisms, technology and their embedded information); symbols themselves are a product of this interaction, an extensive outcome of intensive processes.

Contemporary design and fabrication strategies focused the interest into processes rather than products, shedding light on the role of topology, constraints, extended material properties in morphogenesis and emergent behaviors; the interlinked studies on biology and complex systems thus leveraged a novel performance based definition of rationality, promoting complex, articulated and differentiated multi-performative solutions. This is having a deep impact on extensive, crystallized conventions which seclude shape, meaning and performance in static and rigid associations; a better understanding of pattern generation dynamics might promote an enhancement in pattern recognition and interpretation, bringing the contributions of elements such as emergence and complexity in the construction of meaning, hence disclosing an understanding of it as a more complex and vibrant set of relations involving form, shape, pattern, function, purpose, content. Architecture does not shape meaning directly nor embodies it, but can provide the tools and constraints to disclose its potential, promoting an intensive idea of aesthetics.

We would like to thank Jorge Ayala for the invitation, it was awesome to be part of this!

Check the full flickr gallery here.

Other links:

http://www.ayarchitecture.com/#1281883/aa-school-paris-s-s-11

http://www.jorge-ayala.com/2011/03/aa-school-paris-lecture-by-alessio.html

Photos by Bryce Davesne.

Flowerstore

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Alessio Erioli + Antonio Vacca (alfa301) as A.V.A.E.

unspecified location

2008

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Flowers are considered mainly as symbols of grace, beauty, fragility and transiency of things. They were the very first form of human body decoration (such as jewels), used to enhance seductive qualities. Besides their semiologic value, flowers are exceptional organs in which performance and economy of form are highly evolved: space, structure and material are tightly connected to environmental behavior.

Flowering plants, thanks to sexuated reproduction, are one of the most adaptive specie; flowers are their sexual organs. Entomophilous flowers rely on insects as hosts to perform sexuated reproduction (through pollination), so they base their reproductive potential on attraction. Differently from anemophilous flowers (which rely on wind and are mostly white and inodor), entomophilous show a wider range of forms, spatial organizations, color patterns and odors. Beauty then performs an essential function, triggering different strategies which are actuated through morphological conditions.

Starting from the analysis of the properties of the Cyclamen Graecum, we investigated the particular conditions of its petals: they are the main tool through which the flower signals its presence to insects. In the Cyclamen the weight of the head bends the stem downward, thus easing insect approaching from below, while petals elongate and bend upward signaling the flower position, creating a very interesting topological condition around the corolla. Their plication creates a continuous passage from outer to inner space, just like some typical topological surfaces, such as the Klein Bottle, which are continuously spatially connected. The differentiation of inner spaces out of continuous surfaces is a typical topological condition in living organisms and it is a phenomenon which starts in the embryo, when the initial cell aggregation (blastula) starts bending inward and creates the first spatial differentiation between outside and inside; it is called gastrulation. Another concept related to the Klein Bottle, this time  from the side of mathematics, is involution, a mathematical function which applied twice brings back to the starting point.

The petals condition (along with the concepts of involution, gastrulation and with the translucency and color properties of the petals) was then explored under TopMod®, a topological mesh modeler, testing different strategies within an open process that led to the final shape through generative process driven by the program and a selection criteria based on consistency with the conceptual basis, avoiding a mere biomorphic translation.
The pavilion is a continuous surface that differentiates environment into 3 different spaces: an exterior outside the pavilion in which the envelope surface defines the overall shape and two different interior spaces, a ring that embraces a court and creates different gradients of use within it. Different gradients of transparency/translucency, established according to a map of activities based on performative qualities of morphology, are implemented through the use of holes in the surface and not only relying on material properties (pigmentation).

Additional info:

[attr]-action is a project developed together with Antonio Vacca from alfa301 during “flower obsession” studio, held by SPAN
(Matias Del Campo + sandra Manninger) in the Biodigital Architecture Master at ESARQ, Universitat Internacional de Catalunya,
2008. Thanks to Matias & Sandra for their inspirational studio & teaching.

Featured on:

:: 2008: . Beijing Architecture Biennale, selected among others to represent ESARQ
:: 2009: . AAST/// exhibition Settimo Torinese 17.04>17.05 2009
. AAST/// exhibition Torino 23.06.2009
. SuckerPunchDaily.