The Rise
(CITA - Center for IT and Architecture, KADK - The Royal Danish Academy, Architecture, Design, Conservation)
The project, developed primarily by David Stasiuk, builds on an earlier research project carried out by CITA during parts of 2012 and early 2013. The same underlying principles form the foundation for this alternative and distinct approach to the logic of the project.
Algorithmic rule systems, written in VB.NET by David Stasiuk using Grasshopper for Rhino, generates a form of “grown” structure when brought together as part of a larger whole. The algorithms are informed by feedback from physical material experiments using fibreglass rods, with test results addressing strength, stiffness, flexibility, maximum load, failure, and other material properties. The resulting structure is a complex assembly based on self-organising principles and logics drawn from research into plant growth.
The project is based primarily on code developed by David Stasiuk as part of his PhD research, Activating the Parameter Space in Computational Design Modelling, at CITA, within the School of Architecture at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation, in Copenhagen.
The ACADIA project to which this research belongs forms part of a broader research framework known as Complex Modelling, within which CITA conducts its research.
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Project participants
Claus Rytter Bruun de Neergaard (CITA), David Stasiuk (CITA), Martin Tamke (CITA), Mette Ramsgaard Thomsen (CITA), Ida Tinning (workshopdeltager), Annika Richmond (workshopdeltager).
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From CITAs project description:
“The Rise, ACADIA-workshop explored the conceptualisation, technologies and making of an architecture that is continuously sensing and dynamically adapting to its environment as it grows into form. The workshop was based in a research project into the digital design and fabrication of aggregations of variably sized bundles of fibre material that multiply, bend, branch, and recombine in a distributed assembly that manifests an alternative to traditional structural systems. The workshop participants got insights into the algorithmic base, the CNC processes and the physical processes in a hands-on way.”
“The Rise is the idea of a growing architecture. Like a bush the installation has its own internal growth patterns that guide the material in a highly distributed aggregation of small members that keep branching off and multiplying. The installation looks at distributed systems as an alternative to traditional structural systems. Where contemporary design approaches in architecture have difficulties to conceptualise complex systems we grow a multitude of intersecting members that all together create a structural network system. In this vision architecture is not a static formalist proposition but instead continuously adapting to the dynamics of its surroundings while growing into form.”
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“[...] This model directly emulates those natural plant growth processes where properties called tropisms – such as those reacting to light (phototropism), gravity (geotropism) or touch (thigmotropism) – trigger auxin – a hormone that directs new cellular growth and coordinates the emergence of the plant’s shape. In “The Rise” virtual auxins are activated in response to the exhibition space through programmed algorithmic tropisms. The installation grows in response to its environment, extending and directing with the variations of light in the space, the gravity and its contact to the surroundings. Like plants the system is self-aware. It understands its behaviour under self-weight and reacts through thickening or weakening or shoots that create extra support. The installation learns from nature and mimics its ways of creating structural performance but also expands this into new hybrid growths that lie outside the natural environment, as the branches ability to re-join and create circular relationships with high structural strength.”
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(CITA - Center for IT and Architecture, KADK - The Royal Danish Academy, Architecture, Design, Conservation)
The project, developed primarily by David Stasiuk, builds on an earlier research project carried out by CITA during parts of 2012 and early 2013. The same underlying principles form the foundation for this alternative and distinct approach to the logic of the project.
Algorithmic rule systems, written in VB.NET by David Stasiuk using Grasshopper for Rhino, generates a form of “grown” structure when brought together as part of a larger whole. The algorithms are informed by feedback from physical material experiments using fibreglass rods, with test results addressing strength, stiffness, flexibility, maximum load, failure, and other material properties. The resulting structure is a complex assembly based on self-organising principles and logics drawn from research into plant growth.
The project is based primarily on code developed by David Stasiuk as part of his PhD research, Activating the Parameter Space in Computational Design Modelling, at CITA, within the School of Architecture at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation, in Copenhagen.
The ACADIA project to which this research belongs forms part of a broader research framework known as Complex Modelling, within which CITA conducts its research.
Project participants
Claus Rytter Bruun de Neergaard (CITA), David Stasiuk (CITA), Martin Tamke (CITA), Mette Ramsgaard Thomsen (CITA), Ida Tinning (workshopdeltager), Annika Richmond (workshopdeltager).
From CITAs project description:
“The Rise, ACADIA-workshop explored the conceptualisation, technologies and making of an architecture that is continuously sensing and dynamically adapting to its environment as it grows into form. The workshop was based in a research project into the digital design and fabrication of aggregations of variably sized bundles of fibre material that multiply, bend, branch, and recombine in a distributed assembly that manifests an alternative to traditional structural systems. The workshop participants got insights into the algorithmic base, the CNC processes and the physical processes in a hands-on way.”
“The Rise is the idea of a growing architecture. Like a bush the installation has its own internal growth patterns that guide the material in a highly distributed aggregation of small members that keep branching off and multiplying. The installation looks at distributed systems as an alternative to traditional structural systems. Where contemporary design approaches in architecture have difficulties to conceptualise complex systems we grow a multitude of intersecting members that all together create a structural network system. In this vision architecture is not a static formalist proposition but instead continuously adapting to the dynamics of its surroundings while growing into form.”
“[...] This model directly emulates those natural plant growth processes where properties called tropisms – such as those reacting to light (phototropism), gravity (geotropism) or touch (thigmotropism) – trigger auxin – a hormone that directs new cellular growth and coordinates the emergence of the plant’s shape. In “The Rise” virtual auxins are activated in response to the exhibition space through programmed algorithmic tropisms. The installation grows in response to its environment, extending and directing with the variations of light in the space, the gravity and its contact to the surroundings. Like plants the system is self-aware. It understands its behaviour under self-weight and reacts through thickening or weakening or shoots that create extra support. The installation learns from nature and mimics its ways of creating structural performance but also expands this into new hybrid growths that lie outside the natural environment, as the branches ability to re-join and create circular relationships with high structural strength.”
