11th EAEA Envisioning Architecture: Design, Evaluation, Communication Conference in 2013

Track 3 | Conceptual Representation | Exploring the layout of the built environment

Time space

ABSTRACT

Time-based media and parametric modeling are two distinct and rapidly developing medias that can be combined to offer architecture and design students the opportunity to visualize and design with the benefit of considering change over time. These two important technological developments have occurred in digital media but have rarely been linked in the exploration of conceptual representation. The first development is the ability to produce time-lapse video with readily accessible equipment and the second is the ability to visualize form making and changing in advanced ways through parametric modeling such as Grasshopper3D. In an advanced media class, these medias have come together to teach students about the many ways in which architecture can address change of building relative to change of time and how that can influence the layout of the built environment. This paper presents the position that this is a valuable and productive pedagogy by showing specific examples as well the context of the discipline.
Time is an important component of architecture, but it is one that is difficult to study because students are commonly focused on the immediate product. Students are accustomed to seeing architecture in singular ideal conditions rather than experiencing architecture in its many scales of time. Over the course of an hour, an entire day, a season, a year and even the result of decades can be sources of inspiration for design objectives. The ability to gather visual data to assist in this analysis is paramount for this study to work. It provides inspiration as well as direct evidence of change. Time-lapse is the first interface because it offers a medium that requires long spans of time to create, anticipation of what may occur relative to what is actually witnessed in the film and discoveries of the unexpected.
However, simply witnessing the situation is only the beginning, doing something with that discovery requires the ability to record and manipulate change as an aspect of design. Parametric modeling allows students to “program” these various conditions by breaking them down into their component pieces called “parameters”. By manipulating the parameters, the designer both realizes the elements that impact change and can analyze the design potential as parameters are manipulated. This process results in a time-based presentation that records change and allows the student to focus attention on the subject matter developed through the medium.

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AUTHOR

Cameron Campbell

Department of Architecture, Iowa State University, Ames, United States of America

Cameron Campbell became a licensed architect and also apprenticed as an architectural photographer at the nationally recognized firm of the year in 2001 Herbert Lewis Kruse Blunck Architecture. He pursued his master degree with a specialty in digital media in architecture and created a thesis about interactive space and digital media. Cameron is now a professor at Iowa State University and teaches design studio courses at many levels in the undergraduate program and teaches digital media courses as well as photography courses. Cameron continues to teach, as well as practice making and photographing architecture and creating publications of these endeavors.

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