Code [9], a collaboration between Nassim Es-Haghi, George Kontalonis, Jared Ramsdell, and Rana Zureikat, challenges the traditional campus typology that exists today, by looking into education, society, environment and networks with their ‘Vertical Ground’ Skyscraper proposal. Their concept proposes a deployable system that can reconfigure into any environment and function as a flexible and interconnected campus. The synthesis is a new definition of a campus, one that is set within today’s environment and society. More images and the team’s description after the break.
Code [9] was formed under the proto-design agenda of the Design Research Laboratory at the Architectural Association and situated within Patrik Schumacher’s agenda for a Semiological Campus. The studio viewed architecture as a frame to order and adapt society, while pursuing architectural distinctions and differentiation to have embedded cognitive intelligibility.
The project deals with a proto-campus that is not site specific, but context specific. It also dealt with urban sites that have embedded culture & activities, relationships on the micro and macro scale, social behavior and architectural typology. Due to a tower’s basic approach to circulation and the diverse chaotic circulation of campuses, it was essential to break down the relentless expression of floor plates. This happened through dividing the tower into groupings of program and open space, core articulation, and by activating open spaces with horizontal connections to adjacent schools.
The program clusters are generated per school type. Programmatic relationships were the fundamental driver of organization, based upon an agency and time. The agent was a vital contributor to the organization, as their travel distance and experience were focused on movement. Each school has its own distinct hierarchy of spaces and their connections, thus allowing the micro to develop the macro. The spaces connect based upon circulation patterns, room adjacencies and student capacities. These were then added to public and private relationships to provide for a multi-dimensional series of rules. Spaces were also developed to have the third dimension; this created a densely packed program that provides for a diverse section. The over-all campus became reduced due to the non-standard approach to slab and spaces.
Since the goal of the proposal was to create a proto-system for site, program, aesthetics and structure, we chose Manhattan as our testing ground for its melting pot qualities. We choose to use this for our proto-campus because of its diverse site types. Initially we tested our proto-campus upon 4 different sites, a larger site in Chelsea, an infill site in the Lower East, a typical block in Upper East, and a small site in Midtown.
However, once we proved the system could be deployed on any site constraints, we then chose to pursue two diverse locations with the most challenging site constraints: Chelsea and Midtown. Chelsea became a grouping of schools with distinct relationships, while midtown became a superblock where the schools fused together almost completely. The deployment of the system is implemented through our own processing algorithms that once again use agents to determine the campus’s over-all layout and form.
The interesting part of doing two scenarios with the same system is how the results differ. The distinctions can be seen on the over-all massing, where each campus becomes extremely distinct formally. However, there were also inherent internal changes, such as fused cores, overlapping schools, and continuous circulation networks in Midtown. Where as Chelsea remained more distinct formally by having separate schools, sky bridges, and un-fused cores. The results show the proto-campuses adaptability and performance in any site while still maintaining a campuses functionality and phenomenology.
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- Courtesy of Code 9
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- Courtesy of Code 9
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- Courtesy of Code 9
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- Courtesy of Code 9
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- model 01
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- model 02
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- model 03
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- section diagram 01
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- section diagram 02
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- section diagram 03
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- campus diagram
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- skin diagram
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- spaces diagram
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- structure
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- competition board 01
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- competition board 02
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Isnt there enough rubbish around the world? do we need to use rubbish now as inspiration for architecture, and to immortalize it in such hideous monuments? enough is enough… throw the architects down the drain
Patrick Schumacher should be shot for inspiring this archi-bable nonsense.
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“creative and full of imagination”? Go install MAYA learn the bridge and extrude tool, and smooth the polys. That how much work you need. Architecture is in for a big change. The crisis is permanent and it will reflect on architecture permanent. More smart sustainability and less of this nonsense that doesn’t solve problems, only create one.
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It isn’t Patrick Schumacher’s fault you don’t have a job….
or that you do meaningless work.
Once you cut through the archi-bable, there’s nothing in the text that justifies the aesthetics. So it’s a modular system driven by its context. Someone else could achieve this with shipping containers, or with brick and tile. What drives this form in particular? Is it biomimicry, environment, something else…?
You need to explain why it has to be this way, and not another. Otherwise it just looks like: “Hey Ma! Look what I did on my computer!”
Agree.
If this is architecture, we should call architect anyone behind ‘Star Wars’, ‘Blade Runner’ or ‘Fifth Element’ scenography.
Booo.
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Once we cut through your archi-babble we arrive at the non-shipping container. A shipping container would be horrible space for an NYC university campus. If you actually read the text, you would have known that. If you know anything about cutting edge fabrication technologies, you would also know that these forms are not difficult to build.. but I am not in business of educating the blind an deaf. Its not about aesthetics, but how to streamline programmatic relationships. To curve or box is not a worthy speculation. Come back when you have something smarter to say old man.
Well I can’t say care care for this sci-fi style architecture I do like some aspects of the design. The roof top terraces and the frame above them for example. as for all those people who hate boxes. The reason the box has been used for so long is it works very efficiently and it’s the simplest to build as almost all building materials are designed for 90° angles (bricks, lumber, ect) I think that getting away from boxy buildings is cool as long as it is still practical. Try putting squared furniture on a round wall. Doesnt work out the best.
That is why good architects design their furniture to compliment a space, as opposed to ordering things from IKEA.
It actually is very straightforward, diagonal bracing, repetitive floor slabs. So some things curve…big deal, that’s not sci-fi. I had no idea so many old ladies lurked around here, given all the ruffled feathers.
hey progessivos
facing many severe global problems that are occurring right now to human kind- you think putting a HUGE amount of energy, ressources and time into building THIS is actually a good idea?
please start to think and design like you give a damn
Ok MTE maybe you should go hand out sandwiches to the homeless instead of lurking on architecture websites
Please, who would want to starve with Cameron Sinclair and his entourage.
“The deployment of the system is implemented through our own processing algorithms that once again use agents to determine the campus’s over-all layout and form.”
so “the agents” did the design work? so the code is making all the decisions for the architects?
Code does not write itself, someone has to think about how to implement and design its output. Its simulation-based design that is not regulated to Maya forms. As opposed to just drawing and diagramming, it can be a superior medium when you think about it.
Not to say that diagramming and drawing are wrong, but in conjunction with simulations, can produce powerful architecture.