Aspects of Digital Mimesis in Design

Jerzy W ojtowicz, School of Arc hitecture , UBC

Kazimierz Butelski, F aculty of Arc hitecture , TU

Abstract. The imitation process and the 3D digitizer deployed in conceptual design Keywords. 3D digitizer, mimesis, imitation, and arc hitectural design.

Imitation and design disciplines as architecture r edefines its character. Bioengineering and r everse engineering tech- The narrative potential of the digital media niques are of growing interest today in many redefines the nature of design practice by making areas of the advanced design. Until r ecently the the creative process more transparent. W e can process of rigorous r ecording, examination and communicate design progress not only across appropriation of organic forms and its incorpera- temporal and geographic borders, but also pub- tion into the critical design process has been lish it and make it explicit at different stages of its probed by very few. Le Corbusier towards end of development for the benefit of distant collabora- his prolific life developed an exceptionally com- tors and wider public. Furthermore, the reductive plex architectural syntax derived often from the conventions of the past are being augmented by examination of diverse organic shapes. This, new ones - often imported from previously r emote often implicit process was deployed later in both his painterly and architectural labors. Figure 1. Collection of objet à r eaction poéthique r ecord- In his final projects Le Corbusier imitated the ed in Le Corbusier summer organic assemblage of an objet à reaction retreat, Cape Marti, 1955). poéthique next to the careful constructs based on object-types. The elements of the primitive, ver- nacular and organic replaced the initially platonic, mechine aesthetic. "As in painting so in Architecture, Le Corbusier invented or adopted a set of prototypical sign-like elements for use as a vocabulary that was amenable to gradual modifi- cation and from which a great variety of state- ments could be constructed" (Sekler, 1975). With growing interest, we r evisit this largely unspoken mimetic process of the greatest architect of the 20th century.

Digital Mimesis

While the interest in complex natural environ- ments and landscapes is becoming an important

eCAADe 21 digital design 275 aspect of contemporary design culture, the r ole of Figure 3 The sensory f eed- the small-scale natural, organic models in archi- back served as the basis of the control system f or this tectural design is largely underestimated. With robot’s design in order to digital tools, the formal and functional lessons achieve the adaptability of derived from an organic object found can be locomotion over very r ough terrain typically f ound in the appropriated into once stably constructed design North American cockroach. universe. The creative application of the 3D digi- tizer opens particular possibilities that enable us to r egister and incorporate into our design a uni- verse of models of not only macro but also micro landscapes. Its potential is illustrated here with several student design etudes developed recently at The University of British Columbia School of Architecture. The guided process of digital r econ- struction of complex organic objects was paral- leled by the r evelation its deeper formal structure. The shapes were fragmented, tested, modified and applied to simple, conceptual projects. marking the model with an organized lattice of The design research begins with the isolation cross sectional and transverse sectional lines and clarification of a source object, followed by which are then r ecorded with a contact 3D digitiz- er and the data cloud is processed with Nurbs modeler. Among the software used in those case Figure 2. The guided design studies were: MAY A, FmZ and Rhino. Some of the process involved the critical resulting models were also reproduced with 3 axis selection of the f ound object follow ed by its digital r econ- CNC machine, r elated to the original and often struction, revealing and reused in the following project. The theoretical addressing its deeper formal implication of this digital imitation method for structure at the same time. The cognitive process of imi- architectural design was also discussed. The tation deployed in this c lass broader employment of the laser digitizer is antic- was not based on trivial or ipated in the near future. mechanical reproduction. The explicit imitation and The 3D digitizing technology has been used dissemination of the r esults for some time in the advanced engineering and in the exact, prescribed the developmental medical applications. W e have format that constituted the essential part of this course. seen it used in surgical planning, prosthetic design, and anthr opometric measurements as well as in machine vision, rapid prototyping, sci- entific measur ement and even in cataloging archeological artifacts. The r everse engineering was initially used in the creation of CAD legacy data from master parts. More r ecently 3D shape capture and analysis of complex organic forms is becoming essential part of biomimetic robotics

276 eCAADe 21 digital design where multidisciplinary collaborations produced References design based on biological principals of formal structure and control. The work of Delcomyn and Delcomyn, F ., Nelson M. Architectures for a bio- Nelson describing the design of a six-legged mimetic hexapod robot, Robotics and robot based on the features the American cock- Autonomous Systems 30 (2000), 5–15. Johnson–Laird, P . N., The computer and the mind, roach makes for the interesting example extend- Harvard Press, 1988. p. .254. ing notion of the “bio-mimetic” process. The r obot Mitchell, W. J., Logic in Architectue, MIT Press, was designed with insect-like leg structure and 1999, actuators that act as muscles. Both form and MacIver, M.A., Nelson, M.E. (2000) Body modeling functionality of this insect was instrumental in and model-based tracking for neuroethology. advancing aspects of this design, based largely Journal of Neuroscience Methods, 95(2): 133- on the critical process of r eversed engineering 143. and imitation. Sekler E.F., The Carpenter Center in Le By using the 3D digitizer for form acquisition, Corbusier's Oeuvre: An Assessment, Le the cognitive process of architectural design can Corbusier at W ork , p. 241. 3D digitizing with the Micr oScribe and be taken to new heights. Furthermore the biomor- Rhinoceros: How to digitize an electric fish. phic, nonrepresentational patterns resembling http://www.itg.uiuc.edu/publications/forums/1 natural organisms and supported by its deeper 998-12-10/index.htm understanding can be an interesting source and Wojtowicz J., Digital Media Revisted, eCAADe20 model in the development of contemporary Proceedings, p.219-221, W arsaw, 2002. designs.

Fig 4. The design of the active wall for an office building in Geneva is c har- acterized not only by the complex, natural f orm designed to reflect adverse acoustic environment, b ut also by its variab le materi- ality and porosity. Like living skin this w all senses and responds to the diverse con- dition of exterior and interi- or factors. – International WTO Competition, Wojtowicz, Butelski, 2002

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