Advanced Building Technologies: Folding Architecture

Advanced
Buildings
Technologies
Dr. Rana Matarneh

Architecture’s Origin in the Shelter
Living organisms have natural habitats in
which they grow and thrive; in some instances
they alter their surrounding in order to produce
their home, while other creatures leave the
environment unchanged.
Man sets himself apart from other animals
because of his ability to adapt wide-ranging
natural conditions and materials to provide
shelter from the elements.

Architecture’s Origin in the Shelter
Man’s manipulation of his surroundings has
evolved to address, comfort, security and
ultimately stability as his nomadic habits
changed.
Laugier used the notion of the primitive hut to
illustrate architectural discourse (Figure 1):
though the cave provided the shelter from the
sun, rain and elements, it isolated its inhabitant
encapsulating him in the dank, uncirculated air,
isolating him from the world. As a result,
he constructed the first house with branches
for structure and leaves for enclosure as a
solution to the problem of shelter without
isolation.

Course Question
How can today’s progressions in technology
architecture, namely parametric
design, morpho-ecology/genesis and
emergence, machining and its result
prefabrication construction system/s, be
used to design rapidly deployable assembly
ready architecture?

The present course considers control of responsive
architectural structures for improvement of structural
performance by recognizing:
 changes in their environments and loads,
 adapting to meet goals, and
 using past events to improve future performance or
maintain serviceability.
The general scope of the course is to discuss control strategies
for responsive architectural structures, particularly
reconfigurable architectural structures which can transform
body shape, i.e. a transformation into more than one or two
different shape alternatives.
Course scope

Keywords
 Kinetic structures,
 Responsive architecture,
 Control, multi-body dynamics

Responsive architectural structures

Generally, kinetic structures in architecture
can be defined as:
1. Buildings and/or building components
with variable mobility, location and/or
geometry, i.e. kinetic architecture can
refer to buildings or structures with
variable location or mobility such as
portable buildings like caravans, tents and
prefabricated barracks.

2. Buildings or structures with variable geometry or
movement, i.e.
A. soft form buildings with transformation capacity made by
membrane structures,
B. cable-nets pneumatic structures, or
C. rigid form buildings with deployable, foldable,
expandable or rotating and sliding capacity of rigid
materials which are connected with joints

Kinetic structures can also be classified
according to their structural system:
1. spatial bar structures consisting of
hinged bars,
2. foldable plate structures consisting of
hinged plates,
3. strut-cable (tensegrity) structures and
4. membrane structures [10,11].

kinetic structural systems can :
1. facilitate a flexibility in building design
2. give rise to a search for responsive architecture
which can physically convert themselves to adapt
to the ever-changing requirements and
conditions [1,3-4,10-11 ]. This could
theoretically be buildings consisting of rods and
strings which would bend in response to wind,
distributing the load in much the same way as a
tree. Similarly, windows would respond to light,
opening and closing to provide the best
lighting and heating conditions inside the
building.

Types of various kinetic systems

Kinetic structures can be defined as:
an open-closed or extended-contracted
body shape, i.e. transformations occur
between two body shapes.

Responsive architectural structures’ uses
 Structures are covered by skins that have the
ability to alter their shape as the social and
environmental conditions of the spaces within
and around each building change,
 new sets of ideas that uncover new possibilities
within architecture as well as provide
performance artists with spontaneous,
unanticipated, and serendipitous moments that
further artistic expression.

Advanced Buildings Technologies
Digital
Revolution
Digital Revolution
Time for change
Construction
Knowledge Computer programs
Technology

Factors Affecting choice of Structural
& Technological System
• Environmental aspects (Sustainability)
• Economic factors (Budget of the client , Low
Maintenance for the long run)
• Location (Coastal, lousy soil,…;
• Bearing capacity of the soil (Seismic Loads);
• Function of the building (Parking Structures,
Gymnasiums, Ballrooms,…); Functional Flexibility
• Dimensional discipline: Spans, heights,…
• Integration of building services;
• Safety factors;
• Aesthetics

Shells Structure in Architecture

• Parking Structures
• Bridges
• Canopies ( especially
for arenas & stadiums)

Folding Architecture- spatial, structural and
organizational systems
A Time of Crucial Change and on the Eve of the Digital Revolution

Digital
Revolution
Digital Revolution
Time for change

 Folding is a relatively new trend in
architecture.
 It is very playful way of designing,
 It offers free rein to spontaneity and surprise
during the design process.

Folding empowers the user to change the
form and function of a sheet of paper
through a sequence of manipulations.
Unfolding the once folded artefact produces a
diagram that describes its own making that
can be replicated at different scales using
a new material.

Architecturally, folding can be employed a
morphogenetic solution to design a system
that can be fabricated from a sheet material,
that like paper, can be folded into a
inhabitable structure.

The ease and cost efficiency of fabrication
based on folding can be used to
design a system that executed using low cost
materials can be used as a shelter that
accommodates programmatic and aesthetic
evolution. Thus, the system lends itself to
being a transitional shelter for communities
that have been displaced due to a natural
disaster or other form of crisis.

Technological advances in design and
structural analysis can give the designer the
power to define the complex process folding
parametrically allowing the input a real-time
feedback based design based on an a folding
inspired algorithm.

 morphogenetic exploration
 Program; space
 investigation of a structural skin
 rapid deployment; assembly
 constructions based on the
mechanic and geometric principles
applied to a sheet surface
Folding in Architecture

 folding of the material affect the
structural integrity of the system
and
 the thickness of the sheet itself

Chuck Hoberman refers to the unfolding of
architecture as:
“an object that is identically a structure and a
mechanism”, boasting that such an innovation
allows a controlled transfer of forces and motion
within the system without the need for any
secondary support systems.

Folding Architecture
 Underlying these unities of structure/mechanism and
fluidity/strength are unique mathematical principles.
 The elegance and economy exhibited by unfolding
architecture derive from this mathematical and
geometric basis.
 The basis of each folding structural system is embodied
in a minimum number of representative connected parts...
 Unfolding structures are made up of simple part with
simple connection between them.

 He posits that surface structures, made by repetitive
pleating from a single surface or sheet, can transform
smoothly between an extended structural configuration
(active state) and a compact bundle (dormancy). Surface
structures in turn act like hinged rigid;
 plates allowing fluid, kinetic behaviors since the system
acts as a mechanism defined by the matrix of folds.

 Folding has been a tool for the morphogenetic
exploration of program and space and to a lesser extent,
an investigation of a structural skin.
 For the purposes of rapid deployment and assembly,
constructions based on the mechanic and geometric
principles applied to a sheet surface are especially
economically prudent.
 Not only does the folding of the material affect the
structural integrity of the system but so does the
thickness of the sheet itself.

 Transferring this diagram to another planar material gives
the designer the chance to impose the logic of the folds
onto the new material.
 The polygons defined by the creases of the paper can be
fabricated with a non-pliable material, with the creases
being substituted for mechanical hinges or static
connections.
 Material characteristics (pliability, thickness for example)
may restrict the literal translation of the folding from being
conveyed, the performance of that manipulation becomes
architectonically manifested through the details of
representation and fabrication.

Example of Folding Tesselation using Standard Copy paper. Richard Sweeney
Interior Photograph of Folded Roof Structure.

Photograph highlighting the binary
conditions of the folded roof structure.
Interior photograph exhibiting the
surficially informed finishes.
Exterior photographs exhibiting the
surficially informed finishes

Folding Architecture - Peter Eisenman
“Peter Eisenman introduces a fold as:
“a method of disappearing into a specific context.”
Eisenman is a good example here of folding architecture. His
recent project, City of Culture of Galicia, takes the ideas of
folding to a new level. The project doesn’t just fold two
objects together, it folds the entire building into the earth,
creating an appearance of one.

City of Culture
of Galicia
Santiago De
Compostela
Peter Eisenman

City of Culture of Galicia Santiago De Compostela
Peter Eisenman

City of Culture of Galicia Santiago De
Compostela
Peter Eisenman

Folding Architecture: Top 10 Origami-Inspired Buildings

Lindman
Architects love origami because it achieves what buildings
rarely do:
• frame space through extreme economy of means.
• Origami artists can produce a panoply of shapes and
forms using only a single sheet of paper.
• Their constructions are inherently structural and can
even be engineered to bend, contract, and expand—
things that buildings can’t do either.

Lindman
• Still, origami has become something of a trend in
contemporary architecture. Building technologies like 3D
modeling and rapid prototyping have made it possible
for architecture to mimic the elegant and sometimes
complex folds found in origami making with minimal
structural interference. Projects such as Preston Scott
Cohen’s Tel Aviv Museum of Art herald this development
towards folding architecture.

Delugan Meissl Associated Architects

Eye Film Institute
Amsterdam, Netherlands
A project by: Delugan Meissl Associated

Film is an illusion created by the scenic
coordination of light, space, and movement, which
becomes real through projection.
In architecture, the interplay between these
parameters defines the intensity and effectiveness of
the individual spatial perception significantly. They
are understood to be integrative components of
spatial enactment, their effect being projected
through sequences of human motion and unfolded
in multilayered ways.
Eye Film Institute
Amsterdam, Netherlands
A project by: Delugan Meissl Associated

Both the Eye Film Institute’s concept and urban implementation are
based on an overlay of two creative disciplines which have at their
core reality and fiction, illusion and real experience.
The building concept becomes the story board, the architecture the
scenography.
By delivering a dynamic interplay, the building’s assigned role oscillates
between acting as the urban scenery’s protagonist and as a
dramaturgical element placed in front of a heterogeneous landscape
setting.
Its radiance overcomes the city’s natural divide and historic
lifeline, the IJ river, and is defined by its interaction with the
surroundings, its positioning, and geometry.
Design Principle

Design Principle
The area’s distinctive communicative effect goes beyond the confines of
the building, thus transforming
the visit to the Film Institute into a sustained encounter between urban
reality and cinematographic fiction.
As a multifinctional meeting point, the building’s architectural
formulation complies in multiple ways with the responsibility held by
a cultural institution of the highest functionality and sustainability.

Nestlé Chocolate Museum
Mexico City, Mexico
Designed by Rojkind Arquitectos

Panteón Nube
Murcia, Spain
Designed by Clavel Arquitectos

Post-tensioning is a method of reinforcing (strengthening)
concrete with high-strength steel bars, typically referred to
as tendons.
Post-tensioning applications include:
1. office and apartment buildings,
2. parking structures,
3. slabs-on-ground,
4. bridges,
5. sports stadiums,
6. rock and soil anchors, and
7. water-tanks. In many cases, posttensioning allows
construction that would otherwise be impossible due to
either site constraints or architectural requirements.
WHAT IS POST-TENSIONING?

ADVANTAGES/APPLICATIONS
There are post-tensioning applications in almost all
facets of construction. In building construction, post-
tensioning allows:
1. longer clear spans,
2. thinner slabs,
3. fewer beams and
4. more slender, dramatic elements.

Thinner slabs means :
1. less concrete is required;
2. a lower overall building height for the same floor-to-
floor height.
3. a significant reduction in building weight versus a
conventional concrete building with the same number of
floors. This reduces the foundation load and can be a
major advantage in seismic areas. A lower building
height can also translate to considerable savings in
mechanical systems and façade costs. Another advantage
of post-tensioning is that beams and slabs can be
continuous, i.e. a single beam can run continuously from
one end of the building to the other. Structurally, this is
much more efficient than having a beam that just goes
from one column to the next.

Post-tensioning is the system of choice for parking
structures since it allows a high degree of flexibility in:
1. the column layout,
2. span lengths and
3. ramp configurations.
4. Post-tensioned parking garages can be either stand-alone
structures or one or more floors in an office or residential
building. In areas where there are expansive clays or soils
with low bearing capacity, post-tensioned slabs-on-
ground and mat foundations reduce problems with
cracking and differential settlement. Post-tensioning
allows bridges to be built to very demanding geometry
requirements, including complex curves, variable
super elevation and significant grade changes.

Post-tensioning also allows extremely long span
bridges to be constructed without the use of temporary
intermediate supports.
This minimizes the impact on the environment and
avoids disruption to water or road traffic below.
In stadiums, post-tensioning allows long clear spans
and very creative architecture. Post-tensioned rock and
soil anchors are used in tunneling and slope
stabilization and as tie-backs for excavations. Post-
tensioning can also be used to produce virtually crack-
free concrete for water-tanks.

Bio-structural
analogues
Bio Tectonic
Analogues in
Architecture
‫الحيوية‬ ‫الهياكل‬
‫التكتونية‬
-
‫المعمارية‬ ‫الهندسة‬ ‫في‬ ‫الحيوية‬ ‫النظائر‬

Useful links
 http://biotectonica.blogspot.com/

This section aims to foster a new approach to
building’s technological design based on
performance-driven sustainability as defined
by the science of biomimicry (‫الطبيعة‬ ‫)تقليد‬.
As one of this course main objective is to
encourage the integration of structural
thinking with architecture.
Bio-structural analogues in architecture

This inspirational section seeks to discover the
architectural potential of biological structures as
can be found in nature, in the world of:
 seashells,
 corals,
 plants and animals.

 The structures that give biological forms:
strength,
 movement,
 firmness and
 flexibility are studied, illustrated and used as an
inspiration for a huge number of design
experiments, of which the thinking, working and
final prototyping process is shown in this section.

Related titles included within BIS:
Eccentric Structures in Architecture
Folding Architecture
Supersurfaces
Modular Structures in Design and
Architecture
Digital Structures in Design and Architecture

Morphogenesis in architectural design
Morphogenesis is a concept used in a number of disciplines
including:
 biology,
 geology,
 crystallography,
 engineering,
 urban studies,
 art and architecture.
This variety of usages reflects multiple understandings
ranging from strictly formal to poetic. The original usage was
in the field of biology and the first recorded instances occur
in the second half of the 19th century. An earlier, now rare,
term was morphogeny.

Morphogenesis in architecture
In architecture, morphogenesis (“digital
morphogenesis” or “computational
morphogenesis”) is understood as:
a group of methods that employ digital
media not as representational tools for
visualization but as generative tools for the
derivation of form and its transformation
often in an aspiration to express contextual
processes in built form.

Digital morphogenesis in architecture:
‫المعمارية‬ ‫الهندسة‬ ‫في‬ ‫الرقمي‬ ‫التشكل‬
In this inclusive understanding, digital
morphogenesis in architecture bears a largely
analogous or metaphoric relationship to the
processes of morphogenesis in nature,
sharing with it the reliance on gradual
development but not necessarily adopting or
referring to the actual mechanisms of growth
or adaptation.

lost In Translation
Poetry is what gets lost in
translation-Robert Frost
The famous Prada building in Omotesando.

Prada Store (Epicenter)
Prada's Tokyo “epicenter”, in the fashionable
Aoyama district, is the company's second
radical approach to fashion-store architecture,
following Rem Koolhaas’ flagship store in
New York. The intent is "to reshape both
the concept and function of shopping,
pleasure and communication, to encourage
the meshing of consumption and culture."

The Tokyo store is a strikingly unconventional 6-
story glass crystal that is soft despite its sharp angles
– as a result of its five-sided shape, the smooth
curves throughout its interior, and its signature
diamond-shaped glass panes, which vary between
flat, concave and convex “bubbles”.

An Interactive Optical Device
Jacques Herzog describes these glass panes as “an
interactive optical device.
Because some of the glass is curved, it seems to
move as you walk around it. That creates
awareness of both the merchandise and the city—
there's an intense dialogue between actors.

At Prada Aoyama the glass walls
are not the usual transparent
curtain-walling but a transparent,
structural shell. Within, the
structural cores and tubes morph
seamlessly into:
 elevators,
 stairs,
 fitting rooms and
 display shelves,
giving a sense of continuous
shopping space, very much
integrated into the architecture.

Quiz No. 2
The Architecture of the future isn’t about
creating buildings, but of creating a
Second Nature…
Briefly, discuss what does Digital
morphogenesis in architecture mean?

Briefly, discuss what does
Digital morphogenesis in
architecture mean?
Quiz No. 2

living-based technologies
This course synthesizes a series of
investigations on living-based technologies
for a better architecture for the future.
Such [bio]technologies will foster the
building’s enhancement of its ecological
outcomes and resilient capabilities.

Trans-tectonica /Trans-humanity
As well as trans-humanity seeks to foster
the human body upgrading thru avant-
garde technology,
Trans-tectonica seeks to upgrade buildings
thru bluring the boundaries between
architectural technology and biological
design.

BioTectonic Analogues in Architecture
META- TECTONIC
• Since 2010, TECTONICA is based on a
platform for the exploration of alternative
structural patterns as futuristic building's
technology. Research has been broad
including Biomimicry, Morphogenesis,
Synthetic Biology, and Structural/Urban
ResiliencyTECTONICA's main objective
is to foster sustainability designing a better
future based on new ecologies and resilient
paradigms

Emergent Architecture
Brief description
Founded in 1999 by Tom Wiscombe,
EMERGENT is a platform for architectural
experimentation, dedicated to the transfer
of:
techniques, logics, and sensibilities from
science, technology, and computation into
architecture.

Brief description
EMERGENT’s primary directive is:
to move beyond
categorical thinking and
the stratification of building systems
toward a more integrated future.

Brief description
This involves a re-examination of assumed
hierarchies and discreetness of systems
toward
coherent yet heterogeneous organizations.

Brief description
We are particularly interested in how the
different features and behaviors of
 structure,
 environmental systems,
 envelope, and
 lighting can be negotiated to produce
emergent formal, spatial, and
atmospheric effects.

This is a project by Emergent Architecture and it is located at Beijing,
China. Project's program: 1,500 room luxury hotel and conference
center. There are sixteen images for Beijing National Hotel.
Beijing National Hotel

• Project details
• Project name Beijing National Hotel
Location Beijing, China Program 1,500
room luxury hotel and conference center
Area Project Size: 213,000 m2 Year
Design: 2011 Project by Emergent
Architecture

Advanced Building Technologies: Folding Architecture

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