Each student is assigned one of the following reading pairs. Over the remainder of the course, you are responsible for becoming an expert on these texts and bringing the relevant conversations to our collective discussions, your work, and the work of others. You will not only need to read, re-read, and understand each text, but understand the relationships between the two. Where do these readings align, contrast, contradict or support each other? Investigate other texts referenced in each reading and the contexts within which each author was writing.
LL, SE, DK will read:
Randall Davis et al, What Is a Knowledge Representation?
Terry Knight and George Stiny, Classical and Non-Classical Computation
MR, CS, NC will read:
William Empson, 7 Types of Ambiguity (excerpts)
Will Self. Conversations: J.G Ballard
TY, AK, MB will read:
Colin Rowe and Robert Slutzky, Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal
Jerrfrey Kipnis, P-TR’S Progress
JM, MC, MS, JW will read:
Malcolm McCulough, 20 Years of Scripted Space
Antoine Picon, Forward to Algorithmic Architecture
PDFs of each reading can be downloaded from this shared folder (RISD google login required)
This is the third and final phase of the course. A site and program will now be introduced. They are not meant to be the subject of inquiry, but devices to further your research. The site and program will provide resistance and motivation, but successfully responding to their forces is only the beginning. You won’t need to visit the site or re-think the program. They are given, fixed, and fictional (although based on facts). The “big question” that initiated our work must continue to be addressed: how does drawing mediate/influence/ fuel/disrupt the relationship between you, computing and architecture? Extend your work from phases one and two and continue to design a design process. Continue to experiment with the relationship between drawing and space. How, with what media, and with what machines you do computation is open. We will consider and discuss the role of automation, indirection, instruments and knowledge under the conceptual umbrella of authorship.
The site is at the border between Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
RI and MA have entered into an agreement to jointly collect tolls from automobiles crossing their shared state line on I-95. The toll collection facility marks the border (which in legal terms is a line, but in spatial terms is a surface). Each state collects tolls from automobiles leaving their state, which allows their offices and staff to operate entirely within their territory. 12 Northbound, 12 Southbound and 4 flexible lanes (for a total of 28 lanes) will make up this facility. The flexible lanes can be swapped to serve Northbound or Southbound traffic as demand requires. Insurance regulations require that RI toll collectors operate on the RI side and the MA collectors operate on the MA side. Each state has appointed a Border Toll Authority Officer, who will occupy, with a small staff, a suite of offices within the border (6000 SF). Additional program includes a café (3000 SF), scenic overlook (1000-10,000 SF), and public rest rooms (750 SF). A passenger/ freight rail line runs along (and crosses through) the border within the site and must be maintained, although the position, length and shape of the track may be modified. Likewise, the location and position of I-95 may be adjusted within the site. However, the portions of I-95 under the rail and street bridges must remain. Former buildings and roads on the site (indicated by dashed lines in the plan above) have been demolished and the site is essentially an open landscape. Besides a 5’ change in elevation at the bank of the river, the site is flat.
Expand upon what you have developed as your thick surface constructs. Remain skeptical of you own assumptions regarding how/where/why those surfaces grow into (or support the growing of) a building. As you work, articulate clearly and specifically in what ways you are drawing from your construct(s) and learning from your prior experiments. As with site and program, the usual requirements for a functional building–enclosure, safe means of egress, service access, parking, etc–are not problems on a checklist to solve but productive forces of resistance.
As you transition from the scaleless world of phase 2, consider the human experience upon approach to, at, and possibly “in” the border. Also consider the controlled perception of the border from afar.
In this phase of the course, drawings, by necessity, serve a function: abstraction for the purpose of communication and operation. Many drawings result from projecting three-dimensional geometry onto a two-dimensional picture plane and deploying graphic conventions. However, these drawings are also treated as autonomous works of architecture. Besides conveying something, drawings can be something that can be read, interpreted, and expanded based on its own implied structure. During this phase of the course, students are responsible for creating multiple cycles of movement between drawing and building.
- It will modify the geometry in your file, so you should do a save-as before running it
- It assumes the units in your file are inches
- It assumes that you’ve scaled everything to be at the size you want things in the drawing. If you want a 1″ line on paper, you have a 1″ line in Rhino, for example
- The origin of Rhino is used as the origin of the plotter. So if you’re planning on plotting with the big roland plotter, you’ll need to move what you want to be the center of your drawing to (0,0,0) in Rhino
- The script only makes lines from curves/lines in Rhino. It ignores surfaces, polysurfaces, meshes, etc. You can “Make2d” those things first, or modify the script to look at the edges of the surfaces and project them manually, if you want.
- It draws everything with pen 1. This is easy to change, of course. Also very easy would be to modify the script to do something like check to see what layer a line is on and select a pen accordingly. You could have layers called “1″, “2″, “3″ etc. It would entail something like hpglOut.write.(“SP”+ObjectLayer(object)+”;”) Of course, that would break if you accidentally had a line on a layer called “Default” because you’d get hpgl output that looked like SPDefault;, which would freak out the our sensitive little plotters.
- Install Python Rhinoscript for Mac. Follow instructions on this page http://wiki.mcneel.com/rhino/mac/python Obviously you will need to install Rhino for Mac OS (free in Beta) first. If you use Rhino regularly on Windows, you will find that Python scripting is already built in.
- After you install and restart Rhino, you should be able to execute the command “RunPythonScript” (if it works it will ask you to select a file)
- download and install Komodo Edit (will replace sublime text for this phase of our work)
- I recorded these videos to get you started (must be logged on to your risd google account for this link to work) note that videos will play at higher quality if you download them rather then view within google drive–click the arrow button to download after clicking these links: video 1 (installing and setting up rhino python), video 2 (Rhinoscript basics), video 3 (functions!)
- There is way more to explore than what I have had time to show you in the video. Here is a very extensive Rhinoscript Primer (PDF)
- You will also want to bookmark the Rhinoscript reference site
Here are the scripts made in the videos: 2014samplerhino 1 and 2 (download zip file) and functionexample 1 and 2 (download zip file)
First, an acknowledgement: a thick surface is impossible. Surfaces are thin. In fact, they are infinitesimally thin. Their presence in architecture is entirely a matter of abstraction and perception–of edge, boundary, smoothness, and continuity of a two-dimensional realm. As we proceed in this assignment let’s endeavor to maintain rigorous though plastic conceptions of surface. How might it be possible to leverage the two-sided nature of surfaces (especially those which are non-planar) to articulate interior volumes? What are the implications of building a surface as opposed to building along a surface? How is the legibility of surface related to scale and material? Might it be possible to define a surface through the a removal, lack of, or disruption of matter?
Given the recently-produced 24” x 21” drawings, descriptions, and in-class discussions, each student will design corresponding thick surfaces. These thick surfaces, in built form, will hereafter be referred to as “constructs.” Explore different levels of reading material, form and space from the drawing. At the end of this phase you will have developed three rigourous, evolved constructs that correspond to one of each of these levels:
- The direct, low level approach: material in drawing is given a third dimension (based on depth cues on the drawing) and built/fabricated/drawn as matter. The formal language is consistent between drawing and construct.
- The interpretive approach: organizations and orders are carried through from drawing to construct. A new formal language is allowed to emerge given material and environmental constraints.
- The procedural approach: the algorithm(s) used to create the drawing are is(are) extended into the third dimension and evolved to accommodate the performance and tectonic implications of material. The constructs may look and operate completely differently from the drawings.
We will not bias or pre-judge any level to be more valuable, meaningful or valid than any other. This is an experiment. Each construct will be made of systematic components, capable of aggregation, like a system of scaffolding. Additionally, each construct must meet all of the following basic criteria, also known as “architectural” problems:
- The construct must turn a corner. How is the inside corner articulated differently than the outside corner?
- The construct must meet an edge. Consider the difference between ending (or stopping) and defining an edge.
- The construct must define an interior space. This space may be in the surface, or the geometry of the surface may define a sense of interiority beyond its extents. Consider the relationships between side and inside.
- 1)Open the terminal app and type the command: chiplotle and press enter. If you see no errors, then your problem is somewhere in the plot-file.py file. You can always just bypass that script and plot from the terminal. at the “chiplotle>” prompt, run the command, plotter.write_file(“/full-path-to-file.hpgl”) and press enter. If the chiplotle command does give an error, then copy and paste the error into a text file in case you need to reference it later, then continue on to the next steps
- 2)Is the plotter in operate mode? If so, it should read
in the upper left corner of the display panel. If it doesn’t, put in operate mode by pressing the f3 button. You’ll still have to quit terminal, open it again, and go back to step 1. - 3)If the error you’re getting says anything about “couldn’t find keyspan-serial” (or similar), then the issue is with the USB adapter, cord or port. It has been known to happen that simply the cables become loose at the adapter. You can try swapping which port on your computer you’re using. It can also work to restart your computer and unplug any other USB peripherals. You’ll have to quit and reopen terminal AND turn off and back on the plotter after everything you try. (sorry)
- 4)If the chiplotle command works, but running the ploter.write_file command gives an error, then the problem is probably something minor, or there’s an issue with the hpgl file. make sure your hpgl file name has no spaces or symbols in it AND the enclosing folders don’t have spaces in their names
You are now responsible for writing a description of what is to become the content for another student’s drawing. “Content” is interpreted as what one can see in the drawing, but not the structure of the drawing. This should be no more than a paragraph in length and no shorter than one sentence. Don’t address what you write to the student. Instead, simply articulate what you imagine seeing the drawing, in present tense, as though it already exists. In class today, begin by interpreting this other student’s drawing thoroughly. Your job is to profoundly challenge the other student’s current mode of thinking and to push their drawing to convey something foreign to its nature. You won’t be doing this other student any favors if you make the description easy, or if the description you write resembles content you already see in their drawing. Having a new motive force will make this other student’s drawing better. It’s perfectly acceptable to let your personal interests, biases, or preferences come through in your description. You’re now implicated as a partial author of this other drawing. Be as specific or as ambiguous as you feel is appropriate, but remember, leaving too much room for interpretation could mean too much “wiggle room” for the other student. This is due by the start of class on Monday 3.03
On Monday 3.03 you will receive a written description created by another student. Adjust your drawing so that the description applies to the content of your drawing. Allow this description, which will likely feel foreign at first, to provide your process and intentions with productive resistance. Do not, under any circumstances, start over. Instead, evolve the methodology you have already established.
we will discuss this in class and go through this as a group
first, to show hidden files in Mac OS, open the terminal and paste the following line of code
- defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE
- then press enter
- now, find the config.py file in side the .chiplotle folder and replace it with this one: config.py
First, there are two libraries that Chiplotle (the library that allows us control the plotter) requires, (dependancies) which will need to be installed before anything else: Pyserial and Numpy. You will also need the driver for the physical USB-serial adapter.
installing these first three are straightforward installer apps:
The Chiplotle library is slightly more involved, and we’ll do this as a group in class:
This is the Chiplotle documentation site: http://music.columbia.edu/cmc/chiplotle/manual/
Here are two example scripts for plotting. They are heavily commented so that you can use them as a reference: plotting-basics.py and plotting-generating-HPGL-file.py
On Tuesday, with Carl:sign up via google calendar
On Wednesday, with John:sign up via google calendar
- download sublimetext2
- copy app to applications folder, launch app
- from within sublime text 2, from the menu choose sublime text2 ->preferences->Browse Packages
- open Python folder
- find Python.sublime-build and right click ->open with sublime text 2
- leave sublime text as it is–you’ll come back to it in a moment–open terminal (applications/utilities)
- type the following line and press enter:
which python
the result should look something like (if not exactly like):
/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6/bin/python
copy that path (the entire line in terminal) and go back to Sublime Text 2 and paste it into the file you have open in SublimeText2 inside the first set of quotes to replace Python in the first line so that it looks like:
{
“cmd”: ["/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6/bin/python", "-u", "$file"],
“file_regex”: “^[ ]*File \”(…*?)\”, line ([0-9]*)”,
“selector”: “source.python”
} - file->save
- quit and reopen SublimeText 2
- 5:00-5:20 | 5:00-5:20
- 5:20-5:40 | 5:20-5:40
- 5:40-6:00 | 5:40-6:00
- 6:00-6:20 | 6:00-6:20
- 6:20-6:40
- 6:40-7:00
- Pygame library documentation (green website)
- Python built in functions
- Random library documentation (remember we were using random.uniform in class)
- Math library documentation (we didn’t use this in class, but many of these functions will be useful to you)
Make a 21”x24” drawing with the 24” side oriented vertically. This drawing may elicit representational qualities but will not be overtly keyed to any representational system. It will not be to scale and not correspond to any subject. However, nothing about this drawing will be arbitrary. Even chance, ambiguity and gesture will be controlled and refined though various modes of computation. Both the visual language of the drawing and the structure of the drawing process are left open by this assignment, but will be resolved and tuned to exacted degrees by students. Questions that will arise include: What is the definition of line? What kind of geometry is(are) line(s) governed by or made up of? What is the behavior of line? What are the rules, actions, logics? What form does input to the drawing system take? How much does this input determine outcome of the drawing?
Questions of depth are paramount. They will suggest the future projection of drawing into built form without the need for arbitrary transformations or translations. With each iteration of this project, evaluate and analyze the drawing in terms of its capacity to articulate and/or suggest space in a third dimension. The manner in which drawing material and drawing machines affect drawn content will be considered as well. Laser cutters and pen plotters are available, but other improvisational machines or hybridizations between human and machine are welcome.
You will first amass a collection of drawings made by artists, designers and architects to be reconstructed algorithmically. Then, to begin work on your drawing, apply the programming tactics introduced in class and reference/sample the collection of precedents. The “foreign input” component of this project will be introduced later…
Using these specific versions and installers is important. Even if you have Python installed already (or think you might), please run these installers.
on a mac
or
on Windows
sample (for testing and playing) sample_simple.py (ZIP)
Welcome students. Here are PDF copies of documents handed out in person today:
These are the links to the websites mentioned in the syllabus:
- Architecture Department Studio Culture Policy
- BEB Rules and Regulations
- RISD Code of Student Conduct
These are the links to the resources mentioned in the phase 1 assignment brief:
