Process, Material, Form

Following is a excert from my proposal to this years Valle Scholarship Selection Committee. The text suffers from a lack of formatting available to me in blogger. KD

15 January 2009

Office of the Director
Valle Scholarship and Scandinavian Exchange Program
University of Washington
Box 352130
Seattle, Washington

Valle Scholarship Selection Committee,

Evolving design technologies are creating a new synergy between process, material, and form. This synergy is largely a result of design tools which renew the role of designers as the integrators of form and function. My current research is focused on emphasizing a design process that reflects how best to implement our current intellectual and technological capital in pursuit of structures that are functionally efficient and aesthetically elegant.

In Copenhagen, Denmark, faculty at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts are leading research into the methods and implications of a process of design and collaboration founded on the intelligent use of parametric tools and fabrication techniques. CITA: Center for Information Technology and Architecture, a research institute at the Royal Academy, represents an assembly of the foremost researchers and practitioners examining the intersection between architecture and digital technologies. Much of the research at CITA runs parallel to my own interests; investigating processes that may shorten the gap between the creative act and the realization of design intent.

If awarded, my Valle Scholarship would be used to fund research at the Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen, Denmark for a period of three months beginning shortly after the completion of winter quarter 2009. My Valle research would be a vital addition to my academic scholarship and architectural thesis to be completed in June of this year.

Valle Research

My interest is in the greater-than-additive effects realized by applying advanced design processes to the fundamentals of design:

• Process: Relational modeling and performative design-to-manufacture processes (i.e. parametrics, real time simulation, CNC fabrication, BIM), will facilitate the aggregation and sharing of design intent, providing for a dynamic design process with greater collaboration between designers, artists, and craftsmen.

• Material: Traditional materials may be imbued with new intelligence and new materials may become objects of design and function in themselves.
  

• Form: Advanced fabrication techniques will allow for the generation of unique forms that provide for the integration of aesthetic, structural and programmatic function.
  

Why Copenhagen?
Copenhagen is unequalled in the number of design professionals and researchers working at the intersection of architecture and design technology. The Valle Scholarship will provide a chance to work directly with these individuals and build on the foundation of research I have done thus far. The contacts I have made in advance of my work in Copenhagen are some of the leading researchers and designers in this arena.

Methodology
I have a research blog illustrating my interests and directions in design. Continued posts from Copenhagen would serve to communicate the developmentof  my thoughts, experience, and research. Though the nature of my scholarship is less frequently exhibited in the urban architecture of Copenhagen, my contacts will be instrumental in providing access to built prototypes, mock-ups and other examples of digital fabrication that reflect the Danish tradition of innovation. Inspired by recent Valle Scholar Nathan Lambdin, I have made plans to compile these studies in a similarly graphic and condensed manner as he has done with his Valle museum ‘booklet’.

The support of a Valle Scholarship will facilitate an unparalleled opportunity to work with the principal figures examining the far reaching implications of architecture realized with digital technologies. A Valle Scholarship would be an extraordinary occasion to advance my inquiry into the latent possibilities of using advanced 3D technology to create a new synergy between process,material, and form; the fundamentals of design. My research and knowledge in the arena of advanced design will further my professional development as an emerging designer and allow me to share my experience with peers. During the summer of 2009, I have an opportunity to assist in the teaching of Studio Tschlin, a University of Washington summer design program in Tschlin, Switzerland. The studio portion of this years program will be working with a local furniture maker, to conceive of an advanced design and production facility for his craft. I am looking forward to sharing my Valle research with this years students in an effort to inform their designs of advanced fabrication considerations.

Thank you for your consideration,

Kevin Driscoll

CROSSROADS

There is a crossroads ahead for those of us in disciplines that make up the building industry. The advancement of technology and design tools has been knocking at the door for some time now and we won’t be able to hold it back much longer. Where has the industry arrived with these tools, what measures have we exploited to advance efficiency and design intelligence? Our overall productivity continues to decline.  Built projects are taking longer to design, are more expensive and longer to realize, and are consuming energy at rates that is shameful and irresponsible. What do we have to show for the myriad of technological and material advances available to us? Not much.  Our buildings are more expensive, take longer to realize, and are of increasingly lower quality. Why is this? Is it litigation, increasingly unskilled labor, isolationism among designers and contractors? Probably all of the above.  Where does it start, where is it perpetuated?

Professionally it is our willingness as architects to take responsibility for our buildings. Our unwillingness to face the logistics, the rigor, the perserverence and forethought that is inherent, though un-celebrated, in our discipline. We are all to willing to style ourselves only as artists, conjurers of objets d’art, not to be bothered by pragmatic concerns. This is a mistake.

Architects are blessed with a discipline that is rich and complex. Our work is both art and science. “It is a twenty-five education,” I am told.  Is this not a blessing? Our solutions are complex, spatial, visceral. They are primal in their fulfillment of basic human requirements. They are refined and reasoned to facilitate efficiency and provide for an unknown future. They can lift the spirit.  

Our mentors are courageous, creative, driven individuals. They embrace a tradition where knowledge is shared among generations. They are educators.  

This is the environment I find myself in. This is a crucial time. These are the global constraints on which we must bear our most reasoned logic and design intelligence. This is from where our most innovative solutions will be borne.  

BIOMIMETIC STRUCTURE

Nature has devised structures and materials all around us that are significantly lighter, stronger, more resilient and efficient than we have been able to achieve given our best shot. This has been done in water, at room temperatures, and without toxic chemicals or high pressures. The spider has silk that is five times as strong as steel; the abalone shell is twice as resilient our best ceramics, and rhino horn manages self repair even though it has no living cells. (Biomimicry, Benyus) This short list continues to include a wide array of natural material and structural phenomenon that, frankly, leaves me breathless with wonderment and sometimes scratching my head.

It has been a decade since my first read of Janine Benyus' Biomimicry: Innovations Inspired by Nature. Though the book still engenders hope and wonder when I pick it up from time to time, I can't help wishing that the next edition be released, replete with a new host of incredible stories, more food for thought. -KD


1 BENYUS, JANINE. Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. New York: Harper Collins, 2002.

CRESCENT CITY

"Intractable problems," we were told, and after five days in New Orleans, I couldn't help appreciate the sentiment.

As part of the 'Revitalization' studio, we were flown down to meet with community members and study our site. Overall, the scale and depth of the challenges faced by the communities in New Orleans is overwhelming. And so it seems that the ultimate investigation of this studio will be of how can design, or how can we as designers, overcome these problems? How far can design go to improving or even stabilizing the lives of the people and the communities in and around the Crescent City?


What will this solution look like, one which solves the usual programmatic requirements, but includes an addendum of institutionalized racism, de facto segregation, back room politics, economic disaster, land loss, subsidence, and hurricanes? How can we overcome a fear of change and convince the communities, our client, that the parti is likely to be something unfamiliar; that an affective solution is not going to be 'business as usual.'


No doubt there have been designers challenging themselves with these same questions for the past 3 years in New Orleans and elsewhere in the world for different reasons. At the moment it is obvious that I still have questions myself. However, what better a test than to design in the face of these 'intractable problems.' I am looking forward to putting design to the test and doing my part to offer a solution. -KD

VALLE SCHOLARSHIP

Whenever we reach for something, in a professional or academic sense, the process often proves to be valuable in unexpected ways. It seems that whatever the outcome, whether or not we grasp what it is we are after, there is often some reward.

This past week, that reward was a measure of clarity. The Valle Scholarship at the University of Washington, where I am in the final year of the Master of Architecture degree, funds students in various disciplines related to the fields of architecture and construction. The scholarship is generously funded by the trust of Henrik and Ellen Stray Valle with the mission to promote cultural exchange between Nordic countries and University of Washington students. Many of the architecture students who apply for the scholarship use the award to fund some aspect of research related to their thesis. The application process helped me coalesce a number of my thoughts and areas of investigation related to my thesis proposal; a Zeppelin hangar and passenger terminal.

Possibly the most valuable outcome of applying for the Valle Scholarship was solidifying a methodology with which to apply to my precedent studies. In Tragsysteme, by Heino Engel he delineates a classification of load bearing structural systems, which may be classified in terms of bulk-active, vector-active, form-active, and surface active systems. Where two or more of these systems are combined, they may be described as hybrid structural systems. Structurally and architecturally this hybrid technique may facilitate greater expression and can achieve greater spans, material efficiency, and a reduction member depth. My precedent research will focus on determining the effective use of these systems.

The proposal I submitted details a series of precedent building and bridge studies to be carried out in and around the Danish City of Copenhagen. Copenhagen is blessed with a remarkable number of exceptional bridge, transit, and long span building projects that exhibit aesthetically graceful and structurally efficient solutions. My approach is to learn through studying these structures closely, interviewing their designers, learning about their process, and compiling my own sketches, photographs and measured drawings. The body of material and experience will be a fantastic addition to my process of thesis investigation and will undoubtedly inform the design of the Zeppelin hangar.

The word on the street is that the review process of the applications has just begun and it is likely to be some time before I will know the true value of my proposal. Till then I am content with the clarity I have gained and my new portfolio, assembled for the application. -KD

STUDIES

NEW YEARS RIDE

On one side, Lake Okeechobee; on the other, 'Big Sugar.' My 90 mile ride on the Herbert Hoover dike surrounding the lake gave me plenty of time to appreciate the lack of design intelligence.

Despite the flames and my serious expression, it was a lovely New Years Day ride. Back in Seattle now, I very much appreciated riding with the Boca Raton Teams and the warm weather over the past few weeks. -KD