
Modeling Process
Silas Haslam, with Eric Field
The workflow required the need to build three separate 3-d models for the project’s various simulations. However, some cross-over occurred by exporting the models into the .3ds fi le format. A larger site model with the massing of the local buildings and topography was created to render information regarding regional phenomena and more detailed building iterations were then updated to react to the modeled phenomena.
An interesting case of phenomenal cross-over in the modeling process occurred w ...
[ more ]
Composite Site Map
Silas Haslam, with Eric Field
A composite site map was produced and provided some insights into how the phenomena operated in the area. More importantly, the process of overlaying the various models highlighted areas of phenomenal overlap and activity. These areas which might have been overlooked during the site visits immediately required increased attention as places for design interventions. ...
[ more ]
Composite site map
Silas Haslam, with Eric Field
A composite site map was produced and provided some insights into how the phenomena operated in the area. More importantly, the process of overlaying the various models highlighted areas of phenomenal overlap and activity. These areas which might have been overlooked during the site visits immediately required increased attention as places for design interventions. ...
[ more ]
Site program
Silas Haslam, with Eric Field
The surrounding program contributed to many of the phenomenal measurements. During my site visits, I took a number of various readings of the site: decibel levels for sound, foot candles for light levels, temperatures and wind speeds. Each of these readings corresponded to the four sensory systems of hearing, vision, somatosensory, and smell. It was also important to relate the senses through the metric of levels of intensity so that a single site map could be produced with representations of e ...
[ more ]
Only Time Will Tell
Claire Ashbrook, with Eric Field
This week I have been working on developing a timeline for my website that is graphically interesting and provides more information than merely the date the research subject is connected with.
The major issue with the first timeline I created is that it only indicates the century the project subject is connected to and provides no information about what the project is. The second attempt (actually it was the 5 attempt, but the second concept) provides a closer indication of the date (high ...
[ more ]
Developing a Dialog
Claire Ashbrook, with Eric Field
The first discovery that was made was the dialog that began to occur. This dialog could be as broad as how technology has impacted how we understand history, to conversations that lead me to a new form of research technology that I knew nothing about. Some of these research forums were:
1. Omeka: a free, flexible, and open source web-publishing platform for the display of library, museum, archives, and scholarly collections and exhibitions. http://omeka.org/
2. HistoryPin: is a way for mi ...
[ more ]
Limitless
Claire Ashbrook, with Eric Field
A pop-up dissertation might seem extreme, but in the case of architectural history a pop-up book has the ability to present information to the reader that might otherwise be difficult. Kathleen Fitzpatrick, a leading scholar in digital humanities, states, “…the key problems that we face again and again are social rather than technological in nature: problems of encouraging participation in collaborative and collective projects, of developing sound preservation and sustainability practices, of i ...
[ more ]
Correlation Wheel
Brian Davis
This diagramming technique allows me to correlate different cyclical landscape processes through time. Each activity is indexed in the key and then played out across a year for a specific place. This allows me to zero on the specific activities and their relative levels of intensity at a given moment in time. This tecnique could be used for any activity and at any specified temporal scale. It enables the designer to attempt a landscape choreography in a specific way, and when tied to a spati ...
[ more ]
Analog Model
Brian Davis
SHAPE CHANNEL MODEL
this model was developed to allow me to study pattern and shape. I built it to be changeable, with a number of pits, basins, flushing canals, and dredge pits built in, and I could add smaller elements such as wing dams and pole fields throughout the canal.
The results were surprising and instructive, showing the effectiveness of combining certain elements sch as clustering poles alongside wing dams to alter depositional patterns.
limitations of this tool are due pri ...
[ more ]
Sediment Deposition and Shoaling: Euler Method
Brian Davis
Matlab Scripting
I worked with Dr. Rosati, Director of the Coastal Inlets Research Program US Army Corps of Engineers, to adapt and apply this script to function as a sediment and shoaling calculator that can be localized along a given section of a navigable waterway.
This tool allows be to be highly specific about the amount of sedimentation that will occur in a given place over a specific period of time, as well as the amount of sediment that bypasses that specifc zone. This has enabled ...
[ more ]
Riachuelo: Three Dimensional Computational Fluid Dynamics
Brian Davis
INTEGRATED ENVIRONMENTAL SYSTEMS
I used IES as a more comprehensive testing of the effects of specific design elements on the hydrodynamics of the canal. IES is three dimensional and so allows me to consider the effect of the dredge pit, dredge trough, and settling basin at specified depths on the flow dynamics of the canal.
This allows me to get highly specific about effects of design elements on flow rate over time which correlates to sedimentation.
Limitations include not accounting ...
[ more ]
Riachuelo: Computational Fluid Dynamics
Brian Davis
The following is a summary of a cfd investigation as part of my thesis project looking at sedimentation and water flow as part of a landscape design for the Riachuelo in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In each case I am seeking to adapt a tool typically used to model air flow in an architectural model in order to approximate the effects of specific design interventions on the waterflow through the Riachuelo River.
TAS AMBIENS
I used tas ambiens to test the effects of different distributions for ...
[ more ]
FABRICated FORMwork
Nick Wickersham, with Melissa Goldman + Eric Field
This is an article about the research:
http://www.virginia.edu/uvatoday/newsRelease.php?id=18236 ...
[ more ]
FABRICated FORMwork
Nick WIckersham, with Melissa Goldman + Eric Field
These are images of the process. ...
[ more ]
Photovoltaics to power a mini-fridge
Jonathan Coble, with Eric Field
For ecoMOD Jamaica - a small house retrofit by students and faculty in Falmouth, Jamaica, there is no electric grid. Beyond the need for heating and cooling there is also need to maintain food, but without electricity, how do you run a refrigerator?
So, part of the design was to evaluate the possibilities for installing a small photovoltaic array (solar cells) on the roof to generate electricity. Jamaica's climate and latitude has the sun rising high in the sky and hot, meaning there is sig ...
[ more ]
FABRICated FORMwork
Nicholas Wickersham, with Melissa Goldman, Eric Field
Last semester, Melissa Goldman and I investigated the process of creating concrete casts via sewing materials. While exploring this idea, we found that Visqueen (plastic sheeting used for painting drop cloths and construction sites) responded to the pouring process the best. For this process, I digitally drew honeycomb patterns and sewed them on the new CNC sewing machine. I cast concrete into the sewn channels, or piped part of the honeycomb pattern, allowing the hexagon to be the void. We were ...
[ more ]
UCL Depthmap
Hayden Bassett, with Eric Field
In the past two weeks, I made the leap from AGRAPH, a simple yet informative topological analysis software, to UCL Depthmap, a powerful and all-encompassing Space Syntax software package. While most of my time was spent figuring out the interface, various tools and analyses, and grasping a sense of the applications and limitations, I did get the chance to plug in some sample data as well as my own data.
I discovered that the three most valuable tools in Depthmap to my ongoing work were the ...
[ more ]
Sensory site analysis
Silas Haslam
Let's just say for the sake of argument that designers are particularly sensitive to their environments and constantly refine their sensory impressions in an effort to tease out a site's unique phenomenal characteristics. To this end, design interventions have, for the most part, been executed using educated guesses about phenomena and can sometimes fall short of their intention. What I would like to propose is an additional layer of modeling which would supplement the various methods of ...
[ more ]
Designing the Future: Examining technology to reshape architectural history
Claire Ashbrook, with Eric Field
This project is examining how technology can be used to present architectural history in a new way. By exploring web development and html/css scripting, I hope to create a website that promotes and presents my architectural history research beyond just cutting and pasting from my written papers. By including video, interactive timelines, and an aesthetically appealing design, I hope to create a website that seems present, simple, clear, and engaging. ...
[ more ]
Space Syntax Topological Analysis of Flowerdew Hundred's 44PG64 (c. 1620-1650)
Hayden Bassett
Thus far, I have found Space Syntax to be a particularly fulfilling tool for analyzing and interpreting early excavations within Historical (or Early Modern) Archaeology. These excavations were largely dominated by a methodological approach that only sought and recorded solid building foundations within the archaeological record. Using the best data available – architectural footprints and floor plans – Space Syntax gives the researcher the opportunity to go back and reconsider some of these leg ...
[ more ]