Flyknit Tectonic

A prevalent medium in contemporary architectural design is the pixel-based image. This project reflects on how the ubiquity of pixel based images transforms our approach to architectural design. These data-based representations are reproduced, evolved, and distributed many times over to create a consistent digital design flow. The images can be manipulated by an algorithm and programmed to function at a pixel level. This introduces an incredible amount of precision, and control, which allows us to rethink traditional modes of composites in images and forms that have a longer history in the discipline. This project works with a convergence of the foundational techniques in our discipline as well as more progressive modes of operating.

My aim is to utilize the parrallels between image data and the interface data of a CNC loom to create new types of architectural composites. The data grid used in the project is extrapolated into a technique for compositing the tectonics of an historical building with new forms of construction, rethinking traditional modes of adaptive reuse.

This competition in Venice, Italy calls for a renovation of the existing Urban Planning School building. Contemporary classroom spaces with large surfaces for working intersect with the more discrete isolated classroom model of the existing building. The new construction is superimposed with stitching and woven patterns. The new classroom operates as an open stitched space along a bias, imposing a more contemporary classroom approach onto the traditional cellular and discrete classroom. This creates a new, hybrid classroom typology.

In the same way that Jeff Wall composites photograph reduce the legibility of the seams between its smaller scale images, this project attempts to reduce the legibility of architectural seams between old and new construction through increasing the resolution of the moments of connection.

In order to create the hybrid, I am using numerically-controlled CNC looms to prefabricate carbon fiber shells that create seams or stitches with saw cut incisions of the existing brick of the original building.

The idea of this considers both the performance and the operation of the building as stitched entities that are knitted or woven together, creating superimpositions between the new and old. In particular, the tectonic relationship between new and existing is revealed in the elevation and, on a micro scale, in the fibers themselves.