Simulating Earth, Wind, and Fire

Simulation as we know it now in the year 2010 is almost always done in an artificial space generated by a computer. Before the use of the computer, designers of buildings, space, bridges etc., have depended on scientific calculations in the form of charts. The math has not changed itself just in how it is implemented. It is extremely exciting to know as a designer I can simulate an environment so accurately before the first brick is laid, but how has this artificial digital environment truly affected design? I mean you can look at Frank Gehry’s more recent buildings the Experience Music Project, the Gehry Tower of Hanover, or the Walt Disney Concert Hall and clearly see that these designs were able to become real because of the computer, and would have never made it off the sheet 20 some years ago. Now we can even use digital scanners and 3d software to study historic structures to try to understand more about what the architect was thinking when he or she was laying out the floor plan. The three readings reviewed below “Let the (Indirect) Sun Shine In”, “Computer Visualization as a Tool for Critical Analysis” , and “Model Behavior: Anticipating Great Design” all show different ways computer software can simulate environments to aid in or directly design buildings before the ground in broken.

“Let the (Indirect) Sun Shine In” from Architectural Record by Joann Gonchar goes into detail on how lighting simulating software was used to help design two art museums. “Daylight can be an asset in a museum because it renders color perfectly. But beyond this technical advantage, many museum designers incorporate daylight because of the experiential dimension it adds to buildings” (Gonchar, 2008). Before the use of this software it was difficult to predict light level before a building was partially constructing, which created a design on the fly situation. Changes and retrofits to window wells, skylights, light shelves etc., had to be done well into the construction phase, which is timely and expensive. As shown in Gonchar’s article most of this can be simulated using 3D and lighting software, allowing much more detailed pre planning saving money and time. This in my opinion is one of the better uses for simulating, being able to predict accurately both artificial and natural light in a space before it is built allows the designer to know in advance where to place light sensitive art and furniture. This of course leads to a more specific and sustainable building design. The article further shows the ability to design using lighting simulation when dealing with existing museums such as the Queens Museum of Art, in New York a seventy year old building. I would like to think the next step in to simulating light for museum design could be design art installation themselves. If the artist has access to the same technology as the architects you could argue that they could design specifically to one museum or even make a piece that can change according to its installation location.

“Computer Visualization as a Tool for Critical Analysis” from ArchitectureWeek by Mark Maddalina goes into detail on how massing elements in 3D software was used to help analyze Frank Lloyd Wright's Darwin D. Martin House. Maddalina compares and contrasts Sigfried Giedion’s analysis of Wright’s Isabel Roberts House. Maddalina was able show 3D masses representing the structure and the volumes of space which graphically demonstrates how Wright’s horizontals intermingle among the different levels as well as intersect vertical elements. This was done in a way that was never done before. Maddalina mentions that Giedion points out that Wright was influenced by seventeenth century houses where the chimney was located centrally. In this article he states how the software allowed for deeper analyses of the few vertical elements, the stair core and the chimney, of the Martin House. These elements do not quite mimic the design ideals of Giedon's previous study of Wright's house designs. This being said the reason for the centralized chimney in the older homes was for simplifying, and controlling access to heat. Of course this does not take away from the strength of the software analysis it just shows how Wright deviated from the main central axis in the Martian House suggesting that heat was not the driving force of the chimney as much as how the location interacted with the horizontal volumes of space. “Efforts to explore the possibilities that the computer holds should be encouraged, “In the machine lies the only future of art and craft," Wright, himself, had said at the turn of the last century. Instead of blaming technology for the destruction of traditional craftsmanship, they must seize the machine as the characteristic tool of the modern age and with it create an art vital to the life of the times”( Maddalina, 2008).
I would like to see was is being done with 3D scanning and how it could be or has been combined with 3D massing to study of historic buildings further.

“Model Behavior: Anticipating Great Design” from ArchitectureWeek by Josephine Minutillo goes into detail about multiple works in progress which are using wind, lighting and heat simulation to design in extreme environments. These structures will be located where it was thought impossible to construct before, in the desert. Of course this would not be possible without the billions of oil dollars mixed with the latest simulating software. I think oil money is relevant in design especially if it has to do with what and where something is being built. It is great that the software discussed in this article helps design more efficiently and in the example of the Masdar Headquarters, a building that will produce more energy than it uses, but why? I mean does the world need this building in a desert? How sustainable is designing and constructing, as far as I am concerned, a useless building in a nonsense location. Yes of course useless buildings are being built all over but this is clearly being done just because a really rich guy wants it. If you can disconnect the funding away from the designs shown in this article it is interesting to see how much simulation is now directly influencing and changing design. Obviously the gain from these structures’ analyses will inevitability lead to more sustainable designs for building all over the world, even in harsh regions. The real irony is that money from a non renewable source is being used to design and build sustainable products, but does it still make it okay? “The architect’s job is to integrate the information provided by these simulation programs into their design. “That’s when the input from these types of analytical programs is truly successful,” says Buro Happold’s Herman. “Ideally, you’d never know that changes to the design had ever happened. Everything about the finished structure would simply look like it was always meant to be there” (Minutillo, 2008).

Simulating the earth's movement, the blowing wind, heat flow, and real and artificial light is crazy to think about, but that is what is being done in the name of better design. Whether you agree with the source of money backing the new designs in Dubai or not does not change what is happening in design. Predicting and simulating nature to design more efficiently is what is happening. Just think what Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni would have been without the wealth and support of the Medici family, just another starving artist?

Gonchar, J. (2008). Let the (Indirect) Sun Shine In. Architectural Record, (May).

Maddalina, M. (1999). Computer Visualization as a Tool for Critical Analysis. Architecture Week.

Minutillo, J. (2008). Model Behavior: Anticipating Great Design. Architectural Record, (Dec).