Complex System | Urban Canyon and Sheets logics

In 2011 Lillian Zeinalzadegan in association with architect and professor Heather Roberge and Yuichi Tada, master in design, took part in the project contest for the redevelopment of the Union Station in Los Angeles. The proposed project consists of a series of linear masses that connect Eastern and Western’s edges of the site, was born thanks to analyses of sheet’s dynamic arrangements. These different movements may change and process organizational, spatial and esthetic features of the place. The historian of art, Wofflin claims “the form isn’t coiled by the material as something extraneous but it is formed from material as imminent will. As a result the form and material are close”. For these reasons, the concept of “sheet logics” is recognize the natural combination of materials and forms and, in particularly, how they prefer to take shape.

This study allows to develop a set of design principals in which behaviors of materials and topologies (in other words all the proprieties of figures that don’t change after some deformations) that come out, are used to transform the architectural models. First, the modern architectural models demand an innovation process in every type of scales, from urban to particular. Instead of solid and traditional logics to create an architectural project, the sheet are use, in the masterplan of project, to strengthen characters and atmospheres of gaps between the buildings. Particularly in the Heather Roberge’s studio is developed a first proposal of masterplan for a general use and after, is advanced a second architectural proposal that emphasize the urban spaces resulting from volumes of constructions.

The sheets shall be spread in specific spaces: alleys, courtyards and urban voids to modify and improve the performances of traditional urban spatiality, formally and esthetically. The result is called “Urban Canyon“ that is a road which cuts a group of buildings in which overhanging sides are covered by different sheet. These sheets are entirely in line with the surrounding space and they fortify and improve the place.

The area of requalification of the Union Station in Los Angeles, consist of different towers, situated at Eastern and Western and some bridges structuring the circulation and linking the various construction each other. The analysis begin from the site: Urban canyon and towers, access point (ramps, lifts and bridges) are study. Following this analysis, the architects have considered the fitness levels required to elaborate the functional program: parking, offices, stores and entertainment services. After define these programmatic aspects, the work team focus on direction’s sheep: they are oriented in the verse of bridges and main flows.

The linear and plane masses fluidly fall from buildings and they make corrugates forms where they meet other surfaces, at the level of stores and parking. Therefore corrugates facades result from “the stabilization of material in a steady state tending to register the way force within the material”. All forms result from force’s equilibrium. Moreover, the sheets are deformable structures so when they are subject to one or more efforts, elements of same objects change their original position, this process cause a movement. Displacement can be defined “rigid”only if the particles have the same movement: the object don’t produce translation. However in real life, the particles have different movements and then they are subject to more or less deformations described by vectors. If an object moves to initial condition, in this case the sheets are unroll on volumes of different height and size, are involved outside forces, boring from the interaction to the system and outside world. These forces produces movement and high-speed motion effect (variation of speed during the times). The sheep will came in a new equilibrium configuration only when the aggregates of forces are zero and moment of forces about one generic point is zero.

Expanding the sheet logics in an urban scale is interesting to note “fabric allows the character of the architecture to be produced by the architectural models” thanks to equilibrium of materials. By the form of materials is possible expansion or compression of canyon: “by addition, removal or modulation of surface materials”.

The lecture of canyon switches from closed volumes to single surfaces. In particularly at the level of seams and joints the sheets underline the direction of canyon and the fluxes circulation axis. In order to achieve mountain fold in the unrolled pattern, a” second scale of godets “was inserted on the cross axis of the strips to obtain a widening of sheet and the creation of lapels which define openings and spaces. Lastly, the sheets can “represent directionality through their articulation”: By rotating, the seams 45 degrees to one side, the canyons will be perceived differently depended from kind of approach.

On these bases, they have identified a pattern that resume an organized information: unrolled fabrics, seams, mountain and valley folds, inserted godets for collars and change of direction. In an urban scale, this pattern catches a new technique of surfaces development and meanwhile a creation of spaces different from traditional rules.

Sources:

Lillian Zeinalzadegan Porfolio, CargoColletcive (informations and images)

UCLA — A.UD, architecture and urban design web site

CSP,Complessità e sostenibilità nel progetto, n.14/aprile-giugno 2015