Philip Beesley, Hyperzoic Series: Vesica
Philip Beesley and USC professor Neil Leach are the two keynote speakers at the DeSForM 2012 conference being held at the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Last night Philip Beesley unveiled his latest installation, Hyperzoic Series: Vesica, at the City Gallery Wellington, and delivered his keynote address. This evening Neil Leach delivers his keynote address, ‘Desiring Machines’. Other speakers include Mark Burry of SIAL, RMIT.
GIS solar analysis of Moon surface by Lily Kerrigan
An interim of the Moon Studio was held on Friday 13 April. Critics included Behrokh Khoshnevis, Madhu Thanavelu, Anders Carlson and Neil Leach. The final review will be held on Wednesday 9 May as part of the USC ‘Blue Tape’ reviews.
UK Expo 2010 computational structural analysis
Hanif Kara of AKT II Structural Engineers presented, ‘Binding Architecture and Engineering Today’, the annual Nabih Youssef lecture on Structural Design Innovation on 11 April. Hanif is one of the leading structural engineers in the world and has worked on a series of projects for firms such as Zaha Hadid Architects, Foster and Partners. The firm places particular emphasis on computational analysis, and acted as structural engineers for the UK Pavilion for Shanghai Expo 2010 designed by Thomas Heatherwick.
The website for the DigitalFUTURE 2011 summer program has been launched: http://www.digitalfutureshanghai.com/. DigitalFUTURE was a collaboration between USC’s American Academy in China [AAC] and Tongji University that consisted of an international conference, a computation workshop, fabrication workshop and an international exhibition. Two bi-lingual volumes edited by Neil Leach and Philip Yuan are about to be published by Tongji University Press, Scripting the Future and Fabricating the Future.
Space Yacht designed by John Spencer
John Spencer gave a lecture on Space Tourism for the USC Moon Studio on Friday 30 March. John Spencer was trained as an architect at USC. Since 1982 he has been pioneering the field of space tourism. He has modeled the space tourism industry after the cruise lines and super yachts. In 1995 he founded the nonprofit Space Tourism Society (STS) of which he is president. He is also the author, with Karen L. Rugg, of the book Space Tourism – Do You Want to Go? Published by Apogee books in 2004.
Inflatable structure over bridge
The review of the Top Fuel workshop, ‘Performance Pneus’, took place this afternoon. Students working in three teams had been working on the project for 8 days, directed by Achim Menges and Thomas Auer. Reviewers included Greg Lynn, Tom Wiscombe, Peter Testa and Marcello Spina.
Visualization by Behnaz Farahi and Connor Wingfield
Lander coming in to descend on landing pad fabricated by Contour Crafting robot.
USC Professors Behrokh Khoshnevis, Madhu Thangavelu, Neil Leach and Anders Carlson will be presenting their latest research findings in their NASA funded research project to explore the potential use of the Contour Crafting fabrication robot for fabricating structures on the Moon at the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts [NIAC] Symposium in Pasadena on 27-29 March. Their latest visualizations show a Contour Crafting robot fabricating a road by a shelter for a Moon lander, and a lander descending on to a landing pad fabricated by the Contour Crafting robot. www.nasa.gov/offices/oct/home/niac_countour_crafting.html
Achim Menges is giving a lecture this evening entitled, ‘Material (In)Formation: Computing Material Gestalt’. Achim Menges is Director of the Institute for Computational Design at the University of Stuttgart. He is the author and editor of numerous books and articles, including the most recent edition of Architectural Design on ‘Material Computation’. With Thomas Auer he is currently running the Top Fuel workshop at USC on ‘Performance Pneus’: http://arch-pubs.usc.edu/topfuel/USC_Top_Fuel_PERFORMANCE_PNEUS_Brief.pdf. The workshop review takes place on 26 March. Jurors include Greg Lynn, Tom Wiscombe and Peter Testa.
Manuel DeLanda is currently giving a series of lectures for his class, ‘Theories of Self-Organization and the Dynamics of Cities’, at USC. All DeLanda’s USC lectures, including, ‘Simulated Evolution in Architecture’ (parasite.usc.edu/?p=698), can be found online.
In S, M, L, XL, visionary Dutch architect, Rem Koolhaas writes about the work of his architectural practice, Office for Metropolitan Architecture [OMA]. He arranges the architectural and urban design work in terms of size according to the protocol for clothing, S, M, L, XL – small, medium, large, extra large. But what about XXL – extra extra large? AAC 2012 will explore the theme of XXL through the medium of supertall skyscrapers. It will be based in Shanghai, home to 932 high rise buildings, including the Shanghai World Financial Center, the third tallest building in the world, and The Pudong Tower soon to become the second tallest building in the world,.
AAC 2012 will operate as a collaboration with Tongji University, one of China’s leading schools of architecture and urban design, and will make use of their new state of the art Digital Design Research Center, that includes a 7-axis robot, 5-axis CNC milling machine and 3-d printing facilities. Biayna Bogosian, Anders Carlson, Alvin Huang, David Gerber, Neil Leach, Kris Mun, Myles Sciotto, Roland Snooks and Paul Tang will be providing instruction. AAC 2012 will be composed of an international conference, two student workshops and an international exhibition.
16 Jun XXL International Conference
17-24 Jun Computation Workshop
25 Jun – 4 Aug Fabrication Workshop
4 Aug XXL International Exhibition