090927 CCTV by OMA

Today I dig into studying the structural element of CCTV by OMA. CCTV has a primary steel structure on the facade which wraps around the whole building as a loop. The pattern on the facade is purely generated from the resulting analysis by several structural engineering softwares.

To begin with, I would like to quote some lines from the Introduction of A + U special edition on CCTV by OMA written by Ole Scheeren. He questioned on the nature of skyscrapers and also the future typology of skyscrapers in relation to the urban development.


Shibata, N., CCTV by OMA: Rem Koolhaas and Ole Scheeren, A+U, Tokyo, 2005.

" ... Is it a typology that has become the ultimate tool of financial speculation, enslaved to economics and devoid of contents? Is it nothing more than the constant and monotonous repetition of a piece of land in vertical direction, whose only aim is the profitable multiplication of the value of the ground, and whose only means of expression are reduced to striving for absolute height and dominance of the skyline of a city (if not the whole world)? Is nothing left but the self-referential quality of a vertical line, which desperately seeks (to compensate for the lack of) identity, with a decorative top sprouting a flower, pagoda style or modernist composition? Is the higher the better? all that remains? ... "

" ... After the promise of surprising programmatic variety in its initial incarnations (Manhatten), the skyscraper became emptier and emptier - and was finally adopted by Asia ... the ultimate symbol of tis modernisation at the very moment of its conceptual implosion ... " " ... It seems about time to no longer treat this typology as a commercial export product ( and subject it to the apparently irrevocable laws of Central Business Districts as their ultimate model), but instead to re-think the skyscraper as a potential for new urban manifestations ... " - end of quote

These questions stay valid, still, that, as we can see there are a lot of new typology in skyscrapers, e.g. challenging structure, modularisation, eco-towers. All these typologies have their validity with, undeniably, strong reasons/motives behind. CCTV does not exclude in this, what I called "A New Movement in Digital Architecture" which I have mentioned in my previous post. So maybe after many years later, CCTV will become like an avant-garde in the history of architecture.

Here are some of the highlighted writings in jpeg and some images of CCTV itself. Please click the image for better resolution:


Introduction by Ole Scheeren


Programme


Site Plan


Overall Diagrams


Text


Structural Studies


Structural Study Models (there are really a lot of these by Arup!)


Unfold Facade showing Structural Stress


Text + Exploded Diagram of Facade


Final Model featuring its Structure


Axo-Diagram




Key Text




Structural Analysis







Structural Documentation Drawings

More information can be found from arcspace.com, OMA official website, miragestudio7, e-architect and archiCentral.

Last but not least, here's a video clip showing OMA CCTV Presentation Video found at archifield.

090922 MVRDV vision for Grand Paris

Just before I forget, this is a cool video showing MVRDV's vision for future Paris.



Good analysis, very technical, but no architecture.

090822 Grasshopper

I am pretty new to grasshopper. I took a several tutorials online and made a definition - Responsive Distance Logic.

The extrusion of the boxes is responsive to the variable point.



The definition is as follow:

090821 Tutorial 4

Tutorial 4 - we were taught to do simple animator in max
One thing I find interesting yet a bit meaningless (maybe there are whole heaps of theory behind which I do not know) is to screen capture animation and do lofting in Rhino ... ...

Anyway, here you go~~~

Step 01:
Screen-capturing in max



I fail to do gif animation in photoshop. I couldn't figure out how to export frames into gif image. Maybe there are some softwares on the web which are free to do gif animation.

Step 02:
Trace elements in 2D-CAD and bring the frames into Rhino for Lofting



Urghh ... actually I made a several lofts. I personally think that lofting across linear looks the best. Images upon request.

Animation:
Sent my setup in max to UWA render farm with scanline + skylight + light tracer setting. No external linked material added. It took 3 hours to render.



Some students may split render in render farm. But it DOES NOT WORK for animation. So do not set split render when you send your animation to the render farm. What you will end up with is 16 sets of horizontal-strip-animations, they just do not combine into one.