Research

The research focused on the exploration of lines as tool for organizing space and also on emergent global behaviors and local interactions within fields, initially through physical models consisting of grids of rigid lines. To move the research into a digital environment, further explorations were made in the Maya hair dynamics engine. Several tests were developed in the program in order to understand the behavior of flexible and semi-rigid lines within fields that was depending on the application of external and internal forces.

These tests proved important in terms of different self-organizational line patterns emerging, whether that was through bundling, node creation or locking in 3D formations. 2D patterns rather than 3D were evidently easier to control at this stage, while time-based reconfigurations provided a valuable tool of testing and achieving sequential or periodic transformations. Some models tended to reach internal balance at a certain time-frame while others endorsed into recurring and periodic formations.

The investigation in general aimed to develop systems that could control circulation gestures for the urban plan on the ground level of the site, address structural issues of possible fiber structures for the buildings and at the same time produce differentiated patterns in order to negotiate space as an adaptable housing development.