ORN8, Greece and Tectonic Systems

0RN8 is interested in pursuing the creation of novel interiorities through the articulated elaboration of experimental and existing structural systems. The development and differentiation of each tectonic system experiment that is under analysis occurs within the defining parameters of the system’s own inherent logic. The team’s design research work commenced with a variety of parametric design studies, where the issues of frame and fabric were investigated, along with the notion of generating multilayered, tectonic systems, where each of the layers was generated in an autopoietic manner.

After experimenting with generic parametric systems, the filigree interiors of the Gothic tectonic systems were chosen, as historical precedents that are the most efficient, in terms of aesthetic richness, qualitative differentiation, piecemeal construction and part-to-whole relationship intensities. Using the Gothic vault bay tectonic system as a starting point, an analysis of arch, rib and profile curvatures, as well as variable thicknesses and depths takes place, in an attempt to parameterize the entire vault bay structural system.

This parameterization will eventually lead to the creation of a novel, autopoietic and parametric, proto-design system, which will give birth to a variety of inherently multi-systematic and adaptive interiorities.
Using a set of operations based on parametric component models and scripting, a rigorous re_evaluation and reinterpretation of the Gothic tectonic system is achieved. The research design process suggested in this thesis preparation document commences from basic parametric experimentations, which are based on the apprehension of the Gothic system as one of rigorous and consistent construction and articulation, as well as a system of force transmission and equilibrium. Further modeling and scripting experimentation with the concepts of the parameterization of the Gothic vault bay, of field component organizations, of globally affected field and mesh geometries, as well as coloration differentiation induced, form_generating patterns, inform the current system deployment tactics. The outcome of the aforementioned design research process will be the creation of interiorities of multi_layered complexity and differentiation; eventually, these will be generated intrinsically and autogenously in_situ, and constructed according to contemporary prototypical design and fabrication protocols, based on the current AA Design Research Laboratory’s agenda.

oRN8: Gerry Cruz [Mexico], Spyridon Kaprinis [Greece], Natalie Popik [Kazakhstan/USA], Maria Tsironi [ Greece]

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