Ilija Bentscheff

The design proposal is part of the Rule Based Design Workshop at the TU Berlin by Christophe Barlieb and Prof. Gisela Baurmann.

Guest lecturers and instructors:

Kristoffer Josefsson | TU Berlin | Mathematics in Architecture
Dimitrie Stefanescu | U.Bucharest | Scripting Architecture
Christophe Barlieb | TU Berlin | Integration of Engineering & Design
Norbert Palz | CITA | Rapid Prototyping in Architecture
Martin Tamke | CITA | Fabrication of Architecture

http://fgbaurmann-rbd-symposium09.blogspot.com/

Project collaborators:

Dasha Anokhina, Sven Pfeiffer

The Light Column as a project is an example for the third design model; a process of continuous optimization and recursive design information out of a digitally evolved design approach; a collaborative or canonical design process between software, material and production constraints; and most importantly, the author.

Sand dunes and canyons are fascinating and sensational not only by their figuration; they are informed by tectonic movements and erosion. The varying densities of their sedimentary layering and the information and deformation through natural forces tell us about the climate, vegetation and events of the past. They are documentation or an atlas of history.

The lobby of the building as a place of arrival, introduction, exhibition and movement is the place for this spatial intervention. Events and movements, analogue to natural forces, inform and deform the column. It leaves the observer in the role of the interpreter of this documentation - the indexically traced past. The installation is a light column informed by the movement of people in the lobby. The column, as a tectonic element of public space, is the element with the closest association to the human body. Located at the joint between the library and the lecture hall of the architecture department of the Technical University Berlin, it places a "missing" column in the two overlaying column grids. The shape and the surface are computed in Rhino Grasshopper and are driven by multiple parameters establishing a relationship between moving or traced movements of subjects to the static, but formed and deformed object.

Movement vectors of the students and visitors of the lobby are the main forces of the deformation of the column, which is based on the platonic base geometry (topological primitive) of the cylinder; a directional generic form, as Peter Eisenman states in his dissertation towards The Formal Basis of Modern Architecture. The horizontal layering of the column refers to the concept image, the sedimentary layering of a dune. The varying distance from layer to layer is derived from the degree of deformation towards the direction of the main circulation vector from the main entrance to the elevators. To address the fabrication, the further generation of the components is evolved as developable surfaces; a design constraint set up to direct towards the fabrication and material limitations for the prototype production. This constraint informed the design process by the deformation-degree which drives articulation of the rings, which diffuse the light coming from the inside of the column. The varying layering of the rings articulates in a light pattern of various intensities and forms a relationship between the overall shape and its surface condition. This blurred light pattern is creating an atmosphere of calmness and leaves the spectator in an unmediated relationship to the object and its meaning, a representation of documentation or a trace of a past presence.