AA San Francisco Visiting School

Final Exhibition: 22 July, 2011 from 4-7pm
AA San Francisco Visiting School at the CCA

The Final Show of the San Francisco Visiting School was held on Friday, July 22 at CCA in San Francisco. After two intensive weeks of workshops, 45 students from 16 countries presented their final design projects to a large group of visiting critics and the public. This year the students broke into three unique groups each with their own program and focus. These included: “Luminous Hybrid” (Jason Kelly Johnson and Andy Payne), “China Basin Pedestrian Bridge” (Andrew Kudless with Gil Akos and Ronnie Parsons), and “China Basin Pavilion” with Evan Greenberg and Christina Doumpioti. There was an extraordinary range of experimental drawings, models and animations presented by the students.

Images: A link to a curated Flickr feed slideshow or see all of all the  Flickr “biodynamicstructures” tagged images

Facebook:Biodynamic Structures Facebook Group Page

2011 Core Tutors: Evan Greenberg (AA), Christina Doumpioti (AA), Jason Kelly Johnson (FCL/CCA), Andrew Kudless (Matsys/CCA)
Studio Tutors: Andrew Payne (Harvard/Lift), Ronnie Parsons (Mode/Pratt), Gil Akos (Mode/Pratt)
AA Visiting Tutors: Michael Weinstock (AA), Toni Kotnik (AA/ETH)
Workshop Tutors: Rip DeLeon, Ben Golder, David Shook (SOM), Scott Minneman, Michael Shiloh, Nick Riddle
2011 Guest Lecturers: Thom Faulders (CCA), David Gissen (CCA), Mark Sarkisian and David Shook (SOM), Bill Kreysler

2011 Sponsors: McNeel & Associates (Seattle, WA); SOM (Skidmore Owings and Merrill); Kreysler & Associates Digital Fabrication.
Special Thanks: CCA Fabrication Lab and Workshop Staff and Students; Andrew Sparks

Software Links: Rhino/Grasshopper, Firefly, Arduino, Kangaroo, Karamba

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You are invited to the final presentation and celebration of the AA/CCA Biodynamic Structures Visiting School. It will take place this Friday, July 22 from 4-7pm in the CCA Nave. Food and drinks will be served. In addition to our 8 visiting instructors, we have 46 students participating from 16 countries around the world. The students will be presenting their design projects, prototypes and final models. This year, in addition to focusing on parametric modeling and fabrication, the workshops explored composite fabrication techniques, the integration of robotics, several new structural analysis and simulations softwares, and much more. We hope to see you there to discuss and celebrate the work of this extraordinary workshop.

Facebook Group: http://www.facebook.com/groups/122257811130437?ap=1
Event page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=194939080562812

The latest schedule and design brief have been posted – check the links at the right for more details. More specific design briefs will be presented in further detail at the workshop.

We would like to thank our 2011 Sponsors for AA/CCA Biodynamic Structures in San Francisco: ROBERT McNEEL & ASSOC (Seattle, WA) – the creative and technical force behind Rhino, Grasshopper, etc.; KREYSLER & ASSOC / Digital Fabrication – home of the Bay Area’s largest 6 axis CNC Robot; Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM) – Architecture, Engineering and Urban Design.

We are excited to announce that Gil Akos and Ronnie Parsons will be joining the Biodynamic Structures Workshop as tutors this summer.

Studio Mode
Studio Mode/modeLab is a Brooklyn-based design studio and research collective founded by Ronnie Parsons and Gil Akos. As a studio committed to design as a form of applied research, Mode engages in practices that have a requisite and deep connection to material and the processes by which it is formed and informed.

While we are interested in intense iterative design processes, we believe the evolution and contextualization of these procedures in a broader social and cultural domain is both our primary objective and the means for embedding interest and significance into design.

Studio Mode

We are pleased to announce that Toni Kotnik and Andrew Payne will be joining the Biodynamic Structures Workshop as tutors this summer.

Toni Kotnik
Toni Kotnik studied architecture and mathematics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zurich, the University of Tübingen, and the University of Utah and received his doctoral degree from the University of Zurich. He was research fellow at Center for the Representation of Multi-Dimensional Information (CROMDI), principal researcher at OCEAN design research network, postdoctoral researcher at the ETH Zurich and assistant professor at the University of Applied Sciences in Lucerne. Currently, he is studio master at the Emergent Technology and Design program at the Architectural Association in London, senior researcher at the chair of structural design at the ETH Zurich and principal of Kotnik.architects, a Zurich-based architectural office. His practice and research work has been published internationally and is focused on the interplay of digital architectural design, mathematics, and structural force flow.

Andrew Payne
Andrew is a licensed architect who is currently pursuing his doctoral degree at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. Andrew’s work explores embedded computation and parametric design and he has lectured and taught extensively throughout the United States and Canada.  In 2009, Andrew co-authored a publication with Rajaa Issa titled, The Grasshopper Primer which provides an in depth look at the Grasshopper plug-in for Rhino. More recently, Andrew and Jason Kelly Johnson published Firefly – a set of comprehensive software tools dedicated to bridging the gap between Grasshopper, the Arduino micro-controller, the internet and beyond. It allows near real-time data flow between the digital and physical worlds, and will read/write data to/from internet feeds, remote sensors and more.  His doctoral research at the GSD will explore how recent advancements in technology can help us create spaces and systems that have a capacity to meet changing individual, social, and environmental demands.

We are also extremely excited to announce the involvement of David Shook, Mark Sarkisian, and Craig Hartman from SOM San Francisco. The team from SOM will be working alongside the students in structural analysis, as well as joining the workshop for the final presentation.

We have arranged reduced rates at both the Hoilday Inn and Elements Hostel, both a 15 minute walk from CCA. Please check the Location and Accomodation link at the right for more information.

Biodynamic Structures _ July 2011
San Francisco Visiting School
California College of the Arts
Monday 11 to Friday 22 July, 2011

Biodynamics is the study of the force and energy of dynamic processes on living organisms. Through simple mechanisms embedded within the material logic of natural systems, specific stimuli can activate a particular response. This response occurs in carnivorous plants such as the Venus fly-trap, which uses turgor pressure to trap small insects in order to feed, and worms, which by contracting differently oriented muscles, achieve movement. This ten-day intensive workshop, co-taught by the faculty of the Emergent Technologies and Design Programme at the AA and the faculty of Architecture and MEDIAlab at California College of the Arts, will explore active systems in nature, investigating biomimetic principles in order to analyze, design and fabricate prototypes that respond to electronic and environmental stimuli. Students will work in teams to research specific biological systems, extracting logics of organization, geometry, structure and mathematics. Advanced analysis, simulation, modeling and fabrication tools will be introduced in order to apply this information to the design of both passive and active responsive architectural systems. Investigation and application of robotics, sensors and actuators will be employed for the activation of the material system investigation through the construction of working responsive prototypes.

CCA San Francisco is the hub for design innovation and experimental architecture in the Bay Area. Its downtown campus is located in a 120m long former bus depot and is home to a world-class fabrication and digital design facility adjacent to its design studio spaces. The facility includes a CNC routing lab, industrial lasercutters, 3D Printer, extensive metal and wood shops; as well as labs dedicated to textiles, electronics, visualization and programming.

+ CONTENT TAGS: Biodynamic, Parametric, Scripted, Mimetic, Responsive, Interactive, Digitally Fabricated
+ SOFTWARE: Rhino, Grasshopper, Firefly, Kangaroo, RhinoScript, Arduino

Applications
The deadline for applications is 20 June 2011. A late deadline of 4 July 2011 is also in effect, but this will incur a £50 surcharge. ONLINE APPLICATION

Fees
The AA Visiting School requires a fee of £650 per participant, which includes a £50 Visiting Student Membership. Fees do not include flights or accommodation. MORE INFO

We have roughly 60 attendees from 20 countries!

If you take any photos during the workshop, please post them to Flickr and add the tag “biodynamicstructures”. The photos will automatically show up on this website in the flickr feed to the right. They will also show up on the Facebook page for the workshop.

The 10-day Biodynamic Structures workshop starts tomorrow morning at 9am. The workshop sold out with nearly 60 attendees from over 20 countries. We are excited to get started and look forward to an intense workshop session. Please check out the updated schedule.