archolab https://archolab.com Architectural Research Collaborative Fri, 25 Jul 2014 18:25:22 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=3.9.40 Afterhouse https://archolab.com/archives/445 https://archolab.com/archives/445#comments Wed, 24 Apr 2013 01:03:14 +0000 http://archolab.com/?p=445 Afterhouse_Main-Image_Resized

Like too many Detroit houses irreparably damaged by disuse, vandalism and fire, the house at 3347 Burnside must come down. With support from the neighborhood, rather than razing it and leaving fallow land, we propose deconstructing the house and reusing the foundation to build a semi subterranean passive geothermal greenhouse.

Precedents in contemporary Bolivia and Renaissance Italy show that greenhouses that use the heat of the earth dramatically expand crop possibilities without the use of additional energy. Bananas grow in the Andes and lemons grow in Milan.

We will use materials from the house and in the vernacular of the neighborhood to integrate ideas culled from stories shared of the home’s history as we experiment with layering, light, transparency and heat. Utilized by an existing community garden after construction, AFTERHOUSE will draw from what once was to become a part of what Detroit is now.

]]> https://archolab.com/archives/445/feed 0 Project Reach https://archolab.com/archives/46 https://archolab.com/archives/46#comments Sun, 13 Jan 2013 16:11:49 +0000 http://archolab.com/?p=46 Project Reach

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Can space, terrain and design facilitate the reduction of intergroup tensions and foster cross-community building? The Farm: Gaming Strategies for Empowering Marginalized Youth investigates this question. Launched as a design and research project, The Farm took off as a series of design workshops organized collaboratively with Project Reach, a New York City-based anti-dscrimination training center, with the aim of redesigning Project Reach’s historic Catskill farm into a sustainable retreat facility. Through open conversation and inclusive spatial games, the workshop’s young participants became partners in drawing out the logics of the site, the landscape and the buildings of this former cauliflower farm to envision alternative scenarios for the farm’s future.

The Farm sits on nearly 80 acres of rural land where a handful of greater and lesser used buildings did not escape our games:  an 1800’s era barn re-designed for social justice workshops, a milk house reformulated as a bath house, a tumble-down chicken coop propped up and slid open to make a stargazing and hangout space, and a condemned guesthouse demolished all but for the foundation which we’ve revived as a port-a-potty corral.

Individual buildings are accepted as-is, with the exception of the dilapidated guest house, but given a new life through playful alterations and armatures that slide, draw or roll to expand the possibilities of their use and feed back into the teaching and learning that the Client emphasizes in its work with at risk youth. Strategies for approaching acres of prairie grass are low-impact and require only an occasional, uncanny pass with a tractor. All of the proposals emerge from the act and notion of game play—the young people who shared their thoughts and exceptional energy with us have clued us in to their worlds and helped us reshape the Farm… Game on!

 

]]> https://archolab.com/archives/46/feed 0 High Wire https://archolab.com/archives/49 https://archolab.com/archives/49#comments Fri, 13 Jul 2012 15:09:07 +0000 http://archolab.com/?p=49 Applied Research Collaborative (ARC):

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High Wire was funded through the Applied Research Collaborative (ARC), a University sponsored design build seminar that attempts to extend initial robotic research and implementation at Taubman College through the design and fabrication of an inhabitable, architecturally scaled project.  Programmatically, ARC serves a dual purpose as lounge and meeting space to catalyze collaboration within a university research complex. The construct is integrated with an array of microphones and motion sensors whose data is processed through an interactive LED display, thus providing a visual register of interaction between the campus’s creative researchers.
ARC’s global form is a response to both the basic pragmatics of collaborative work environments (e.g.: work surfaces, projection) and the need to precisely locate an array of digital sensors in physical space. Robotically fabricated space frames provide an ideal level of flexibility to accommodate these positions.

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]]> https://archolab.com/archives/49/feed 0 Morphfaux https://archolab.com/archives/40 https://archolab.com/archives/40#comments Mon, 13 Feb 2012 16:11:50 +0000 http://archolab.com/?p=40 Recovering Plaster as Architectural Substrate

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Morphfaux is an applied research project that revisits the virtually lost craft of plaster to explore its potential for producing innovative architectural elements through the use of contemporary digital technology. The research challenges the flatness of modern, standardized dry wall construction and explores plaster’s malleability as a material that can be applied thick and thin, finished to appear smooth or textured, and tooled while liquid or cured. If the invention of industrialized modern building products such as drywall led to the demise of the plasterer as a tradesperson, our research seeks alliances between the abilities of the human hand and those of automation. By transforming historic methods using new robotic tools, Morphfaux has broadened the possibilities of architectural plaster. While our research has produced forms not possible by human skill alone, it also clearly illustrates a symbiotic relationship between the human body and robotic machines where human dexterity and robotic precision are choreographed in the production of innovative plastering techniques.

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]]> https://archolab.com/archives/40/feed 0 Hostel Detroit https://archolab.com/archives/44 https://archolab.com/archives/44#comments Wed, 13 Jul 2011 15:08:47 +0000 http://archolab.com/?p=44  

Youth Hostel Design Build

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In the fall of 2010 the Archolab began a series of conversations with the director of Hostel Detroit, a non-profit youth hostel located in the re-emerging Corktown neighborhood in southwest Detroit. Those conversations led to a seminar course during the spring of 2011. The hostel needed an outdoor building to provide secure bicycle and equipment storage, a covered gathering and socializing space and a functional rainwater collection system to support a series of small scale organic gardens. Adjacent to the Hostel’s property are two vacant lots that frequently play host to guests and neighbors. The new building was to make the first gesture in connecting with the adjacent land and activate the Hostel’s unique set of urban spaces.

]]> https://archolab.com/archives/44/feed 0 Spring Back https://archolab.com/archives/42 https://archolab.com/archives/42#comments Sat, 13 Feb 2010 16:10:02 +0000 http://archolab.com/?p=42 Digital Steam Bending

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In the mid-nineteenth century, at the same time that Great Lakes craftsmen utilized abundant regional lumber to construct bent-wood snowshoes and canoes, Michael Thonet was manufacturing his iconic Café Chair No. 14. Steam-bent construction was lightweight, rigid, and compact, making it ideal for mass production. But unlike many industrial processes, steam bending used local and renewable materials, lent itself to easy disassembly / repurposing of material, and required no toxic adhesives.
While steam bending remains a viable craft-based practice its chapter in the history of early industrial production was relatively short-lived, having been quickly replaced with tubular steel and other more predictable, more thoroughly modern materials. Practicing in the post-industrial meltdown of the American Midwest, we began our research by probing this virtually forgotten technique.  This return provided a frame within which to speculate about new modes of digital fabrication at an architectural scale.
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]]> https://archolab.com/archives/42/feed 0 All Bent Out.. https://archolab.com/archives/104 https://archolab.com/archives/104#comments Tue, 13 Jan 2009 10:00:32 +0000 http://archolab.com/?p=104 Digital Fabrication:

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All bent out… built working knowledge of computer aided fabrication tools and software by encouraging students to experiment through focused material research. Workshops and lectures developed core competencies in machining and detailing, while a series of small-scale, built projects encouraged critical engagement with digital fabrication strategies through speculative making.
Exploration of various techniques for bending wood provided a platform to address issues of craft, efficiency, and control in design practice. CNC routing and water jet cutting were used to directly shape material and make intelligent form work for bending hardwoods.

]]> https://archolab.com/archives/104/feed 0 Atlas of Love and Hate https://archolab.com/archives/52 https://archolab.com/archives/52#comments Sun, 13 Jan 2008 10:23:48 +0000 http://archolab.com/?p=52 Research on the City:

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]]> https://archolab.com/archives/52/feed 0 NL Systems https://archolab.com/archives/85 https://archolab.com/archives/85#comments Sun, 13 Jan 2008 10:01:55 +0000 http://archolab.com/?p=85 Traveling Research:

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