Pohung Chiu
ARCH 7036
Digital Ornament
What is ornament?
“In architecture and decorative art, ornament is a decoration used to embellish
parts of a building or object.” (Wikipedia) Ornament has been a main topic
within architecture, what ornament implies, how it can be created and whether
or not it should be used.
In 1910, an architect Adolf Loos published a famous
essay, “Ornament and Crime”, which explored the idea
that the progress of culture is associated with the
deletion of ornament from everyday objects. For Loos,
one aspect is apparent concerning ornament, that
ornament should not be used. Even though his essay
might seem to imply that ornament is a crime, instead
he explores how evolution of culture and use of
ornament go hand in hand.
Fig.1 Ornament and Crime/Adolf Loos/1910
Why ornament is crime?
Since Industrial Revolution happened in 19th century, science and technology
change rapidly, appeared a lot of new technology, the birth of these
technologies in various fields, in which, the development of new tectonic (steel
structure or reinforced concrete frame structure, for instance) people attention,
not just materials, but also because of the release of architectural form. Then,
in early 1900s, a number of architects and designers around the world began
developing new solutions to integrate traditional precedents (classicism or
Gothic, for instance) with new technological possibilities, such as Louis Sullivan,
Frank Lloyd Wright in Chicago and Antoni Gaudi in Barcelona…etc. After that,
World War I and II ensued. It was an era which was scarce in any resource. In
the meantime, “Modernism” became popular and grew vigorously due to its
main idea, “Form follows function”, which originally expressed by Louis Sullivan,
meaning that the result of design should derive directly from its purpose. In
other words, ornament is unnecessary anymore, even a crime because it would
be a kind of waste.
Is ornament still crime now?
In the past, ornament adopted in architecture such as the Corinthian column
use many natural and decorative elements on its capital.
“The Corinthian, with its offshoot the Composite, is stated to be
the most ornate of the orders, characterized by slender fluted
columns and elaborate capitals decorated with acanthus leaves
and scrolls. There are many variations.” (Wikipedia)
Fig.2 The capital of Pantheon in Rome
In this case, architect had to work with craftsmen or sculptors and took long
time to achieve this highly decorative column. Also, there is no way to preview
the dynamics analysis or real geometry which means these experts only can
rely on their experience to make it right. But, success always studies from the
mistake and grows from the defeat. Therefore, it will waste a lot of time, labor
and materials on testing and gaining those experience.
However, with digital technology development continuously, computer has not
only been seen as only assistant as a tool but also could be a media of design
developing. Today, through Computer-Aided Design, architects are able to deal
with linear information and calculation, also, it has the ability of nonlinear,
interactive, blurry, dynamic which could go one step further to be a powerful
role to help architects handle their thinking, visual sense, concept and execution.
Thus, the architecture gain more opportunities to be designed in complex,
organic or bionic ways by using parametric tools such as Autodesk MAYA
scripting or Rhino with Grasshopper.
Since computer technologies have made the progress of design and
manufacture much shorter, ornament would not be crime anymore because
architects will not waste many resources on thinking (time), designing (labor)
and making (materials). Also, through parametric design, they are allowed to
explore more possibilities.
How to apply digital ornament to architecture through parametric
design?
If ornament would be acceptable through parametric design because resources
have been saved and the process is going to be efficient, architects get a
chance to re-think how to learn from our nature, again. In fact, human is just
one of creature in the world, and the knowledge we have learned usually got
through observing every phenomenon in our nature. Moreover, it is not difficult
to discover most ornaments in the past in architecture were inspired form
natural pattern or texture. Over the past centuries, those ornaments almost
work as decorative elements, not functional components, however, the time
which ornaments could act both roles has come.
How to learn from nature?
For centuries, architects have been inspired by nature's forms and geometries.
Their designs have been influenced by nature's structures, proportions, colors,
patterns and textures.
In 1968, the biologist Aristid Lindenmayer proposed
a string-rewriting algorithm which can model plants
and their growth processes. Since that time,
Lindenmayer Systems or L-systems have evolved
and found many practical applications in the
computer visualization area. Generation of fractal
diagram, realistic modeling and high quality
visualization of organic forms.
Fig3. The algorithmic beauty of plants/Aristid Lindenmayer/1968
More recently, advances have been made in architecture in the field of modeling
and visualization. Specifically, the integration of scripting languages into CAD
applications enables direct visualization of objects generated using algorithmic
processes. Therefore, L-system is ready to be a new tool for architects.
Why should architects use L-system in their work?
1. With L-system architects can easily experiment and visualize a very
unique and exciting array of form and shapes that can be further
manipulated with CAD.
2. L-system can assist in visualizing how form are derived and transformed.
3. L-system can generate 2 and 3-D geometries in a matter of seconds that
otherwise would take countless hours to generate using traditional CAD
approaches. Many of those form would be practically impossible to
generate without such an assist.
4. L-system can be used to apply organic growth principles to architectural
design.
5. A design can begin with a very simple set of rules and then experiment
with countless forms, variations and transformations, all with very quick
and simple changes in the axiom writing.
6. They are fun to play with.
Lindenmayer System – Experimenting with software string rewriting as assit to the study generation of architectural
form / Antonio Serrato-Combe
How to make L-system pattern and structure?
Basically, Rhino and its plugin “grasshopper” could be a very good program to
achieve this goal. Once the script has done, designer can easily to adjust the
slide bar to see and evaluate various results.
The L-system script can be found on Grasshopper official website which has
developed by Rajaa Issa.
http://www.grasshopper3d.com/profiles/blogs/generative-algorithms
Fig4. The script of L-system in Rhino/Grasshopper
Fig5. The tree structure (fractal pattern) of L-system and voronoi pattern in Rhino/Grasshopper/Rabbit
Fig5. The L-system structure (Penrose Pattern) made by Rhino/Grasshopper/Kangaroo/WeaverBird/Edit Mesh
Fig5. The L-system structure (3D print)
Fig6. The L-system structure (3D print)
Reference:
Fig.1 Adolf Loos: Ornament and Crime, Selected Essays, Ed. Adolf Opel.
Trans. Michael Mitchell. Riverside, California: Ariadne Press, 1998.
Fig.2 Wikipedia / Corinthian Order
Fig.3 Prusinkiewicz P, and Lindenmayer A.: The Algorithmic Beauty of Plans.
Springer-Verlag, 1990