Author: Gamze Kahya

The Embryological House is a postmodern, organicist style inspired by evolutionary biology and the science of turbulence and made possible by the computer’s ability to generate warped or fluid forms. The Embryological House is suppose to trace the evolution pattern of the human embryo. The prototype of the embryological house is a topological symmetrical pure sphere, which is a curve duplicated 6 times. He experienced a series of six control points attached to this basic geometry and saw that there are potentially unlimited iterations derived from a basic form, or primitive – the sphere. However, each of these endless results would be unique. This project is a hinge point where idea of house typology moves from the modernist model to an organic, flexible, genetic/generic prototype from which an infinite number of iterations can be generated. Having these features, the project is one of the first and most significant examples of mass customization.

 

-Gamze Kahya

 RESEARCH RESOURCES

Lynn, Greg. “Greg Lynn: Embryological Houses,” AD “Contemporary Processes in Architecture” 70,3, London: John Wiley & Son, 2000.

[In this publication, Lynn describes the main intentions of the project in a detailed way.]

Burns,Karen. “ Greg Lynn’s embryological house project: the “Technology” and metaphors of metorsm of Architecture”, 2000.

[This paper offers a close reading of one architectural text engaged in “knowledge transfer”: the use of evolutionary biology discourse as an explanatory account and authority claim supporting Greg Lynn’s Embryological House Project (2000).]

Lynn, Greg. Animate Form. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999.

[This book is a quite descriptive document to understand the conceptual idea behind the Embryological Houses.]

 

Sendai Mediatheque by Toyo Ito

Toyo Ito describes the “erotogenesis of his Sendai Mediatheque to be rooted in the experience of observing languorous plants and piscine movements through the glass wall of a giant aquarium”(Witte, Sendai Mediatheque, 29). As he explained in his words this project is based on the metaphor of Aquarium, its transparency and hence the similarity of the pillar with algae. And taking this idea the building was conceived as a transparent cube through which thin floor plates float suspended on organic-looking seaweed-like “tubes.”Rather than viewing media as a foreign element to nature, Ito embraced new media/computing as forming an integral part of the contemporary urban environment. The tree-like nature of the metal tubes of the Mediatheque are continuous with the natural surroundings of the area, as the design is found on a street lined with trees. These tubes were designed to give the flexibility to the structure to resist to the seismic forces. It achieved a highest performance during the magnitude-9.0 earthquake in March, 11, 2011.

 

-Gamze Kahya

 

RESEARCH RESOURCES

Ito, Toyo. Toyo Ito. London ; New York : Phaidon, 2009.

[This is a book. There is a part in that book where Toyo Ito explains Sendai Mediateque project.]

Farshid Moussavi and Michael Kubo. The function of ornament. Barcelona : Actar ; Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University, Graduate School of Design, 2006.

[This book is a graphic guide to ornaments in the twentieth century. It unveils the function of ornament as the agent for specific affects, dismantling the idea that ornament is applied to buildings as a discrete or non-essential entity and this contains Sendai Mediateque as one of the case.]

Ito, Toyo. Sendai Mediateque. Barcelona : Actar, 2003.

[This book documents the structure’s design, construction, and current use of Sendai Mediateque.]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53JEfrBD-kg

[This youtube video was recorded from inside the building during the earthquake.]