Integrated Digital Tools I_AS 12

AS 12 – An Information Pavilion in a Nature Park

Lecturer: Jean-Lucien Gay
Assistant: Francesco Pusterla
School: Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio
Date: Autumn Semester 2012

The course introduces students to a range of digital tools and conceptual techniques emerging in the profession of architecture without being subsumed in a digital-only world. It adopts a pragmatic attitude toward new digital tools and focuses on the bridges between analog and digital techniques. The course is based on the software Rhino – an application widely-used in contemporary design practices, which has established itself as a basic platform for numerous advanced plug-ins and scripts. On a theoretical level, the class focuses on the use of digital technologies in the avant-garde architecture of the last 20 years, illustrating the evolution computer-based techniques from NURBS modeling to parametric design.

The iteration process between analog techniques and digital modeling, from the real to the virtual model and back, builds the core of the class. Each student proceeds through a series of tutorials and design sprints familiarizing itself with digital production techniques. On an intuitive level the course encourages the students to use the computer as creative tool by complementing established methods and giving surprising glimpses at new ones. On the professional level it gives the students a technical baggage to manage complex architectural projects in practice. The course aims to facilitate transfers between computer and more conventional methods that would be quick, easy and intuitively integrated with the normal working patterns of each student.

Students:
Davide Ambrosetti
Pedro José Antunes Souto
Emilie Alice Appercé
Matteo Beccia
Sara Maria Cavicchioli
Max Collomb
Giovanni Crozzoletto
Fausto Fabiano
Tamara Guerrazzi*
Riccardo Guglielmi*
Sayako Hirakimoto
Pimpipat Hogdulaya*
Maximilian Kimmel*
Paolo Marchiori
Caterina Mucignat
Sabrina Oprandi*
Mariana Pitorro Diniz Mayer
Mirko Polli
Moritz Elliott Rieke*
Marco Rimondi*
Francesca Irene Terreni*
Daniela Tiago Braga
Leonardo Vinti*
Federico Zuanier*

*selected student works

Photographs:
© Jean-Lucien Gay