Integrated Digital Tools I_AS10 & SS 11

AS 10 & SS 11 – A Pavilion for a Film Premiere

Lecturer: Jean-Lucien Gay
Assistant: Francesco Pusterla
School: Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio
Date: Autumn Semester 2010 & Spring Semester 2011

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 AS 10:
Simona Auteri
Simon Bammer*
Laura Bergamasco
Leander Bulst*
Alexandra De la Chapelle
Mattia Donati
Dario Ganzetti
Florent Girelli*
Paolo Moraschi
Fabrizio Nava
Francesco Pusterla
Mercé Sagué*
Alexandra Vilà*

Students SS 11:
Michelle Badrutt
Loic Bernasconi
Guido BrandI
Helena Briones
Léo Collomb*
Gianluca Costa
Dan Engberg
Lukas Eschmann*
Helena Frigola Butiñá
Josephine Giller
Marco Guerra*
Mario Andrés Mariño*
Laura Mueller
Sandro Pagnamenta
Diogo Rabaça Figueiredo
Matteo Ranci Ortigosa
Arta Rostami Ravari
Jonathan Schwarz
Rubén Alberto Valdez*

*selected student works

Photographs:
© Jean-Lucien Gay