Data is becoming the designer’s new best friend. Urban designers, architects, and landscape architects – whether they’ve realized it yet, or not – will soon be integrating massive sets of data into every design they do.

Esri representatives show a 3D computer model of a skyline and view analysis at the GeoDesign Summit, courtesy of Esri

These fields are entering the age of geodesign, an emerging concept that melds the geospatial data of geographic information systems, or GIS, with simulation and design evaluation techniques. Through geographic analysis of the various streams of data relating to a project and its site, geodesign creates the potential for real-time vetting of design ideas within the grander context of the site. From hydrology and habitat to traffic patterns and energy regimes, multitudes of data are now easily available and nearly as easily integrated into the designs of the built environment. Designers can quickly know how a 10-story building would affect shadows, water stresses, parking demands, and solar energy potential in a neighborhood. Or how those factors would change if it were 15 stories. Or how such a project would be affected by 15 inches of sea level rise over the next decade.

The applications run wide and long – from weighing transit oriented development versus traditional development along an as-yet-unbuilt light rail line to assessing stakeholder support for various redevelopment schemes to analyzing the impact of a proposed roadway on the grazing patterns of wildlife in a national park. Planners, designers, and resource managers are using geodesign for all of these projects and more. Projects like these were highlighted at the recent GeoDesign Summit, a two-day conference held at the Redlands, California headquarters of GIS software powerhouse Esri. Example after example showed how geospatial information could not only inform the design process, but actually improve the way projects respond to and relate with that information.

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As we wound down our a charrette, an exercise somewhere between a Top Chef “quick fire” and a game of “exquisite corpse,” we remembered seeing flickering pixels, oversized movable louvers, folding organ-like planes, and stretching ribbons. Our research yielded a number of innovative precedents —both theoretical and built— from architects and engineers experimenting with movable facades around the world. We had examined automated fins and shading umbrellas, tessellated screens and adaptive fritting from ABI, the homeostatic façades from Decker Yeadon, and the Aegis Hyposurface from Goulthorpe, among others.

But it was not enough that these façade components moved, either by means of carefully controlled computerized programming or by more rudimentary manual, hydraulic, or mechanical means. The movement that we were trying to describe was different. It had to be tied to performance. It had to respond to the sun. As Mike Hickok often said, it had to behave “more like a plant, less like a machine.” With our newly acquired understanding, how could we propose a future in which shading devices would deploy and contract biomimetically, like the artificial muscles we studied, in response to the sun?

Then we had a rude awakening. How could we even begin to tinker with these shapes with our limited experience, with the kind of software that had the capabilities to produce what we needed?  Clearly we had found ourselves at the convergence of technology, media, and representation. We needed to make leaps in all three. As Lisa Iwamoto describes on her book Digital Fabrications[i], our design had to inform and be informed by its modes of representation and production. We had to go beyond, way beyond, the limitations of what we traditionally produced in-house and do it at the fast pace of a design competition. At once we were dealing with modeling software shortcomings, researching smart materials, studying artificial muscles, defining performance, contracting out the scripting of algorithms, buying software, and storyboarding the presentation to determine deliverables and staff allocation.

Rhino image of ribbon

Mike Fischer[ii], a fifth young designer was brought on board, contracted to work side by side with our team to help with computational modeling and scripting. We shifted to Rhino, a NURBS-based modeling software that would allow us to conceptualize, tinker, and control our shading strands. While developing the component, we needed to test it across the façade. Mapping it and remapping it to control its size, density, and openness required formulas—a lot of formulas—which we crunched in Grasshopper.

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In preparation for a panel I’ll be moderating on February 26, at the Digital Signage Expo (February 26-28) coming to the Las Vegas Convention Center, I decided to learn more about my panelists, their subjects, and the potential breakthroughs in media technologies. “New Design Directions: Dynamic Digital Environments,” organized by the irrepressible Leslie Gallery-Dilworth, FAIA, will conclude with a conversation between the day’s presenters and me. Here I start on the large scale, the city, and how the urban environment can benefit from the newest technologies, be it through offering new experiences or new development opportunities, all of which respect the glorious building stock that distinguishes many of our cities.  Philadelphia, the cradle of American democracy certainly fits into our list of treasured cities. So I start my Q&A series by asking Paul R. Levy, the president and CEO of the Center City District to talk about a recent kinetic light installation in that historic area, and his hopes for what it will bring to his city.

Paul Levy, President and CEO of the Center City District

Susan S. Szenasy: I understand that Philadelphia’s Center City District (Market Street East at the Gallery), which you oversee, has been designated as a large scale digital signage area. What will this initiative do for the area (talk about your expectations here)? And why, in the first place, has it been decided to establish digital sign guidelines?

Paul R. Levy: Market Street East is a 7 blocks shopping and hotel district that is just one portion of a 120 block business improvement district that covers the entire central business district of Philadelphia. In the 19th and early 20th century it was the city’s primary department store shopping district, but it declined for much of the latter half of 20th century. Now, it is the link between a large convention center and the Independence National Historical Park and is being repositioned a hospitality, destination retail, and entertainment district. Digital designs were approved to achieve two objectives: animation of the exterior of several large buildings and the generation of new revenues that can be captured by developers who are seeking to transform obsolete buildings and vacant sites. The guidelines were established to limit signs to only those properties that have a minimum of $10 million capital investment in their building for general renovation purposes, to limit the locations that can have signs and set size and other design parameters.

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The city of Zhengzhou in central China recently opened the doors of a new 60-story skyscraper, now the tallest building in the city, providing a new centerpiece for the surrounding area. Designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), the circular tower known as Greenland Plaza is shrouded in a screen of aluminum panels and incorporates a roof-mounted heliostat. Both features are designed to maximize daylight inside the structure, reducing the amount of energy used and heat generated.

Exterior of Greenland Plaza by day. Photo by Si-ye Zhang, courtesy of SOM.

Greenland Plaza by night. Photo by Si-ye Zhang, courtesy of SOM.

The aluminum screens, which obscure the building’s glass walls when viewed from below, are mounted with an outward lean, and calibrated to reflect the greatest amount of daylight through the windows. At night, the panels switch duties, and shine with artificial light that illuminates the entire façade like a beacon.

Glass and aluminum cover the building’s exterior. Photo by Si-ye Zhang, courtesy of SOM.

The heliostat, another sunlight-driven feature, is mounted on the roof, and uses mirrors to evenly redirect daylight down into the atrium of the building’s upper floors. The use of this technology allows natural light to fill the large interior space rather than electrical lighting. A computer-monitored system measures the interior sunlight and contributes additional electrical lighting when necessary.

The heliostat, located at the top of the building. Photo by Si-ye Zhang, courtesy of SOM.

Daylight is directed into the atrium. Photo by Si-ye Zhang, courtesy of SOM.
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“Good ideas can come from anywhere,” Mike Hickok, one of our principals at Hickok Cole is fond of saying.  His vision and the idea of new collaborations were tested when we were tasked to design the office building of the future.

It took weeks of long meetings and passionate discussions before we finalized our plan concepts. Through it all, we realized that we wanted to work differently than we were used to working, to design the building envelope. We had just seen the Metropolis film, Brilliant Simplicity, which inspired us to look for opportunities of cross pollination or cross disciplinary thinking that we could build upon, tinker with, and synthesize into a simple concept.

A substantial portion of our legwork was done in the form of traditional research. From the books and writings of Branko Kolarevic and Ali Rahim (UPENN); Lisa Iwamoto, Bill Mitchell (MIT); Chris Luebkeman (Arup): and Jim Glymph (Gehry), we learned about digital fabrication techniques like sectioning, tessellating, folding, contouring, and forming.  We learned about rapid prototyping and rapid tooling, parametric design and “file to factory,” innovative materials, and new modes of fabrication. And we were inspired by Kolarevic’s phrase, “form follows performance,” and by Iwamoto’s ideas about the correlation between architecture and its modes of representation and construction.

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If something between $467 million to $504 million were about to be spent in your back yard, wouldn’t you want to know what those dollars would buy and add your voice to the discussion?

Map of the Gowanus Canal Superfund Study Area, courtesy EPA

Those dollar amounts reflect the estimated cost for cleaning up the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn, NY. The canal, an EPA (US Environmental Protection Agency) Superfund site, is an extremely polluted body of water with hazardous materials like coal tar, oil, metals, and other toxins. These contaminants are resting in the sediments at the bottom of the canal. The EPA’s job is to study the area, determine who is responsible for the contamination, create a plan for clean up, and oversee the clean up, which is paid for by the responsible parties. The EPA does this with the objective of removing risk to human and ecological (plant and animal) life in and around the canal.

January 23rd Carroll Gardens EPA Public Meeting, photo by Ryan A Cunningham

To help them achieve that objective, the EPA has defined a series of 9 criteria for evaluating the alternatives for clean up. Many of these criteria focus on common sense things like smart, efficient, and safe actions; but there is one very key criteria that you should care about, “Community Acceptance”.

January 23rd Carroll Gardens EPA Public Meeting, photo by Ryan A Cunningham

Community acceptance is what makes this a great time to speak up. Right now the EPA is in the Proposed Plan Comment Period, which is the time when the agency is required by law to take comments on its proposal for how to clean the canal; and they must respond to these comments in documented form.

Why comment? Here are a couple of reasons.

1. Everyone is listening – Politicians, businesses, and the media are all watching very closelyhow the various groups involved, including the community, are responding to the plan.
2. It’s on the record – Community groups, mission driven organizations, and concerned citizens not only can know they are being heard, but will actually see their comments (or similar ones), answered in written form by the EPA.
3. Now is the time – The public comment period is the primary time that the community has to comment on the proposed plan. It’s open till March 28, and after that, there will be a lot less attention paid to the comments and questions surround the plan.

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What can you do if you’re part of the 92 percent of Americans without Herculean willpower? How can you successfully make a healthy lifestyle change in 2013?

The answer might surprise you. Start with a micro-adjustment in your existing routine – it’s guaranteed to improve your health and it costs nothing. You could be doing it right now.

It’s called standing. And it’s something we should all do more of this year.

Sitting, as every ergonomist knows, is hazardous to our health. Yet most of us sit all day — at work, in a car or on the couch watching a movie or a ballgame.

Sitting slows our metabolism. It’s been linked to heart attacks and diabetes, kidney disease and cancer.  Just two hours of sitting per day can drop good cholesterol by 20 percent and reduce blood flow.

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Most design competitions are won by entries with a narrow focus, as architects know only too well. There is simply no time to work through all the issues and tell a comprehensive story. The goal is to unearth a single idea and then work to present it in the most compelling fashion. Those who try to design too much fail. Those who concentrate on a succinct scheme, succeed.

When we began working on the Office Building of the Future Competition we realized that this was one of those game changing assignments, and it needed a completely new approach. Only by integrating a variety of issues such as engineering systems, site constraints, market forces, and architectural design could we hope to understand the challenge facing us.  How then, could we achieve this integrated concept with limited time and resources?

We called our friends and some of our most trusted consultants: Mark Tamaro at Thornton Tomassetti for structural engineering; Christian Agulles at WSP Flack+ Kurtz for MEP Engineering; and Paul Totten at Simpson Gumpertz & Heger for building enclosure consulting. We fully expected to have to “sell” them on this project.  After all, we wanted them to donate their most valuable commodity, their time. Their response was quick and definitive. Not only would they work with us, but they were excited by the prospect.

MEP Diagrams

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I often find myself in scenarios that go something like this: After walking through a space, the client describes the architectural elements and tells me what’s important to see, as well as how the space will be used. “Yes,” I respond, “you can light it to perform any of the tasks you want to perform, and I can make it look the way you want it to look. But how do you want it to feel?”  In my view, that’s a critical question when it comes to lighting up a room.

Case in point: During a recent charrette to redesign a multipurpose art center, the architects were keen to have the lighting signal that each room, from gallery to classroom, has a unique function. They offered up inventive ideas on ways to design the architectural details and lighting fixtures to do just that. But my job is to shape the light itself. I want people to feel different in each room where they’ll be performing different kinds of tasks.

This affect is not as simple as emphasizing what you see directly in front of you. It can come from the periphery of your vision—the “fringe of your focus”—and it determines how you feel in a particular space. You absorb much of the affect without being acutely aware that you’re doing it through what we variously call the co-conscious, unconscious, or just the “noise around us”.  Some of this is sensed through the body—it’s everything we see out of the corners of our eyes.  Once I meet the clients’ goals of function and look, I work at the peripheral layer to establish both a sense of wellbeing and a desired emotional tone.

What, then, does it mean to talk about how a space feels? People usually respond in one of two ways.

For residential clients, the question of “how the lighting should feel” may ignite strong emotional responses, such as, “I hate fluorescent lights. I hate track. I love incandescent. I love candle light.” “My mother (or father) always went around turning off lights, and I can’t bear the feeling of not seeing.” “I hate it when it’s too bright; I feel ill.” “I’m afraid of the dark.”  “My partner and I totally disagree about the reading light in the bedroom and how bright the bathroom should be. We always fight about it.”

These intense emotional reactions—fear, hate, love, and anger are hard-wired biological functions of our nervous system—make sense to me. We grew up, as did our parents, in a world of plentiful artificial light. It is inextricably fused with our memories of home, whether gloomy or bright, candlelit or washed by a single circular fluorescent in the center of the kitchen. We remember the (now unimaginably) high levels of illumination above our desks in elementary school, and the acutely bright light at the hospital where we were rushed with broken bones, or visited relatives.

Despite these common memories, when I ask, “How do you want the lighting to feel?” I’m met with blank stares. With our focus on function and look, describing “feeling” — some neuropsychologists distinguish feeling from emotion by its subtlety, complexity, and the way it mixes intelligence, judgment, and experience — is particularly difficult.

To break through this barrier, I might ask, “Do you want it to feel comforting, calm and orderly; cozy and intimate, enchanting or glamorous, mysterious,  friendly,  playful,  surprising?” Some of our feelings are unique to us, some we share with others. For homeowners whose spaces are deeply personal, I help identify the distinct feeling they want to have in each room. For public spaces with their diversity of users, I work from a more generalized idea of what the feeling should be, based on the desired activities and psychological states.

Here’s where the peripheral layer comes in. Once we establish the emotional tone for the environment, I think about shape, movement, and light-to-shadow relationships and wavelengths. This is what the eye and brain register outside the narrow cone of focus that takes in detail and exact color.

Dining room, Colorado, by Maya Lin.  Photo by Paul Warchol

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Hildebrand’s research he applies to architecture the familiar landscape concepts of “refuge and prospect”; it spells out how our search for both is a response to shifting intensity among contending predilections. The basic impulse is evident early in the hide-a-ways and forts built throughout childhood. And gender, age, resources, time-of-day or season, strength or vulnerability, or urgent motivations of a “personal project” clearly can have widely differing influences on the way each of us will seek out a secure place. But he backs up a convincing case that designers can produce more welcoming, satisfying, human environments by recognizing that their publics will in fact experience them in these deep-seated, survival-based terms.

Sanctuary

Hildebrand takes the next step, too, defining and illustrating the architectural qualities that underlie protection and a release from fear or out-of-control nature in a “refuge”.  Most important is the low height and enfolding form of a “ceiling” plane or overhanging trees.  Light levels lower than in surrounding spaces, protected openings plus mostly solid-seeming walls – often the reality of, or echoes of earth forms, color, and materials – all naturally reinforce the feeling. Then horizontal dimensions significantly smaller than those of surrounding spaces – the “cozy” inglenook, “den,” or walled gardens – and an entrance that is a succession of vestibules or buffers, elevate the retreat into a “sanctuary”.  As a prime example of combined refuge and prospect he again uses the designs of Frank Lloyd Wright with their focus on cave-like hearths and long, sheltering overhangs, combined with broad windows and projecting decks – warmth, protection, and openings out to freedom.

“Hearth and ‘prospect’ at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water”

He could have cited, too, the secure “shells” of more popular, conventional houses with their courtyard or backyards and outlooks into the neighborhood. And there are other dimensions of “refuge” as well.

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